Tess v0.4 - a C++/Perl web graphics library

Brief
-----

Tess is a C++ library that helps automate final assembly of tedious
graphic design tasks (e.g. from photoshop or gimp), such as conjuring
piles of web page-specific navigation features.  Tess can composite
an arbitrary stack of RGBA images, draw antialiased TrueType text
(via FreeType), and generate a few shapes and effects.  It groks
PPM and PAM files, and includes a Perl binding.

This is a rough cut release, but I was delaying enough already..

Features
--------

basics:
- rgba pixels (8-bits per channel)
- layering and arbitrary compositing stacks

typography:
- anti-aliased TrueType fonts via FreeType
- automatic track- and pair-kerning (soon)

tools:
- copy, blur, fade, flatten
- draws lines, beziers and rectangles

files:
- reads and writes PPM and PAM

Beta anti-features
------------------
- unbalanced api; the author implemented what he needed
- only works with roman-style, unicode-charmap fonts (may never change)
- doesn't grok png or jpeg yet
- doesn't do type inclination, pair-kerning or draw type on a bezier yet
- doesn't consider malloc failures interesting

Tested on Linux 2.0.30 (gcc 2.7.2.1) and Solaris 2.5.1 (CC 4.1)

Related Links
-------------

Gimp    - http://www.gimp.org
gifdraw - http://www.boutell.org/gd

ImageMagick - http://
netpbm      - ftp://

Last Words
----------

This code is released into the public domain.  Use it as you see fit, but
I am not responsible for any outcome.

Comments and suggestions are welcome.  Bugs in the code are self-correcting,
but you can let me know about them anyway.  If you end up using the library,
drop a word.

Jeremy Wohl / jeremyw@evantide.com / January 17, 1999
http://www.evantide.com/~jeremyw/software.html