Byers, J.A. 1999. Flash Cards and Animation Software for Education.                   Educational Media International 36:164-167.                                                                                                                                     John A. Byers                                                                                                                             Department of Plant Protection, Chemical Ecology                                Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences                                     SE 230 53 Alnarp, Sweden                                                                                                                                        http://www.vsv.slu.se/johnb/gensoft.htm                                                                                                                         Abstract: PCX-13.EXE is a software program for computers running                DOS/Windows that transforms PCX image files (converted from GIF or other        format) to raw binary files (ending in A13) suitable for display by FLASH.EXE.  The latter program takes a text file with a list of A13 image files and displaysthese either at random or in sequence for a specified time from as little as 25 milliseconds up to 5 minutes. The pictures are displayed at 320 x 200 resolutionin 256 colors from a palette of 262,144. The images can be displayed as "flash  cards" that pose questions that must be answered by students or as an           animated series of images. Up to 2000 image files can be repeatedly displayed   from a list in a file, and many such file lists can be run from a batch file    (*.BAT).                                                                                                                                                        Introduction                                                                                                                                                    Flash cards are an old and accepted way of testing one's knowledge of a         subject. An image or word phrase is shown on a card which requires a verbal     or written answer. The cards are "flashed" either in sequence or usually at     random. After a reply is given, the correct answer is shown either on the back  of the card, by the teacher, or checked some other way by the student so that   next time the card is presented an appropriate response can be given. Flash     cards can be used in group learning or individually.                                 Computer images can be shown for relatively long periods to illustrate     topics, as are photo slides and overheads, or more rapidly in animation         sequences. The first animations were in fact a packet of "flash cards" fanned   by hand to rapidly show similar pictures, changing incrementally, that simulatedmovement. Nowadays, video cameras can show real-time animations. However,       images from still-video and digital cameras can simulate time-lapse animations  or high speed movements if the images are shown in rapid sequence.                   Software is presented here that can use PCX image files and convert        them to raw binary format for rapid display as flash cards or animations by     personal computer. The advantage of the software is that even older, slower     computers limited in Windows to 16 colors, can show animations in 256 colors.   The software runs either in DOS or from an icon in Windows 3.1/95/98.                                                                                           Converting PCX/GIF and other images to raw binary format                             The software for presenting animations and flash cards requires images     in raw binary format that can be loaded by QuickBASIC's BLOAD command.          My program PCX-13.EXE is used to convert PCX image files (Okonski, 1992)        to A13 format (the extension used here for raw binary format). Many shareware   and commercial programs inter-convert various popular image file formats such   as GIF (graphic interchange format, CompuServe), TIF (tagged interchange        format), BMP (Windows bitmap), PCX (ZSoft), and WPG (Word Perfect               graphic). For example, GWS.EXE (Graphic Workshop: Alchemy Mindworks Inc.,       PO box 500, Beeton, Ontario L06 1A0, Canada) is an inexpensive shareware        program that is useful for converting GIF to PCX. Drawings and art work can     be made by commercial programs (e.g., Corel Draw or Windows Paintbrush)         and the resulting images exported as PCX or BMP (Windows Paintbrush). The       BMP files, or internet GIF files, are converted by GWS to PCX, and then these   are converted to A13 format by PCX-13.EXE.                                           To give an example, an animation with a feeling of high speed              movement through a forest was made by taking pictures every 2-3 m with a        Canon ION still-video camera, digitizing the pictures to TIF format (Canon ION  software), and then using Corel Draw 3.0 (or 7.0) to convert to PCX format.     Finally, each PCX file was converted to binary image format (A13) at 320 x 200  pixels suitable for QuickBASIC's BLOAD command with my program PCX-             13.EXE (available on the internet, see end of article).                              The program also makes an associated color palette file with 256           numbers that represent colors from among 262,144 possible according to a        mixing of red, green and blue, each of 64 intensities ranging from 0 (no color) to 63 (thus 64 x 64 x 64 = 262,144 colors). For example a pinkish skin color    with 60 for red, 50 for green and 40 for blue would have a number equal to      65536 x blue + 256 x green + red, or 2,634,300. The palette file has the same   parent name as the image but ends in 13P. The A13 images have 64,000            pixels of which there can be up to 256 kinds assigned any of the 262,144        colors. The palette and image files are compatible with TAXOKEY software in     systematic biology (Byers, 1996a; see end of article for download information).                                                                                 