Subject: REVIEW: Weird Science CLIP ART CD
From: [email-masked] (Lars SFX Eilebrecht)
Date: 12 Feb 1995 04:57:05 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Weird Science CLIP ART CD

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	This CD-ROM is a non-bootable data CD-ROM containing lots of clip
art in different graphic formats.  All clip art is ready to use straight from
the CD.  Only some additional utilities (graphic-tools) are archived. 

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		Weird Science
	Address:	1 Rowlandson Close
			Leicester
			Leicestershire
			LE4 2SE
			ENGLAND

	Telephone:	0116 234 0682

DISTRIBUTION

	As far as I know, you can order this CD-ROM directly from Weird
Science, but most dealers should have this CD-ROM in stock.  I got my copy
from Stefan Ossowski Schatztruhe (Germany)

LIST PRICE

	DM 39,-.  Approximately $26 (US).

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Any Amiga equipped with a CD-ROM drive.

		More than 1 MB RAM may be required for processing some
		images (i.e., EPS).

		A hard disk is recommended, of course.

	SOFTWARE

		AmigaDOS  1.3 or higher required.
		A suitable CD-ROM filesystem (like AmiCDROM) is required.

		To use the clip art with its different graphic formats, it
		is highly recommended that you have a DTP program such as
		Pagestream, Pagesetter or Professional Page.

COPY PROTECTION

	None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 3000, 2 MB Chip RAM, 12 MB Fast RAM
	Toshiba XM-3401B CD-ROM drive
	Several hard drives
	AmigaDOS 3.1 (Kickstart 40.70, Workbench 40.35)
	AmiCDROM 1.15

REVIEW

	First, I would like to explain the different clip art formats found
on this CD-ROM, and say some words about the disc's quality. Then I will
look at the included utilities.  Last but not least, I will review the
compilation of the CD-ROM.

GRAPHIC-FORMATS/DIRECTORIES

	top directories    size in MBytes   graphic format
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
	BITMAP              274             IFF-ILBM (most)
	BRUSHES               3             IFF-ILBM
	COLOUR               65             IFF-ILBM
	CORELCDR              5             CDR (Corel-Draw)
	EPS                  72             ASCII-/IBM-/MAC-EPS (Illustrator)
	IMG1                 31             IMG bit image
	IMG2                 58             IMG bit image
	PGESETTR              1             IFF-ILBM
	PGSTREAM              4             IMG (1MB), GEM (3MB), Tools (<1MB)
	PRNTSHOP              5             PNM/POG (PrintShop)
	PROCLIPS              2             ProDraw Clips
	PRODRAW              <1             ProDraw Clips
	UTILITY              14             (Amiga: 3 MB / PC: 11 MB)
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------
	(total size)        533 MByte
  -----------------------------------------------------------------------

INSTALLATION

	There is no installation required nor provided.  Only the archived
utilities provided on this CD-ROM must be installed.  Some utilities are
unarchived and are ready to use from the CD.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

	The first thing I did after I bought the CD, was to insert it and
click on the icon appearing on my Workbench.  I saw... NOTHING!  There are
no icons on the CD except the "disk.info" and some drawer icons in the
Pagestream subdirectory.  After looking closer at the CD via the shell, I
found a ReadMe text in the root directory. It contained only seven lines
mentioning the copyright, that it is a data disk, and that some utilities for
Amiga and PC are included.

CLIP ART

	Now, some words about the different clip art and its quality.
Bitmap pictures make the biggest part of the CD-ROM.  The pictures in the
'COLOUR' directory are very good. Every subdirectory has an index picture
included for a quick overview. Most pictures are in HAM6 format, and some
are in 16 color HiRes-Interlace.  All colour pictures have a white
background; this makes them easy to use within DTP programs.

	Other colour bitmaps can be found in the 'BRUSHES' directory.  The
pictures/brushes have pixel sizes below 640x400. The quality depends on the
size of the image, but most ones are nice.  All other bitmap pictures are
black and white or greyscale.  Most greyscale pictures have a size less than
640x512 with (very) good quality.

	The pixel sizes of the black and white pictures vary in a wide range.
During testing I found very big ones with 1600x3600 or 2048x2048 and very
small ones with 88x52, but most are about 640x400.

	The IFF ILBM images found in the 'PGESETTR' directory are very small
and of poor quality.

	The EPS clip arts are varying from simple drawn objects (less than
10KB) to very complex objects with sizes above 600 KByte. Very nice.

