Load a Photo Yes/No?

[Richard Wagner]

As some of you might already know Casio's CG10 and TI's nspire both allow you to actually upload your own image files to them for display directly on those calculators, and you can actually graph over them, etc !!

Does the HP Prime offer this powerful useful feature as well?

I have not found anything about that in PDF file so far.

I have been using the HP Prime Emulator while waiting for my new HP Prime to arrive from amazon.com... so glad that unlike the overly proprietary rigorous restrictions of the TI nspire software, HP Prime is allowing anyone to download the Prime Emulator and connectivity kit -- which makes it enormously far more easier and certainly less stressful for Students and casual users alike! One reason I do not recommend TI nspire to people, single-user restricted license key for just one installation! Sheesh!
(As to sophistication of their student/teacher software to what HP Prime is offering, I'm sure a higher-grade interactive student/teacher package is being worked on by HP Prime developers... Yes, No?) Point me to that please if it exists.

I can't wait to actually start using this beautiful new machine!

[jebem]

Welcome to the forum and good luck with our new machine.

At least images can be loaded as program objects, courtesy of Joe Horn.
http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-369...ght=images

[Joe Horn]

(09-01-2014 10:11 PM)jebem Wrote:  At least images can be loaded as program objects, courtesy of Joe Horn.
http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-369...ght=images

Giving credit where credit is due, it's actually courtesy of Erwin Reid, who wrote the PrimeComm program that makes loading of ANY images into the HP Prime totally easy. It was used to create my Prime Pix Gallery.

[Tim Wessman]

No, you cannot currently load an image to use as a background in a graph. Yes, it is on the list of potential future enhancements.

Also, I think the US version of the Prizm only allows signed images generated by Casio. That is the only difference between the US one, and the rest of world one as far as I can tell.

[Richard Wagner]

I guess we will have to wait for ability to graph over images which as thread indicates *is* indeed a great learning aid and instructional enhancement.
There is no reason not to have such a useful feature, and should have been considered during original design phase in my opinion.
We don't always have to adopt/support everything the competitors are doing; but in this instance yes, we do. :-)

(09-01-2014 10:11 PM)jebem Wrote:  Welcome to the forum and good luck with our new machine.

At least images can be loaded as program objects, courtesy of Joe Horn.
http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-369...ght=images

[Richard Wagner]

I copied image into "..../appdata/..." whatever folding in Win8.1, restarted the emuluator, and there it processed Grob data into an image.

What I am not sure about, as per my original concern, can this be used as a
BACKGROUND when graphing or using geometry apps? If not, PLEASE make this ability possible in next upgrade!

(09-01-2014 10:36 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  

(09-01-2014 10:11 PM)jebem Wrote:  At least images can be loaded as program objects, courtesy of Joe Horn.
http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-369...ght=images

Giving credit where credit is due, it's actually courtesy of Erwin Reid, who wrote the PrimeComm program that makes loading of ANY images into the HP Prime totally easy. It was used to create my Prime Pix Gallery.

[walter b]

(09-01-2014 09:02 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  Does the HP Prime offer this powerful useful feature as well?

You must be kidding.

[Joe Horn]

(09-02-2014 02:58 AM)walter b Wrote:  

(09-01-2014 09:02 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  Does the HP Prime offer this powerful useful feature as well?

You must be kidding.

Actually, Walter, graphing curves over a photo of a trajectory trail, a hanging chain, and the Gateway Arch in Saint Loius, IS a powerful way to teach some of the differences between parabolas, catenaries, and weighted catenaries, especially for "visual learners". It's like having graph paper printed right on a photo, except you don't need a pencil eraser to correct goofs or previous attempts or serendipitous trial-and-error explorations (which IMHO is the very best learning method).

[Joe Horn]

(09-02-2014 02:38 AM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  But how we CREATE OUR OWN images; for crying out loud that is what people would expect to be able to do! not merely load someone elses choices.

Reverse engineer da binary code? haha.

That was already answered:

(09-01-2014 10:36 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  Giving credit where credit is due, it's actually courtesy of Erwin Reid, who wrote the PrimeComm program that makes loading of ANY images into the HP Prime totally easy. It was used to create my Prime Pix Gallery.

To be explicit, PrimeComm lets you load ANY image into your Prime, in one easy step. It's instantaneous for the emulator, but takes about 30 seconds to send a full-screen image to a real Prime. It takes care of the converting for you, as well as the resizing. The only thing missing is non-streaky dithering down to 32K colors, but that's easily done on your computer before sending the image to PrimeComm.

[debrouxl]

There's also an online file converter for multiple calculator models of 3 brands, see http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-439.html -> http://tiplanet.org/forum/editgx.php . It handles image color conversion by itself, and supports scrolling, for images larger than 320x240.

