Another Useful Tool

[Bob Hegwood]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd let you know that a GREAT, free program is available for use with re-sizing texture files...

If you scan the Topic "At Selden's Request" in the Celestia Bugs Forum Topic, you'll see that I have almost gone crazy trying to figure out how to do this easily.

Pixia is a program which allows users to re-size PNG's so that some of the exceptional texture files which are only available in LARGE display resolutions can be modified to work with a non-graphically-enhanced machine. (Like mine!) The program is freely available at: http://www.ab.wakwak.com/~knight/download.htm

One other note: It seems that Celestia 1.3.0 could make use of these large resolution textures, because I *was* using them in that version with *NO* problems. Be aware, however, that Celestia 1.3.1 will NOT allow me to use these same textures without modification to lower resolutions.

If you run into this problem, and would like to convert a file to a lower resolution, then TRUST ME... This is the program to do it.

I managed to convert the Realistic-Earth8k.png file to a resolution of 1024x512 and it looks spectacular when compared to some of the other Earth Textures I've tried. (Sorry, I don't remember who created this texture, but it *is* spectacular.)

Just thought I'd offer some bit of advice to problem texture users.

Take care, Bob