Logos for the AVIC Z Series

[jewellboy]

I just wanted to post up a big thank you to vandal for doing this for all of us. I know I don't have the skills, so I appreciate you taking on this job. I just finished installing my z2 last week and then all of my icons disappeared

[lilbum]

I also want to thank Vandal for doing this. He didn't have to do this, especially trying to make icons for all the different Avic models. He could have just made ones just for his own deck and left it at that. But he's not , so THANX

[luisv]

Vandal.............. 3rd Kudos........ Thanks.....

 

On the color space used........ I would go with sRGB. This is likely the space that will give you the most accomodating gamut for the displays on the AVIC. Given the OS is Windows based, I would guess that will be the profile.

 

The added benefit is that you can either used Photoshop's Image Processor to batch the changes by simply selecting the sRGB option on the conversion/resize process and then make sure to embed the ICC Profile. The other option is to simply make an action that takes the logos you find and save two sRGB JPGs for each logo. From there you can convert to the final file formats.

 

Make sense? Did you already consider this?

[Vandal]

Vandal.............. 3rd Kudos........ Thanks.....

 

On the color space used........ I would go with sRGB. This is likely the space that will give you the most accomodating gamut for the displays on the AVIC. Given the OS is Windows based, I would guess that will be the profile.

 

The added benefit is that you can either used Photoshop's Image Processor to batch the changes by simply selecting the sRGB option on the conversion/resize process and then make sure to embed the ICC Profile. The other option is to simply make an action that takes the logos you find and save two sRGB JPGs for each logo. From there you can convert to the final file formats.

 

Make sense? Did you already consider this?

 

I'll check that profile again. I'm trying to use colors that match what Pioneer generated going off existing logos that did not change such as "Top 20 on 20". So far AppleRGB came out very close to whatever profile Pioneer used. The AVIC uses bare RGB555 BMPs and PIMs with no embedded color profile so the colors have to be right before the BMP/PIM is written.

 

I am not using JPG becuase that is a lossy format and these need to be of the highest quality at the time they are pasted on the background or they won't look good. This also means I cannot make the logos by resizing them in any bitmap (BMP, JPG, PNG, etc) file format or they will distort. They have to be exported from the scalable vector graphic in every size needed.

 

To generate the logos for the size ranges to cover the F series I had to make 150+ PNG file exports from Inkscape in 75 DPI to 770 DPI and each one had to be re-color profiled in photoshop. I just had to re-do this step all over again because I needed to remove all these graphics artifacts from the PDF/SVG to make the program find the logo edges correct. I also found and removed an XM goof on in the PDF...there is an oval shaped object partially obscuring the NASCAR letters of the channel 128 logo, if you zoom the PDF in far enough you'll see it.

 

I have a custom program just about ready that examines each PNG, pulls the largest sizes logo that will fit for each AVIC image size needed, and spits out PNG file of those. The program then converts those to the special format of each series. The F, Z, and D/N each use different formats and backgrounds.

[jewellboy]

wow, I understood almost none of that! Thanks again for doing this!

[MR. WOMO]

Vandal,

 

As a grpahic designer, I DID understand most of it, and you are to be commended highly for your work on this. I must ask though; it seems that XM will most likely supply all these station logos to Pioneer in the near future (I've heard that perhaps with the newest mapping update that folks may need to pay for). Doesn't it seem like what you are going through is an incredibly HUGE amount of work for something that may be released to everyone pretty soon - and that it would make more sense to just live with the generic "satellite logo" on the channels until then?

 

Trust me, I LOVE the station logos - I have been an XM subscriber for a long time, and think they help to add to the experience of listening to XM, but MAN what an ass-busting project!

 

I think I'd only attempt it if there was no indication that they wouldn't release them to us EVER!

 

Cheers (and a hearty thumb-up to your efforts!)

Kev

[bdmpastx]

Mr. Womo that would all depend on if the logos were worth 250 bucks to you. From what I have seen, the "map updates" are much to be desired. It may be in the map updates and it may not be who knows. If you've dealt with Pioneer long enough you know not to trust them.

[Vandal]

Vandal,

 

As a grpahic designer, I DID understand most of it, and you are to be commended highly for your work on this. I must ask though; it seems that XM will most likely supply all these station logos to Pioneer in the near future (I've heard that perhaps with the newest mapping update that folks may need to pay for). Doesn't it seem like what you are going through is an incredibly HUGE amount of work for something that may be released to everyone pretty soon - and that it would make more sense to just live with the generic "satellite logo" on the channels until then?

 

Trust me, I LOVE the station logos - I have been an XM subscriber for a long time, and think they help to add to the experience of listening to XM, but MAN what an ass-busting project!

 

I think I'd only attempt it if there was no indication that they wouldn't release them to us EVER!

 

Cheers (and a hearty thumb-up to your efforts!)

Kev

 

This started out looking like a huge task with trying to manual pick and place the largest sized image in the boxes, especially once I tried making F series sized images, even at 1600x1200 trying to zoom up and select the edges of 360 pixel graphic is a pain. That changed once I got my program written to do that automatically. So if need to tweak something I can just re-run the program and wait 5 minutes. I just had to make such an adjust to impove the quality on some of the image. Even still some of these smaller images will likely need some manual touch up, but that can be done later.

 

Right now I'm trying sort out the mapping of private to public channel numbers in the ImageTbl.dat because manual editing was getting convoluted. If two or more station entries point to the same public channel number it pisses off the AVIC and it stops loading any logos past that channel index.