The fact that PrimeComm and libhpcalcs transfers are slow is a limitation of the USB HID protocol used by HP. There's a clear upside to using HID instead of custom protocols: that way, on Windows, the Prime doesn't require drivers, and therefore, HP doesn't have to perform support for Windows-driver-related trouble or have their custom drivers signed (*).
Other, saner OS, don't require drivers for most devices using custom protocols.

The fact that the Prime displays a range of kinds of incorrect behaviour in daily usage, especially after transferring large files (~1 MB) and/or executing them afterwards, remains unfixed, almost a year after the initial market availability of the Prime. For now, like many users, you'll find yourself carrying a paper clip, or equivalent, to reboot your calculator on a frequent basis.


*: signing requirements are worse if the driver is based on generic software such as libusb. On Win 8 / 8.1, the CAT files must be signed as well, which is done at install time. At least, self-signing works, for now. Who knows how Windows 9 and successors are going to inconvenience third-party developers even further...

[Richard Wagner]

I had this as a BMP, PNG, and a JPG, and have been unsuccessful so far to get the Prime emuluator to display this trying to use PrimeComm to create Grob-file program.

http://i.imgur.com/2leHH4G.png

Image has to be reduced in colors? 320x240? and what else?

Even though we can not graph on these yet, it would be great to see looks on friends faces when they see a photo familiar to them on my calculator :-)

Since I'm sharing images, here is a screen-cap of a project done using GNU-Free-Pascal's Lazarus-IDE for Linux (yay!) and (yawn) Windows...

http://i.imgur.com/VUDshrA.png

24-hour clock uses a Single Hand to indicate 24-hour time.
Here we see Local, UTC, and Local Sidereal Time all displayed at once :-)

This is easy stuff, but most people find it quite fascinating and geeky.

[Joe Horn]

(09-02-2014 04:26 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  I had this as a BMP, PNG, and a JPG, and have been unsuccessful so far to get the Prime emuluator to display this trying to use PrimeComm to create Grob-file program.

http://i.imgur.com/2leHH4G.png

Image has to be reduced in colors? 320x240? and what else?

No, you don't need to reduce the number of colors OR resize it to 320×240. PrimeComm takes care of all that. And it sends your example image to my Prime just fine. Here's a screen cap of the emulator:

(09-02-2014 04:26 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  http://i.imgur.com/VUDshrA.png

Without doing any color reduction or resizing myself, PrimeComm sent it to the emulator which shows it like this:



Suggestions: (1) Use PrimeComm with the emulator instead of a real Prime; (2) use the F10 button on your computer to send any image to the emulator; (3) then tell the emulator to send the image to your real Prime. That takes one more step than necessary, but you get instant satisfaction seeing the image on the emulator's screen.

[Richard Wagner]

what is the very latest version of Primecomm? I have 0.9xxx, I even found 0.8xxx,
none of them work to produce an image on the emulator.
I see file listed! when Run is clicked an "Orange !" appears.

Some can email me with more specific instructions/suggestions if you wish. Thanks.

(09-02-2014 04:51 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  

(09-02-2014 04:26 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  I had this as a BMP, PNG, and a JPG, and have been unsuccessful so far to get the Prime emuluator to display this trying to use PrimeComm to create Grob-file program.

http://i.imgur.com/2leHH4G.png

Image has to be reduced in colors? 320x240? and what else?

No, you don't need to reduce the number of colors OR resize it to 320×240. PrimeComm takes care of all that. And it sends your example image to my Prime just fine. Here's a screen cap of the emulator:

(09-02-2014 04:26 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  http://i.imgur.com/VUDshrA.png

Without doing any color reduction or resizing myself, PrimeComm sent it to the emulator which shows it like this:



Suggestions: (1) Use PrimeComm with the emulator instead of a real Prime; (2) use the F10 button on your computer to send any image to the emulator; (3) then tell the emulator to send the image to your real Prime. That takes one more step than necessary, but you get instant satisfaction seeing the image on the emulator's screen.

[oldhpfan]

(09-02-2014 04:26 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  Since I'm sharing images, here is a screen-cap of a project done using GNU-Free-Pascal's Lazarus-IDE for Linux (yay!) and (yawn) Windows...

I use Lazarus for Windows...it's no yawn to me, plus it's nice to know I can go mac/unix stuff etc. if I ever need to .

[Joe Horn]

(09-02-2014 06:39 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  what is the very latest version of Primecomm? I have 0.9xxx, I even found 0.8xxx,
none of them work to produce an image on the emulator.
I see file listed! when Run is clicked an "Orange !" appears.

Aha! You're almost there! Instead of tapping Run, press Enter (or tap Edit) when the name of the image program is selected in the Program Catalog. This will display the source code. Then press Esc, which will compile the source code so that it can run. (You only have to do that once.) Then tap Run. Sorry for not mentioning that!

