Re: flexfax: Automated FAX to GIF or JPEG?

[Nico Garcia <raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu>]

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On Fri, 13 Feb 1998 faxer@Delmarsol.COM wrote:

> Does anybody have a good and public domain/free way to convert from fax
> format into either JPEG or GIF automatically, without losing
> significant quality (via using fax2ps and then converting from
> PostScript) and *WITHOUT* someone manually having to use "viewfax" or
> "xv" or "snapshot" and then manually save the file in its new format.

The tiff programs, including "tiff2ps" and "tiffsplit" and "tiff2fax"
should give you a start. tiff2fax can be re-written to produce gif or
jpeg files.

> For example, I'd like an incoming FAX to automatically send mail, which
> causes a script to run and the script would:
> 
> 	1) Convert each FAX page into a separate GIF or JPEG file
> 	2) Copy those GIF or JPEG files to a web site directory.
> 
> Then you could display the FAXes via a browser.

Don't bother. Store the files as fax files, and let the *USER*
use viewfax or another tiffg3 viewer to examine them directly.

> 	2) Then I've looked at tools such as "cjpeg" (as found in the
> 	   "xv" software), but these tools don't accept tiff or fax
> 
> 	3) It doesn't look like "xv" can automatically convert between
> 	   file formats unless you manually use the mouse, so "xv"
> 	   is out.
> 
> 	4) If you use "fax2ps" and then convert from PostScript to jpeg
> 	    or gif, then the quality of the FAX is significantly
> 	    worse than using "faxview/snapshot/xv".

Yup. No surprise, you sacrifice resolution with each conversion. You
might try using tiffsplit to turn them into individual files, then
"convert" from the ImageMagick sweet of tools to convert to jpeg. That
basically calls on ghostscript, but it's not bad.

			Nico Garcia
			Engineer, CIRL 
			Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary
			raoul@cirl.meei.harvard.edu

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