Viewing Notes
Paul Haeberli
Adusting the Width of your Window
These documents were designed to be viewed in a window
that is 564 pixels wide when the scroll bar is visible.
If you want to make these pages look the way I designed
them, adjust the width of your Mosaic viewer until the
arrows below are fully visible and centered. If you want to use
some other width that's fine too.
Here's what my screen typically looks like:
A note on Display Gamma
It has recently come to my attention that documents displayed
by xmosaic on IRIS workstations appear lighter than the same documents
viewed on other workstations. This is because the IRIS has gamma look
up tables that are loaded with values to
correct a little for the non-linearity of the CRT display. This look up
table contains a gamma curve of pow(in,1.0/1.7). This affects GL graphics and
X graphics in the same way. So it's possible that people using SUNs, MACs,
or PCs will see all these images somewhat darker than they should appear.
We basically have two different cultures with different world views.
For IRIS users, pages authored on IRISes look
fine, while pages authored on SUNs look too light. For SUN users, pages
authored on SUNs look fine, while pages authored on IRISes look too dark.
AAAAARRGH! This is such an INCONVENIENCE!
Anyway, I'm not really sure what the solution is, but I thought I'd let
you know. The test patterns above may give you some idea of how things are
supposed to look. The pattern on the left has an area with exactly 50%
brightness directly next to an area of horizontal stripes that alternate
100% brightness with 0% brightness. If things are "cool",
these two areas will look about the same average brightness from a
distance. The middle pattern is basically the same just a (one) tad
dimmer. The pattern on the right shows a very dark disk surrounded by
pure black. This disk should just barely be visible (you may have to
turn the light off in your office though).
Don't Worry
If things don't look quite right, you can try to adjust your monitor
brightness and contrast, or maybe figure out how to modify your
system's gamma look up tables, or just kinda relax and try not to worry
about the whole thing.
This is a publication of GRAFICA Obscura.
paul@sgi.com