view64 v1.60 manual

This is the manual for view64, the C64 image file viewer. Key features:

• Open source, mostly portable C using FLTK/SDL2/SDL1.2 GUI
• Separate library for image decoding (libview64)
• Supports lot of image formats (70+)
• Some image formats are recognized without extensions
• PAL/NTSC S-Video and RGB rendering
• Scanline, shadow mask, chroma leakage simulation
• Multicolour interlace de-interlacing
• view64pnm for use with netpbm and dumping to bmp

Project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/view64/

The viewer is intended to be invoked with the filename as a parameter from the command line. This is usually done by associating it with the image file types of interest.

The most complete GUI is the FLTK one. Please note that window positioning in the SDL1.2 version is incomplete due to missing interface. The SDL2 version might not work without proper opengl drivers.

Window keys

Command line options

SDL2 redirects the standard output on certain platforms (e.g. win32), and there might be no command line help available. Therefore all options are listed here with explanation.

Window options

-f, --full-screen

Start in full screen mode

--no-menu-bar

Start without the menu bar

-h, --height <pixels>

Window height in pixels

-w, --width <pixels>

Window width in pixels

-x, --win-x <pixels>

Window horizontal middle position in pixels

-y, --win-y <pixels>

Window vertical middle position in pixels

-z, --zoom <level>

Zoom level, 3 for 3× zoom

Rendering options

-P, --pal

Use PAL decoder.

Encodes the picture into PAL chrominance and luminance signals, then decodes it. Correct aspect ratio is applied, a delay line is used for colour mixing and the horizontal colour resolution is reduced.

-N, --ntsc

Use NTSC decoder.

Encodes the picture into NTSC chrominance and luminance signals, then decodes it. Correct aspect ratio is applied and the horizontal colour resolution is reduced.

-R, --rgb

Use RGB decoder.

Nothing much is done, the pixels are decoded into a sharp RGB image by using a palette and not applying any aspect ratio. This can be used for conversion purposes.

-c, --chroma-noise

Apply part of chrominance signal to luminance signal.

This creates a slightly different pattern for different colours. Makes sense for PAL or NTSC rendering only of course, for the latter it results in vertical lines as there's no phase reversing.

-i, --mci-deinterlace

Deinterlacing of multicolour interlace images into high resolution images.

This option creates fake high resolution images for conversion purposes. Makes sense for RGB mode only.

-p, --palette <file>

Load a custom VPL palette file for RGB mode. It's not used for PAL/NTSC mode.

The VICE palette format is simple, it contains 16 lines of 4 hexadecimal values for red, green, blue and intensity separated by white space. Only the first 3 are used, and these should be in the range 00–FF. Intensity is in the range of 0–F. Intensity is ignored, but it must be present. Comments starting with #.

-l, --scanlines

Draw scan lines

Scan lines are a CRT feature, where each line is drawn with electron beams. The intensity of pixel rows is not uniform and is decreasing from the center. Also there might be a slight overlap or gap between scanlines depending on the intensity and density. Makes more sense on higher resolutions.

-t, --tv-mask

Draw shadow mask

These are the RGB triplet stripes found on many CRT TVs forming a distinctive pattern.

-m, --monochrome

Do not apply colours.

Renders without colours.

-u, --old-luma

Use old luminance

Use luminance from the old revision of VIC-II.

Other options

-s, --save

Save the image into a BMP file.

No window is opened, so it's ideal for batch conversion mode.

-?, --help

Give this help list. Prints help about command line options.

--help-formats

Lists known image formats

--help-keys

Lists window keys

--usage

Give a short usage message. Prints short help about command line options.

-V, --version

Print program version

Config file options

An ini style config file is used with a single [view64] section. The location is ~/.config/view64.conf on Linux and %APPDATA%\view64.ini on Windows. Patches for other systems are welcome.

x=<pixels>

See --win-x command line option.

y=<pixels>

See --win-y command line option.

width=<pixels>

See --width command line option.

height=<pixels>

See --height command line option.

zoom=<integer>

See --zoom command line option.

full-screen=<0/1>

See --full-screen command line option.

menu-bar=<0/1>

See --no-menu-bar command line option.

chroma-noise=<0/1>

See --chroma-noise command line option.

mci-deinterlace=<0/1>

See --mci-deinterlace command line option.

scanlines=<0/1>

See --scanlines command line option.

tv-mask=<0/1>

See --tv-mask command line option.

monochrome=<0/1>

See --monochrome command line option.

old-luma=<0/1>

See --old-luma command line option.

decoder=<pal/ntsc/rgb>

See --pal, --ntsc and --rgb command line options.

palette=<full path>

See --palette command line option.

A sample config file:

[view64]
x=0
y=0
width=0
height=0
zoom=0
full-screen=0
menu-bar=1
chroma-noise=0
mci-deinterlace=0
scanlines=0
tv-mask=0
monochrome=0
old-luma=0
palette=
decoder=pal

Supported formats

Credits

Soci/Singular since the 1995 DOS version.

Additional code: my_getopt command-line argument parser by Benjamin Sittler.

Baracuda to dig up some unsupported formats and gave improvement suggestions.

cfgpath.h by Adam Nielsen.

ini.h by Brush Technology.

Main developer and maintainer: soci at c64.rulez.org