"Xfig" is a menu-driven tool that allows the user to draw and manipulate
objects interactively under the X Window System. It can export the drawings to many file
formats such as eps, ps, pdf, png, jpg, gif, etc. By selecting the export language as
"LaTeX picture", you can directly get latex commands instead of figures.
By selecting the export language as "PiCTeX macros", you can
save a figure as PicTeX for inclusion in a tex file. To export figures,
"Xfig" can import eps/ps, gif, jpeg, pcx, png, ppm, tiff and
xbm format files. To do so,
To draw lines, curves, ellipses ...
You can get Xfig manual and Howto document from the help menu of the Xfig. The homepage of Xfig is at http://www.xfig.org/.
"Gimp" is an image manipulation and paint program.
According to the manual (man gimp),
The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is used to edit and manipulate images. It can load and save a variety of image formats and can be used to convert between formats. Gimp can also be used as a paint program. It features a set of drawing and painting tools such as airbrush, clone, pencil, and paint brush. Painting and drawing tools can be applied to an image with a variety of paint modes. It also offers an extensive array of selection tools like rectangle, ellipse, fuzzy select, bezier select, intelligent scissors, and select by color. Gimp offers a variety of plugins that perform a variety of image manip- ulations. Examples include bumpmap, edge detect, gaussian blur, and many others. In addition, Gimp has several scripting extension which allow for advanced non-interactive processing and creation of images.
The homepage of GIMP provides GIMP User's Maual.
To run gimp, type
gimp&
Operation menus (such as save) will be popup by clicking the right button of the mouse.
The definition given by the
authors of xv is that "xv is an interactive image manipulation program for the X Window
System. It can operate on images in the GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PBM, PGM, PPM, XPM, X11 bitmap, Sun
Rasterfile, Targa, RLE, RGB, BMP, PCX, FITS, and PM formats on all known types of X displays. It
can generate PostScript files, and if you have ghostscript (version 2.6 or above) installed on
your machine, it can also display them."
By using xv, you can convert different file formats supported by xv. For example, if you want to convert abc.gif to abc.jpg, then
xv abc.gif&". A window will popup showing the file
abc.gif.Save" button to popup the window titled
"xv Save".Format" pull-down menu and select the submenu
"JPEG".
Ok" button. A window titled
"xv jpeg" will popup. You can change the quality and smoothing of the
figure.Ok" button. From the "xv controls"
window, you can see a new file abc.jpg was generated. The original file
abc.gif is untouched.The homepage of xv is at http://www.trilon.com/xv/.
GhostScript is an interpreter for the PostScript language and for PDF. You can use it to edit ps and PDF file.
GhostView is an X11 user interface for Ghostscript, allowing you to view and navigate PostScript files.
GV is a version of Ghostview with an improved user interface and the ability to display PDF files.
To veiw a ps file, type
gv filename&
If you use Vim or gVim to edit your latex document, you can map some commonly used commands to
short-cut keys to speed up your editing. For example, you can add the following mappings to the
file ".vimrc" in your home directory:
map ,i :!ispell %
map ,l :!latex %
map ,b :!bibtex %<
map ,s :!dvips -o %<.ps %<.dvi
map ,g :!gv %<.ps &
Then in the command mode of the Vim or gVim, you can check spelling
by typing ",i", compile latex document by typing
",l", compile bibliography information by typing
",b", change the dvi file to ps by typing
",s", and view the ps file by typing ",g".
If you make some changes in the latex document, you can compile the document again by typing
",l" and ",s". Then hightlight the gv and
click the redispaly button to update the display.
The homepage for GhostScript, GhostView and GV is at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/.
According to the manual (man convert),
"convert" converts an input file using one image format to an output file
with a differing image format. In addition, various types of image pro-
cessing can be performed on the converted image during the conversion
process. Convert recognizes the image formats listed in
ImageMagick.
The following is taken from the manual (man convert):
To make a thumbnail of a JPEG image, use:
convert -size 120x120 cockatoo.jpg -resize 120x120
+profile '*' thumbnail.jpg
In this example, "-size 120x120" gives a hint to the JPEG decoder that
the image is going to be downscaled to 120x120, allowing it to run
faster by avoiding returning a full-resolution image. The "-resize
120x120" specifies the desired dimensions of the output image. It will
be scaled so its largest dimension is 120 pixels. The "+profile '*'"
removes any ICM, EXIF, IPTC, or other profiles that might be present in
the input and aren't needed in the thumbnail.