A forum to post any bugs you may encounter while using TrekCC.
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By The Prefect (Michael Shea)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Prefect
2E Sector 001 Regional Champion 2023
#533426
I am sorry for bringing this up again. I know it's been discussed elsewhere but I couldn't find the thread and I don't remember there ever being a final, definite answer on the issue.

Earlier this year it was mentioned that an upgrade was either planned or under way to get the deck builder to generate the high res images we see in the high res downloadable pdfs instead of the earlier, low res images that it currently generates for cards older than Return to Grace in 2014.

What is the status of this?

Also, when I click on any image for any card Return to Grace or newer, I get the high res image (which looks amazing). But, when I click on the image for any virtual card older than that, I still get the low res image, which looks poor by comparison. What would be involved in getting the click to jump to the same high res image I get if I download the high res PDF?
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
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1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#534050
@The Prefect I've moved this over to the new Technical Difficulties forum. It kind of got buried where it was.

To answer the question, I'm going to copy from an older discussion:
JeBuS wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 9:45 am
edgeofhearing wrote: Sat Sep 26, 2020 5:16 pm
JeBuS wrote: Sat Sep 26, 2020 2:51 pm
It's still a project on my to-do list. I did some cursory investigation into it when it was brought up. Generating images from the PDFs doesn't really solve the main problem, which is that text on images is not going to print as well as text in a PDF. Text in a PDF (or Word doc or website or...) is sent to a printer in vector form, which means the printer can scale it / blend it as is appropriate for that printer. But text in images is rasterized, which means it's converted into individual pixels. Scaling that just means your pixels get bigger / smaller; it won't blend at all. I could export a card from the PDFs at resolution of 100,000 pixels per inch (as opposed to 300 which is standard printing), but it wouldn't make a difference in quality of the text once it goes through the printer.

The PDFs of the expansions are made in separate desktop programs (the Adobe suite, I believe) by Johnny Holeva, the Art Director. They aren't something that is generated by the site. What I'd like to research further is how to extract those elements in the PDFs to mix in with our other card images to produce a deck list PDF that incorporates both the high resolution cards from the expansion PDFs and the rasterized images for the rest.

I don't know how to do that at present. I don't even know if it's feasible.
What about increasing the printing resolution of older virtual cards? Cards in older virtual sets (in 2e, the line is before set 30) were uploaded at a lower resolution, so when they are printed from the deckbuilder there is a noticeable difference in image quality.
You're right, this was another option towards improving the printed decklists. It's actually on my to-do list, too. (And much more likely to be successful.) I just haven't sat down to get that particular task done.
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By The Prefect (Michael Shea)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Prefect
2E Sector 001 Regional Champion 2023
#534086
@JeBuS

Thanks for that.

Forgive my ignorance if this is already addressed and I just didn't understand it.

Here's my main question.

Presumably, to make the high res PDFs, someone had to create the high resolution images that went into them (the most noticeable difference is the clearness of the font in the text). So, to me, that means someone, somewhere, has those images*. And, if that is true, we could get them up on the site. Is that being explored?

*In fact, I seem to remember a huge project to do just that undertaken a few years ago - in which all the expansions pre Return to Grace were re-templated using the better, clearer font - and proofread so that they could be posted in the high res pdfs. I remember participating in that proofing process. That's why I am assuming someone has those images somewhere. And, again presumably, other than the labor, it should be pretty straight forward to get them up on the site.

Is that not correct?
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#534088
@The Prefect There aren't "high resolution images" of the cards, the way you might think of them (such as what you see in the browser on the site for newer expansions). The files aren't "images" in format. They're files with embedded fonts, images, vectors, linked external files and whatnot, arranged to make a PDF.

As a crude example, think of the manually set type block on Gutenberg's printing press. Let's say it takes days for the printer to get those blocks into the right configuration to do a run of a broadsheet. Fine and dandy. But what if the order changed and now what's needed is something 1/9th that size, collated.

