Internet Graphics Technologies

This is a comparison of the strengths of FutureSplash Player and FutureSplash Animator relative to other currently available graphics technologies that can be used with an Internet browser.

FUTURESPLASH

FutureSplash Player uses a very compact vector based format to deliver interactive graphics and animations on the Internet. The key benefits of FutureSplash Player are:

GIF AND JPEG BITMAPS AND IMAGE MAPS

Currently, most graphics on the Internet are stored as bitmaps in the JPEG or GIF format. GIF files are normally best for line art while JPEG files are best for photographic images. The FutureSplash Player vector format is superior to GIF files for line art because files are typically smaller and the images can be scaled and zoomed in on. Also, FutureSplash Player supports high quality gradients. For photographic images, a JPEG bitmap can be embedded into a FutureSplash Player file so you can take advantage of the benefits of both the JPEG and FutureSplash Player formats.

Image maps are used in conjunction with GIF or JPEG files to provide clickable buttons on a Web page. FutureSplash Player provides buttons that highlight when the mouse is over them or the user clicks on them. Also, FutureSplash Player buttons are handled entirely in the client browser which makes them faster than image maps which are processed on the server.

QUICKTIME, WINDOWS AVI AND MPEG MOVIES

There are various movie formats designed for playing video. These can be used for animations but these files are much larger than the vector based FutureSplash Player animations. They also do not provide interactive buttons. Also since FutureSplash Player animations can be scaled to any size without loss of quality it is possible to make FutureSplash Player movies with much larger dimensions than typical video streams.

MACROMEDIA SHOCKWAVE FOR DIRECTOR

FutureSplash Player is similar to Macromedia Shockwave for Director in that both products provide a way to embed interactive graphics in Web pages. There are several key differences

VECTOR FILE VIEWERS

There are several Navigator plug-ins that support vector file formats. These include the Corel CMX viewer, ShockWave for Freehand, and Micrografx QuickSilver. Unlike FutureSplash Player, none of the currently available plug-ins support interactive buttons, antialiasing, and animation.

JAVA

Java can be used to display animation and support interactive buttons on a Web page. Java is a programming language just like C++ and requires a programming background. FutureSplash Animator is an interactive drawing and animation program. Java is a complementary technology to FutureSplash Player. When faster Java interpreters are available, we will provide a version of FutureSplash Player that can run as a Java applet so FutureSplash Animator animations can be integrated with Java. Currently FutureSplash Player is implemented as a Navigator plug-in and ActiveX control because they provide the best performance.

VRML

VRML is a 3D graphics format.. FutureSplash Animator is optimized for 2D graphics and provides much smaller file sizes than VRML files.

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