[Richard Wagner]

Well it is here. I still need time to work with it to know what my 1st impressions will really be.

http://i.imgur.com/VbPypRW.png

I like working with geometry and function-plotting type problems.

Trying to let it charge for an hour before connecting it to PC.

An hour takes 60 whole minutes, eh? (how well I should know with my 24-Hour special clock)! HaHa

[Mark Hardman]

(09-03-2014 10:11 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  Well it is here. I still need time to work with it to know what my 1st impressions will really be.

http://i.imgur.com/VbPypRW.png

I like working with geometry and function-plotting type problems.

Trying to let it charge for an hour before connecting it to PC.

An hour takes 60 whole minutes, eh? (how well I should know with my 24-Hour special clock)! HaHa

First order of business should be upgrading the firmware to the latest version.

[Richard Wagner]

Well-deserved criticisms of the HP Prime, to be certain I have not read the entire PDF material for this unit, but just by using it for a day, disappointment is higher than expected:

1) Catalog does not contain ALL available commands (listed in ONE convenient place)
2) 'Grad' is stupidly missing for some reason?!?!?
3) conversion to/from mils is not included (angular measurement conversions????)
4) Constants appears to be short-changed and quite limited

found it very easy to accidently leave a menu or submenu,

touch screen is very sensitive to touch -- is there any way to control that sensitivity, or even limit areas subjected to touch (yes, he's serious)

counting number of keystrokes needed to achieve a given task, comparing with other calculators, gives concern

Had I been on development team, I certainly would have done things a little differently, and would have insisted on some "legacy functionality", and a nice complement of Units Conversions and Constants!

*** HP Prime, IMHO is clearly a WORK IN PROGRESS. ***

Will I return calculator, no, even with all of its incredible blatant shortcomings.

Nice try. As anyone can clearly see who has used it to date, it is clearly a work in progress, and still must provide proper "legacy" functionality, as well as keeping up with modern standards. Now, where did I put my Sliderule?

Would I recommend HP Prime to others? Not without explaining these short-comings, and why I personally feel this unit is lacking because of being left out. Average student (let alone teachers or instructors) in todays classroom would probably not care, not notice, these shortcomings.

http://i.imgur.com/HGuIKGA.png

[Tim Wessman]

(09-04-2014 06:49 PM)Richard Wagner Wrote:  1) Catalog does not contain ALL available commands (listed in ONE convenient place)

What do you think is missing? You can't just lump all possible commands from the applications in there since there are quite a few that exist for EACH application. How would you distinguish which is which?

If it is a system command, it is in there.

Quote:2) 'Grad' is stupidly missing for some reason?!?!?

The CAS doesn't support grads, and nobody uses them anymore.

Quote:3) conversion to/from mils is not included (angular measurement conversions????)

Under length i see a "mil" unit. You looking for it somewhere else?

Quote:4) Constants appears to be short-changed and quite limited

True, they are not system objects that can be used as a symbol.

Quote:counting number of keystrokes needed to achieve a given task, comparing with other calculators, gives concern

Compared to which calculators? Competition? Or old HPs?

[Richard Wagner]

My review of HP Prime, take two:

Under UNITS / (G) Angle, I get a peculiar menu:
1 tr ;; time resolved angular displacement? Or what is this?
2
3
4 gon 5 arcmin 6 arcs 7 rad 8 deg 9 grad

How, by example, is 'tr' used?

gon = gradian = grad, yes? Is gon and grad identical then?

Okay, we can thus convert to/from grad in this manner.

You see 'mils' under Length, not under Angular Measurement.

mils-angle is used in highly advanced military and astronomical, and even radio tracking, work, of extreme precision, and other uses.

Where I am coming from with a "universal Catelogue" of commands, functions, etc., is what many of us would hope to be able to do while in Programming Mode:
to be able to use the power we see our Calculator exert, between applications, in a way that "crosses over" those applications to produce new tasks. Or simply put: to be allowed to go into Programming,
set Graphics Screen, have access to graphic drawing primitives (line, circle, point), and be expected to use any data type supported by the Calculator, Lists, Matrices, Units, Constants all included of course. Work our own formulas/algorithms, and then apply those fantastic mathematical routines we have access to in Numerical-and/or-CAS modes to that user-Program-generated data!

By not seeing these things in that Catalog listing, is suggesting that Programming has been "dumbed down"; restricted to work only through a locked applications own environment... Grrr.

We can use a given Application to generate data. That data is retained.
Then Program algorithms that read that data... but do we have access to all of the mathematical routines in numerical/plotting modes?
This is where I get confused and frustrated that they limit things still!

I was hoping there is / will be / a way to bridge that.

and just where is the GeoGebra-like constructs? Ok Ok. I'm kidding. I think.

This is how we get ourselves to explore deeper into things...
and no doubt, as appropriate, corrections offered.