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Is a prop powerfull enough to render a pdf file? — Parallax Forums

Is a prop powerfull enough to render a pdf file?

rwgast_logicdesignrwgast_logicdesign Posts: 1,464
edited 2012-07-08 20:42 in Propeller 1
I was just looking around at LCD screens and started wondering if it would be possible to use the propeller to render a pdf. Just as a proof of concept maybe vga or ntsc could be used as the display, but in reality using something like a huge sparkfun monochrome lcd would be the more practical application or even an e-ink if one were to find one for a reasonable price with good documentation,

Ive never delt with pdf files as far as any codeing projects go so im wondering if someone out there knows a little bit about them and what kind of power it would take to render one. I would think pulling the pdf from sd and then using a prop to render it and display would be possible but most likely very slow since pdfs are usully 5 to 50mb.

Comments

  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2012-07-08 13:36
    Decoding and rendering a PDF would not be a practical app for the Propeller. PDFs rely on Posscript, so you would need a Postscript interpreter just to get started. The dictionaries alone would exceed the Propeller's available memory.

    -Phil
  • Mark_TMark_T Posts: 1,981
    edited 2012-07-08 14:19
    No, its a microcontroller - you need many orders of magnitude more RAM and ROM perhaps an order of magnitude more processor speed I suspect.
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2012-07-08 14:23
    The early laser printers were considered ok if they had at least 0.5MB of RAM, but 1MB was better. I believe it took several MB of ROM for the Postscript interpreter. That was for black & white. Nowadays, Postscript is much more complex and color is standard.
  • rod1963rod1963 Posts: 752
    edited 2012-07-08 15:45
    Not a good match, especially with today's postscript with color. But go ahead and get the ghostscript source and documentation and determine for yourself.
  • RickBRickB Posts: 395
    edited 2012-07-08 18:41
    I have 4 or 5 sets of postscript roms for the motorola 68000. Get that 68K interpreter running.:lol:
  • frank freedmanfrank freedman Posts: 1,983
    edited 2012-07-08 19:13
    Not sure why you would want to use the prop for rendering, that is a fairly compute intensive process. But to generate output for a project that will be rendered on a PC w/ Distiller or opensource of the same function or even sent to a PS printer, would be more than reasonable. Of course you could also consider using html output of your data for display on a remote computer screen as well. You need only implement the parts of the standard you intend to use. PS has been around a long time. Look for some of the stuff from the early '80s.Check out Don Lancaster's work and his Guru's Lair site http://www.tinaja.com/

    FF
  • rod1963rod1963 Posts: 752
    edited 2012-07-08 20:42
    Yes one could use the old PS stuff that's been around since the late 80's but I wonder if it's compatible with the latest PDF's.
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