The Art team could spend its time essentially going back through each expansion to do a "re-release", manually. Of course, time spent doing that is time not spent on other projects (and I imagine working on something new is a more enjoyable task than manual drudgery). Or we can just wait until the technological solution comes around to automate it (which is on my to-do list, but not at the top).
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By The Prefect (Michael Shea)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Prefect
2E Sector 001 Regional Champion 2023
#534090
JeBuS wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:48 pm @The Prefect There aren't "high resolution images" of the cards, the way you might think of them (such as what you see in the browser on the site for newer expansions). The files aren't "images" in format. They're files with embedded fonts, images, vectors, linked external files and whatnot, arranged to make a PDF.

The Art team could spend its time essentially going back through each expansion to do a "re-release", manually. Of course, time spent doing that is time not spent on other projects (and I imagine working on something new is a more enjoyable task than manual drudgery). Or we can just wait until the technological solution comes around to automate it (which is on my to-do list, but not at the top).
Please help me understand this.

So, when I look at any card from the new set, I see a low res image. If I "view image" I get a low res image. But, if I click on the image, a new tab opens up and I get the high res image, which looks almost exactly like the images I see in the high res pdfs. And, I can even save it as an image.

So, is what you are telling me that the high res images I see for the current set (and any set since Return to Grace) don't actually exist for any set prior to Return to Grace, and their appearance has somehow been approximated in the high res pdfs using the functionality of Adobe?
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#534092
The Prefect wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:53 pm Please help me understand this.

So, when I look at any card from the new set, I see a low res image. If I "view image" I get a low res image. But, if I click on the image, a new tab opens up and I get the high res image, which looks almost exactly like the images I see in the high res pdfs. And, I can even save it as an image.

So, is what you are telling me that the high res images I see for the current set (and any set since Return to Grace) don't actually exist for any set prior to Return to Grace, and their appearance has somehow been approximated in the high res pdfs using the functionality of Adobe?
Those are images that you can see on the site. But the images are actually the approximation of the files that also create the pdf.
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By The Prefect (Michael Shea)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Prefect
2E Sector 001 Regional Champion 2023
#534094
JeBuS wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 11:02 pm
The Prefect wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 10:53 pm Please help me understand this.

So, when I look at any card from the new set, I see a low res image. If I "view image" I get a low res image. But, if I click on the image, a new tab opens up and I get the high res image, which looks almost exactly like the images I see in the high res pdfs. And, I can even save it as an image.

So, is what you are telling me that the high res images I see for the current set (and any set since Return to Grace) don't actually exist for any set prior to Return to Grace, and their appearance has somehow been approximated in the high res pdfs using the functionality of Adobe?
Those are images that you can see on the site. But the images are actually the approximation of the files that also create the pdf.
I feel stupid, but I still don't understand what that means. I'm sure it's my ignorance about this works technologically that is holding me back. Maybe we can just discuss this at some point.

I'll just have to take it on faith that this is something we can't have, which is disappointing. Hopefully, after we talk, I'll understand more why that is.
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#534095
The Prefect wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 11:09 pm I feel stupid, but I still don't understand what that means. I'm sure it's my ignorance about this works technologically that is holding me back. Maybe we can just discuss this at some point.

I'll just have to take it on faith that this is something we can't have, which is disappointing. Hopefully, after we talk, I'll understand more why that is.
It's not something we can't have. It's just something we don't have. Yet.
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By The Prefect (Michael Shea)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Prefect
2E Sector 001 Regional Champion 2023
#534096
JeBuS wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 11:13 pm
The Prefect wrote: Mon Nov 09, 2020 11:09 pm I feel stupid, but I still don't understand what that means. I'm sure it's my ignorance about this works technologically that is holding me back. Maybe we can just discuss this at some point.

I'll just have to take it on faith that this is something we can't have, which is disappointing. Hopefully, after we talk, I'll understand more why that is.
It's not something we can't have. It's just something we don't have. Yet.
Fair enough. I'll amend. I still don't understand why we don't have it - beyond the obvious "because it hasn't been done yet." In other words, I'm not understanding why it's more work involved than I seem to think it is. Hopefully, some point we can talk and I'll understand better why that is. But, in any case, thanks for responding.
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