Problems

Problem: Message box popping up on screen repeatedly during densitometry.

Solution: This is caused by clicking the ``Accept'' button too many times.

Problem: When typing on the screen, the cursor moves but no text is visible; or after adding a label, no label is visible.

Solution: Change the foreground color to make it different from the background color.

Problem: A 16-bit image known to be grayscale is displayed in psychedelic colors instead of shades of gray.

Solution: The image has somehow been mis-identified as a color image. Select ``Image Properties'' and set the Color Type to Grayscale.

Problem: A 32-bit image appears completely black after being loaded.

Solution: Check the setting ``CMYKRGB'' in the Read Image dialog. This box should stay checked for normal images.

Problem: When drawing lines or boxes, the ``rubber band'' lines are not visible.

Solution: The ``rubber band'' lines are XOR'd against the background color. If this color is near the middle of the color range, the lines will not be visible. Change the background color to some other color.

Problem: Program crashes on start-up or refuses to start.

Solution: Create a log file by typing tnimage -diag $>$ logfile. Send a bug report by e-mail, and attach a copy of the log file so the problem can be fixed.

Problem: Strange colors on screen or tnimage only using top 1/12 or 1/7 of the screen (DOS version).

Solution: Some other Super VGA programs and communication programs (such as some versions of Carbon Copy) contain an ``unexpected feature'' that results in the computer being left in a state that prevents proper functioning of tnimage with certain video cards. The DOS shell program 1Dirplus and one HPLC data-acquisition program also have a similar feature which can interfere with the colormap registers. If tnimage suddenly begins to run incorrectly after running one of these programs, reboot the computer and start tnimage again. This can also occur when running tnimage as a DOS box in OS/2. Change the DOS box parameters to correct the problem.

Problem: Entire screen compressed into upper 1/7 of the screen (DOS version).

Solution: (1) Try starting tnimage with the command line:

TNIMAGE -OLDVESA

(2) If that doesn't work, you probably are using an outdated VESA VBE TSR (Terminate-and-stay-resident program). Obtain a new version from the video card manufacturer. Note that most new video cards already have VESA BIOS built in, and don't need a TSR. Try running tnimage without it. If nothing works, contact the author for assistance.

Problem: Lower part of screen flickering (upper 2/3 of screen is okay, lower 1/3 is ``snow'' or ``static'' (DOS version).

Solution: This occurs when the video card reports to tnimage that it is OK to set the specified high-resolution screen mode, but in fact the card has insufficient video RAM to handle it. This will occur on certain Cirrus-based cards. To solve the problem, it is necessary to install additional memory in your video card. Using tnimage when this problem occurs could result in a system crash.

Problem: Screen is completely white (DOS version).

Solution: This occurs when using one of the ``experimental'' Tseng modes, if the video card is unable to handle the specified screen mode. Press Alt-X two or three times to return to DOS, then use the ``mode'' command line option to run tnimage in a different resolution.

Problem: Multiple copies of Menu Bar (DOS version).

Solution: This is usually caused by an old video card with VESA 1.0 BIOS. Start tnimage again using the command line:

TNIMAGE -OLDVESA

This can also happen if the UNIVBE TSR is present. UNIVBE must be removed in this case.

Problem: Multiple horizontal copies of image on laptop computer in 24 bit/pixel mode, while 8 and 16 bit/pixel modes are normal.

Solution: Start tnimage with the command line

tnimage -nosparse .

If this solves the problem, add the line

nosparse 1

to the tnimage.ini file. This is a bug in the X server.

Problem: Printer prints part of image, then gives an error message or goes into a ``form feeding frenzy''.

Solution: This can occur on laser printers if your printer has insufficient internal memory to handle the image. You will have to install additional printer memory, print a smaller image or print at a lower resolution or dither size. Generally, 4 MB is required to print a 8x10 inch page in black-and-white at 600 dpi. Color printing requires 3 or 4 times as much. Unfortunately, there is no way for tnimage to test how much memory the printer has. For some reason, printer manufacturers have also made it impossible to print an image in small segments. This problem does not occur on inkjet printers.

This will also occur if printing is attempted on a dot-matrix printer.

Problem: Mouse gets ``lost'' when running tnimage from a Windows DOS box.

Solution: This occurs with some Microsoft and possibly other mouse drivers. Exit Windows, and replace your mouse driver with a newer version or with a Logitech mouse driver. Then use Windows' Setup program to change to the new mouse. Alternatively, use Windows' Setup program to change Windows' screen display to 256 colors (It's not known why this helps). These problems have not been observed in Windows 95.

Problem: Screen is not restored correctly after running tnimage from a Windows DOS box.

Solution: Install a different video driver in Windows using Windows' Setup utility.

Problem: Mouse jumps around on the screen, or exhibits jerky movement as if trapped in a grid.