	Other bitmap objects are provided in the IMG format found in the
directories 'IMG1' and 'IMG2', but even in the Pagestream directory some IMG
clip arts can be found. Besides the IMG pictures, we find also GEM Metafile
objects in the Pagestream directory.  Most IMG files are below 50 KByte per
file and in most cases the quality is good. Same applies to the GEM objects,
but as they are vector objects, you can use them without quality loss in
any size you want.

	Other vector objects are the ProDraw clips found in directories
'PROCLIPS' and 'PRODRAW'. Most objects are colour clips with a good quality.

	I wasn't able to look at the PrintShop and Corel Draw clip art,
because I don't have PrintShop nor Corel Draw. As far as I know, no Amiga
program can currently work with CDR files nor display them.

UTILITIES

	In the UTILITY drawer of the CD, we find various archived tools and
utilities. Most are converters for different graphic or font formats.  Lots
of Pagestream 2.x import modules are included, and various packing/archiving
programs like LHA, DMS, ZOO or Uncompress.  Surprisingly, further Amiga
utilities are found in the Pagestream directory.  Among the IMG and GEM
files, we find things like ShowFont4.01, ScreenX3.0, DrawMap2.30,
RMBShift2.0...  (I didn't check the included PC utilities.)

COMPILATION

	Well, there is not much to say.  The CD is just a compilation of
various other clip art or graphic collections. Some additional utilities
were added. Nothing more!

USAGE

	As said before, it is recommended that you use a DTP program that
is able to import the different clip arts found on this CD.

	You can start to browse through the different graphic directories,
but you will surely need a long time to view every single file... :-)

	I think 'normal' usage of this CD would be like this:  You are just
doing some DTP and are in need of a special image or graphic. You insert the
CD and start searching the different directories for a proper file.  And
probably you will find one or more clip art that fit your need....

	The CD is not ready to make available on a BBS, as the required
BBS.txt files are not on the CD. But in my opinion this is not necessary for
a clip art CD.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

	I like the high quality images and bitmap graphics with a high
resolution, because such images look best in a document created with a DTP
program. Some images from the CD have a quality/resolution that is too low
for use in DTP.

	I really don't like the directory layout of the CD. It is not well
chosen and looks a bit weird. Also, I found some duplicate files on the CD.
The CD has a separate utility directory, so why are there utilities in the
Pagestream directory? These utilities have nothing to do with Pagestream.
Most are graphic related, but why is there a RMBShift program?

	From the compilation point of view, this CD is terrible.  It looks
like Weird Science smashed some existing clip art collections together, took
some utilities from Aminet, and burned this onto a CD.  No additional
overview files, like index pictures or explaining text files, are found on
the CD, apart from files found in some subdirectories.

	The CD is not intended to be used from Workbench.  Icons are very
rarely found the CD.

	Unfortunately, the CD contains some (more or less) outdated utilities.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	I cannot say much about other clip art CDs because this is the first
one that I have owned. But currently, not many other clip art CDs are
available.

CONCLUSIONS

	The CD is for Amiga users who are interested in desktop publishing.
But even users who are looking only for some nice images to insert into
their letters or documents would find much on this CD.  The images on the CD
cover nearly every topic.

	Not all clip art on this CD is useful, due to low quality/resolution,
but there is enough material left.

	The compilation is poor, but the CD is quite usable and some of the
images I found on the CD are very nice.  So I rate it 3 out of 5 stars.  The
reason for only giving 3 stars is mainly the poor compilation of the CD.  No
additional texts or index pictures are included, the directory layout of the
CD is not well chosen... (as already said before... :-) The CD is only a data
CD, but other CD creators showed that it is possible to add good search and
overview tools for a CD to make them easy to access for the user (i.e., with
search/find tools, AmigaGuide, or HTML systems).

	If the CD had a better compilation and layout, the price would be OK,
but as it is, the price is too high!

	Indeed, this CD is does not help the reputation of Weird Science! It
is just a simple collection of various clip art collections.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	This review represents my personal point of view.

	If you would like to re-publish this review in any way, 
	the author requests at least a copy of the used media.

	Copyright 1995 Lars Eilebrecht.
	All rights reserved.

	Author address:

	   Lars Eilebrecht
	   Glueck-Auf-Strasse 23
	   57223 Kreuztal

	   GERMANY

	   email: [email-masked]

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