Making a list of images for viewing                                             A text file of any name (made with a text editor such as DOS's EDIT.COM,        most word-processors, or Windows' NOTEPAD) contains a list of names of the      image files. The text file (e.g. PICLIST.TXT) might look like the following:                                                                                    c:\work\begin1  10                                                              ant1 5                                                                          answer1 3                                                                       ant2.A13 5                                                                      answer2 3                                                                                                                                                       The first image could introduce the topic for 10 seconds, then the image        ANT1.A13 would display for 5 seconds, followed by the answer for 3 seconds      (ANSWER1.A13). Paths are allowed as indicated, but if no path is given then     the images must be in the current directory. Note that the files must end in    .A13 but can be listed with or without the extension. The time can range from   0 to 300 seconds, and if no time is given then the time specified when the text file is run by FLASH.EXE (explained later) is used.                                  The maximum number of images that can be run by the program is             2000, but these can be repeated indefinitely. Also, the program can be run      many times with different sets of pictures from a batch file. Thus there is no  practical limit to the animation sequences except the hard drive capacity. In   the advent there are many images, SLIDES.EXE is a program for keeping track     of the files and their descriptive data. This program can also manage databases on overhead transparencies and photographic slides (Byers, 1998; see end of     article).                                                                                                                                                       FLASH.EXE to view animations and flash cards                                         Once images and a text file with the image names are made, they can        be viewed with FLASH.EXE. The program is run with several parameters that       set the default time in seconds to display pictures, as well as whether the     images will be shown in linear sequence or at random, whether the images will   repeat or be shown once, and whether the viewing time per image can be          changed (variable) from within the program or not (fixed). For example, a       typical command line to run the program might look like:                                                                                                        flash piclist.txt * random 1 variable repeat                                                                                                                    or                                                                                                                                                              flash piclist.txt * linear .2 fixed once                                                                                                                        where "flash" runs the program and uses "piclist.txt" as the text file with the images and the other words are used as indicated above. The time will be used   for all images that do not specifically have a time in the piclist.txt text     file. Any times for an image in the text file override the command line         parameter and also do not allow changing of the time from within the program,   even if the variable command is used. If the variable command has been used,    then one can change the time for viewing images with the up/down cursor keys    (and Page Up/Down). Pressing (Esc) exits the program.                                Random viewing of images is not truly random since the program             remembers the last selections up to half the number of images listed in the textfile or 100, whichever is smaller, so that the same image is not presented too  soon after itself (as would occur sometimes with a truly random sequence).      When "answers" are to follow flash cards and random order is desired, it is bestto use a linear sequence with the cards "randomized" manually by listed order   in the text file. Several "randomized" sequences can be run from a batch file.  When the random sequence is to be shown only once, the program randomizes       the images non-redundantly so that all images are shown once (Byers, 1991,      1993, 1996b).                                                                                                                                                   Batch files and image compression                                               The program FLASH.EXE can be run repeatedly with different lists of images      from a batch file. For example, a batch file named INSECTS.BAT might contain    three lines:                                                                                                                                                    FLASH ANTS.1 * 0 linear fixed once                                              FLASH ANTS.2 * 0 linear fixed once                                              FLASH ANTS.3 * 0 linear fixed once                                                                                                                              which mean that the files ANTS.1 to ANTS.3 are run in sequence and the          images in each are displayed in sequence in an animation running once with      no possibility for students to change the timing. However, within the file      ANTS.1, for example, a line could override the duration for a single image for  2 seconds (IMAGE-5 2).                                                               The binary format images are not compressed and thus always have           64015 bytes no matter what the colors or complexity of the picture.             Compression of images can be done if the pattern of pixel colors repeats itself.PCX files are compressed to some degree but use a less efficient algorithm      than GIF files (Okonski, 1992; Wegner, 1995). GIF files employ the LZW          (Lempel, Ziv, and Welch) algorithm which is also used by the popular            PKZIP.EXE program (PKWARE, Inc., 9025 N. Deerwood Drive, Brown Deer,            WI 53223). PKZIP.EXE can compress a typical A13 file of 64K to 25% or less      of the original size depending on the complexity of the picture. The resulting  ZIP files can be moved between computers more easily and the PKUNZIP.EXE        program uncompresses the *.ZIP files so they can be used by FLASH.EXE.               Another use of PKZIP and PKUNZIP with FLASH.EXE is seen in the             following batch file:                                                                                                                                           pkunzip PICS.ZIP                                                                FLASH piclist.txt * linear 2 variable repeat                                    del *.a13                                                                       del *.13p                                                                       del FLASH.EXE                                                                   del PICLIST.TXT                                                                                                                                                 Here the PICS.ZIP file containing all the image and palette files, FLASH.EXE,   and PICLIST.TXT (the file with the image names) is `unzipped' and the program   FLASH is run as indicated. After the images have been shown, DOS is used        to delete all the files except PICS.ZIP. This saves disk space since many       compressed files can be expanded, utilized, and then removed.                        