Solution: Obtain a new mouse driver. This can usually be obtained from a bulletin board or ftp site operated by the mouse manufacturer. Alternatively, Logitech mouse drivers can work on many mice. Older mouse drivers often have trouble in SVGA modes. Microsoft mouse drivers are particularly prone to these sorts of troubles. Some old SVGA cards, such as Realtek video cards, create difficulties with the mouse, making it possible to reach only x and y coordinates that are divisible by 4. In this case, the video card must be replaced.

Problem: Screen is garbage when running tnimage from a Windows DOS box, even though there is lot of video RAM.

Solution: This is a problem in computers with ATI video cards in Windows for Work Groups for some screen resolution modes. Run tnimage at a lower color depth by changing the ``Command Line'' entry in Windows' ``Properties'' menu to:

C: $\backslash$TNIMAGE $\backslash$TNIMAGE.PIF -mode 103

Alternatively, run tnimage from DOS.

Problem: Unusual behavior or display colors immediately after upgrading from a previous version of tnimage.

Solution: Delete the configuration file ``tnimage.ini''.

Problem: Colors appear posterized.

Solution: This will happen on 8-bit displays if other applications (such as Web browsers or certain window managers) allocate a lot of colors, This can also happen after using certain other image viewing programs, particularly if they crash and fail to release their allocated colors. If closing other applications or restarting the X server doesn't help, try starting the X server in 16- or 24-bit mode. If this is not possible, it may be necessary to switch to a different window manager.

Problem: Operations such as inverting colors, etc. on the main window give a solid color instead of the expected inverted text.

Solution: This occurs when foreground and background colors are adjacent numerically (e.g., 40 and 41) but their actual colors (determined by the colormap) are different. Inverting the colors makes the color values 215 and 214, which map to similar colors. Change the foreground or background color to something else.

Problem: Message ``Invalid image file'' appears after transferring an image file from a Unix or mainframe system.

Solution: The most common cause of this problem is the failure to use ``binary'' mode when sending the image file over the network. If you are using Kermit, give the command

set file type binary

before getting the image. If you are using ftp, give the command

binary

before getting the image. It is very difficult to fix an image file that has been corrupted by sending it in text mode.

Problem: Opening or processing of images is slow.

Solutions: (1) Speed can be greatly increased by starting tnimage in a screen mode that has the same color depth as the images. Analyzing 24-bit color images in 8-bit mode, for example, will be slow because the entire image projected to the screen has to be re-palettized every time any operation changes one or more pixels.

(2). If your hard disk light goes on during an image processing operation, this means tnimage is paging out to disk. This can be reduced by installing more memory in your computer.

(3). Speed can be approximately doubled by running tnimage from DOS instead of in Windows, or by removing any expanded memory managers such as 386 Max or (especially) EMM386, which slows down math operations by over 50%.

Problem: Colormap rotation in startup screen is slow or jerky.

Solution: If you are running the Unix version, this can happen if another copy of tnimage is running, or if the mouse is moved suddenly during startup. In the DOS version, this is usually caused by a slow video card.

Problem: ``Insufficient memory'' message occurs even though ``About the program...'' indicates there should be enough memory.

Solution: Turn ``Automatic undo'' option off. This will cut the storage requirements in half. Also, a certain amount of memory is also reserved by tnimage for dialog boxes, etc. and is unavailable. If this happens in Windows, you must increase the ``Virtual Memory'' setting in Windows (``Control panel..386 Enhanced..Virtual memory.)''.

Problem: Video card won't go into desired screen mode, even though video card manual states that mode is supported.

Solution: (1) If ATI card: Run ATI's ``Install'' program again to verify the specified video mode is activated. (2) Run tnimage's diagnostics by typing: tnimage -diag to determine the problem, which is usually caused by insufficient RAM or a monitor limitation. (3) Another possibility is that the computer was turned on before turning on the power to the monitor. Some video cards only examine the monitor type at power-up, will become confused if the monitor is off during a cold boot-up, and refuse to set high-resolution modes.

Problem: Monitor makes a buzzing sound and fails to sync on startup (causing jagged diagonal lines on the screen).

Solution: Turn the monitor off immediately and press Alt-X several times to stop the program. Restart tnimage using a lower screen mode. This problem could occur if your video card reports that it is safe to set a given screen mode when in fact it is not safe. Only one card has been found so far that does this, when setting a 1280x1024 resolution mode. Prolonged operation in this condition could harm your monitor.

Problem: A grayscale image appears completely black or white.

Solution: This is usually caused by the automatic grayscale mapping feature misinterpreting the upper and lower gray levels of your image. If the image is being read as ``raw bytes'', make sure you have selected the correct number of bits/pixel, x size and y size. If the y size you entered is too large, tnimage may read beyond the end of the image and incorrectly estimate the maximum and minimum levels. To correct this, select ``Color...Set colormap...Grayscale mapping'' and change the maximum and minimum values to correspond to those in the image. (For example, if the image is known to be 12 bits deep, the maximum should be approximately ${2^{12}}$ or 4096.)

