Simulating forest pictures by impact printers

Elliot L. Amidon; E. Joyce Dye

Treesearch

Simulating forest pictures by impact printers

Informally Refereed

Authors:

Elliot L. Amidon, E. Joyce Dye

Year:

1978

Type:

General Technical Report

Station:

Pacific Southwest Research Station

Source:

General Technical Report PSW-025. Berkeley, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 11 p.

Download (PDF 582 KB)

Download (PDF 582 KB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/24079.pdf

Abstract

Two mechanical devices that are mainly used to print computer output in text form can simulate pictures of terrain and forests. The line printer, which is available for batch processing at many computer installations, can approximate halftones by using overstruck characters to produce successively larger "dots." The printer/plotter, which is normally used as an interactive terminal, permits fine adjustment of the space between characters in the plot mode. This control over blank space improves tonal appearance and permits solid black. The two types of printers have complementary uses. The line printer is best for high volumes of data, while the slower printer/plotter offers a greater range of densities.

Keywords

Mapping systems, computer simulation, pattern recognition, impact printers, grey scale

Citation

Amidon, Elliot L.; Dye, E. Joyce. 1978. Simulating forest pictures by impact printers. General Technical Report PSW-025. Berkeley, CA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station. 11 p.