The images are loaded even faster if a hard drive disk catching utility is employed such as DOS's SMARTDRV.EXE. This program is run either before          running FLASH or run in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file when booting. The fastest         animation speed that can be achieved depends mainly on the hard drive           speeds and use of SMARTDRV.EXE, but also the processor speed (which             affects the data transfer rate). For example, the number of full-screen images  per second was only 4.9 (25 MHz 386) on older systems but increased to 20.1     (100 MHz 486) or even an astounding 42.6 (233 MHz Pentium) with newer           systems. The fastest speeds are also attained by using only one palette file    (13P) for the first image file loaded (usually pictures are from the same sourceand thus the same color palette). The PCX-13.EXE program can also convert       images to a standard palette.                                                                                                                                   Other programs                                                                       Netscape and Internet Explorer, web page browsers for Windows, can         show full screen GIF files with the same number of colors and at higher         resolutions (e.g. 640 x 480). However, usually several seconds are required for image display, especially with older computers (386 and 486). The software      here will even work on 8086 and 286 computers running DOS which is not true     for the web browsers. JavaScript, an objected oriented language similar to      C/C++ (Goodman, 1997), can be used to produce animations and flash cards        using web browser software, but the same slow loading of images applies.             The program software can be obtained as a ZIP file (FLASH.ZIP) on the      internet at (http://www.vsv.slu.se/johnb/gensoft.htm). In addition, the SLIDES  program can be obtained as well as TAXOKEY (software.htm) mentioned             earlier.                                                                                                                                                        References                                                                                                                                                      Byers, J.A. (1991) BASIC algorithms for random sampling and treatment           randomization. Computers in Biology and Medicine, 21, 69-77.                                                                                                    Byers, J.A. (1993) Randomization algorithms in BASIC for experimental design.   Computers in Biology and Medicine, 23, 167-176.                                                                                                                 Byers, J.A. (1996a) Taxokey: A universal taxonomic key program using DOS        text files and graphics. Computer Applications in the Biosciences, 12, 185-189.                                                                                 Byers, J.A. (1996b) Random selection algorithms for spatial and temporal        sampling. Computers in Biology and Medicine, 26, 41-52.                                                                                                         Byers, J.A. (1998) Database program to manage slides and images for teaching    and presentations. Educational Media International, submitted.                                                                                                  Goodman, D. (1996) Danny Goodman's JavaScript Handbook, Foster City,            California: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.                                                                                                                           Okonski, S. (1992) Mysteries of 16-color .PCX files revealed. BASICPro, 2, 1,   44-51.                                                                                                                                                          Wegner, T. (1995) Image Lab, Corte Madera, California: Waite Group Press.                                                                                                                                                                       Summary                                                                                                                                                         Software is presented that can convert standard PCX image files to raw binary   images suitable for viewing with BASIC programming code. Another program        reads a text file of a list of images to be shown and presents them in sequence for specified durations. The images can be viewed as `flashcards' in random     order or in animations useful in teaching. The images are displayed rapidly at  full screen resolution in up to 256 colors from among 262,144 possible.                                                                                         Biographical note                                                                                                                                               John Byers was educated at Colorado State University (B.S. and M.S.) and        University of California at Berkeley (Ph.D.) before becoming an Associate       Professor of Insect Chemical Ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural  Sciences at Alnarp. His main research interests are in insect behavior, insect- tree interactions, and chemical ecology; and in computer simulation of          behavioral and ecological models.                                                                                                                               Address for correspondence:                                                                                                                                     Dr John A. Byers                                                                Department of Plant Protection, Box 44                                          S-230 53 Alnarp                                                                 Sweden                                                                                                                                                          Email john.byers@vsv.slu.se                                                     http://www.vsv.slu.se/cec/h.htm                                                 