Problem: ``Mouse required'' message occurs when starting tnimage, even though Windows runs OK with the mouse.

Solution: Windows has its own separate mouse driver. It is still necessary to load a mouse driver for DOS applications. Run the program ``mouse.com'' that came with your mouse.

Problem: When printing a grayscale image in PostScript mode, changes in the contrast, brightness, or colormap are not reflected in the printout.

Solution: Set ``Color type'' to RGB/indexed color instead of BW/grayscale.

Problem: When typing text on the screen, it comes out in the wrong color.

Solution: The available colors are determined by the color depth, the gray scale mapping parameters and colormap (if present) of the image you are typing on. For example, if an 8-bit image with a particular colormap is loaded, you can only add colors that exist in that colormap, even if tnimage is in a 24-bit color mode. This prevents you from accidentally adding a color which is impossible to save with the image. If all else fails, press Alt-R to rebuild the screen display.

Problem: The message ``Converting from 24 to 8 bits/pixel'' stays on the screen for a long time.

Solution: Select ``Color...Color settings'' and make sure ``Color reduction method'' is set to ``Quantization'' and not ``Fit current colormap'' which can be slow.

Problem: When reading color images, the colors are wrong, or it takes a long time.

Solution: Select ``Color...Color settings'' and make sure ``Color reduction method'' is set to ``Quantization'' and not ``Fit current colormap'' which may give incorrect colors.

Problem: After reading a GIF file or a color image, subsequent images in other formats appear to be ``garbage''.

Solution: This only occurs in 8-bit/pixel screen modes. When an image that does not have its own colormap is loaded, the colormap is not automatically changed. If the current colormap is discontinuous, the new image may appear to contain garbage (of course, it is not really garbage). Simply click anywhere on the background, or use the ``Change colormap'' menu option to change to a continuous colormap.

Problem: Medical grayscale images appear grainy or posterized; or appear as strange shades of blue instead of gray.

Solution: The wrong target platform may have been selected. Select ``File...Create custom format'' and change the ``Target platform'' and/or ``Bytes to skip'' for the specified format until a smooth image is obtained.

Problem: Image manipulation creates a distorted image (e.g., 3 copies of the original, or colors wrong).

Solution: This or other strange problems can happen if the X server is running out of resources, for example, after a program has crashed. Try restarting the X server. If this doesn't help, send a bug report (see Sec. 1.5).

Problem: Deconvolution result is completely black, completely white, or garbage.

Solution: This can be caused by (a) using an inappropriate point spread function, (b) using a point spread function that has zero or near-zero intensities at one or more frequencies, or (c) wrap-around effects. Sometimes, adding noise to the point spread function will increase the intensity at the missing frequencies and solve the problem. Alternatively, try a less ambitious point spread function. Try dumping the FFT data to disk and reading it with a text editor. If the numbers are all ``-nan''s, this is a sign that the intensities were too low and a different psf must be used. Some images simply don't work well with deconvolution.

Problem: Spots floating across screen, or jagged flickering lines.

Solution: You are working too hard, go lie down.

Problem: ``Fill Region'' was selected, but nothing happened when mouse was clicked on the region to fill.

Solution: Make sure the area being filled is darker (lower intensity value) than both the Max. Border Color and the Min. Border Color. Filling will stop whenever any color between these two values is encountered.

Problem: Mouse cursor moving by itself.

Solution: Make sure mouse is on a level surface.

Problem: ``out-of-memory'' problems running tnimage in a Windows DOS box.

Solution: This is usually caused by an incorrect setting in your virtual memory. Try the following procedure to fix it:

1. Click on Windows Control Panel
2. Click on ``386 Enhanced''
3. Click on ``Virtual Memory''
4. If the size of the Virtual memory is less than the amount of RAM in your computer, problems may occur. Change the amount of Virtual Memory to the maximum recommended by Windows; or exit Windows and run tnimage from DOS.

If this doesn't work, check the free disk space with chkdsk. If insufficient disk space is available for paging, Windows may decide there is not enough memory to run the program. It may also help to close some other applications.

Problem: M-x psychiatrist doesn't work.

Solution: You must be thinking of some other program.

Problem: Display is completely blue, with funny little hexadecimal numbers in the middle.

Solution: Your computer may be still traumatized from having had Some Other Operating System (TM) on it in the past, and is compensating by attempting to reenact the traumatic event and its accompanying ``Blue screens of death'' (BSOD). Try rebooting a few times to assuage its separation anxiety. Computer counseling may also be of benefit. Running emacs in Psychiatrist mode once a week for a year or so will help; however, it is computationally expensive.