[GRASS5] color in GRASS - solved for PNG but I don't know why

[Sjors]

Michael Barton wrote:

> OK,
>
> I've solved the problem but don't know why it is a problem. I've been 
> messing with this all day with various suggestions. I'm copying this 
> to the list in case it indicates an obscure bug that needs fixing.
>
> Here is the situation:
>
> I have a
>
>     GRASS_TRUECOLOR: TRUE
>
> statement in my .grassrc5 file (exactly this format, following the 
> format for other statements in the file)
>
> When I ran a g.gisenv, it said that
>
>    GRASS_TRUECOLOR=TRUE
>
> (exactly this format). When I typed d.mon start=PNG it responded
>
>    PNG: GRASS_TRUECOLOR status: FALSE
>
> (exactly this format). So, I have the right version of PNG and the 
> correct statement in .grassrc5, but PNG didn't know to use truecolor.
>
> So, I tried to set this variable at the shell level using
>
> setenv GRASS_TRUECOLOR TRUE
>
> (quitting GRASS first, then restarting)
>
> Now GRASS creates a 332 Kb PNG file that DOES look like the screen. 
> Clearly it IS now producing a 24 bit graphic image. Apparently, the 
> truecolor statement in the .grassrc5 file is not parsing correctly on 
> my system.
>
This seems exactly as a problem I had with debug in grass57. The problem 
being that this must be declared as a shell (like bash) variable and has 
nothing to do with .grassrc (GRASS variable). It's also inclined in the 
fact you have to use 'export GRASS_TRUECOLOR', 'export' being the key 
word here.
Markus then informed me that he working on a list. So you could add it 
to your bash of whatever shell (in .bashrc) or issue the command before 
starting GRASS. (Not sure if I'm completely right here, but that's how I 
understand it)

> Do I need to change the format to
>
> GRASS_TRUECOLOR=TRUE
>
> --using an equals sign instead of a colon? Is this some other kind of 
> error. It SEEMS that my other settings in .grassrc5 are being read 
> correctly (but now I'm unsure).
>
> I tried tiff output using my script to send the display to the 
> cell_driver and then to r.out.tiff. However, it still looks 8bit. 
> Apparently, it is not convinced by the truecolor environment variable 
> yet.
>
> Michael
>
>

>
> On Tuesday, March 23, 2004, at 02:28  PM, Glynn Clements wrote:
>
>>
>> Michael Barton wrote:
>>
>>> Well, I THOUGHT this might be the magic solution.
>>>
>>> I had GRASS_TRUECOLOR=true in lowercase. With great excitement, I just
>>> tried it with GRASS_TRUECOLOR=TRUE (restarting GRASS, of course) and
>>> sadly had the same result.
>>
>>
>> 1. Which versions of GRASS/PNGdriver/GD are you using? The PNG driver
>> in 5.0.x and 5.3 snapshots prior to 2003-10-31 only support 24-bit
>> images if built using GD 2.x. 5.3 from 2003-10-31 onwards doesn't use
>> GD, and always supports 24-bit images.
>>
>> 2. If you're using a suitable PNG driver, did you export the variable
>> setting?
>>
>> For bash, you need to use either:
>>
>>     GRASS_TRUECOLOR=TRUE
>>     export GRASS_TRUECOLOR
>> or:
>>     export GRASS_TRUECOLOR=TRUE
>>
>> [The latter is a bash extension; the former should work with all
>> Bourne-style shells.]
>>
>> For C shells (csh, tcsh), the syntax is:
>>
>>     setenv GRASS_TRUECOLOR TRUE
>>
>> -- 
>> Glynn Clements <glynn.clements at virgin.net>
>>
> ______________________________
> Michael Barton, Professor & Curator
> Department of Anthropology
> Arizona State University
> Tempe, AZ  85287-2402
> USA
>
> voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671
>
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