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StrataVision 3D

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StrataVision 3D is a comprehensive 3D computer graphics software package developed by Strata. Features include primitives-based modeling with texturising, keyframe animation, raytrace and later radiosity rendering under the name of Raydiosity .

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66-607: It is notable for being part of the first wave of 3D graphics in desktop publishing . One particular milestone was rendering the environment in the blockbuster game Myst entirely using StrataVision. The multimedia novel, Sinkha , and the Warner Bros 3D Looney Tunes Project were also created initially using this software. StrataVision was released as the first product of the Strata company in 1989 to facilitate professional 3D graphics on regular desktop Macs . In 1993, StudioPro

132-688: A brand , corporate identity , or event. Such products, which are often informally called promo products , swag ( mass nouns ), or freebies ( count nouns ), are used in marketing and sales . Often they are of the tchotchke type. They are given away or sold at a loss to promote a company , corporate image , brand , or event. They are often distributed as handouts at trade shows , at conferences , on sales calls (that is, visits to companies that are purchasing or might purchase), and as bonus items in shipped orders. They are often used in guerrilla marketing campaigns. Ones for video games are often called feelies . The first known promotional products in

198-883: A photo to be taken of them with the gift item , which can be used by the company for promotional purposes. Other companies provide luxury gifts such as handbags or scarves to celebrity attendees in the hopes that the celebrities will wear these items in public, thus garnering publicity for the company's brand name and product. Brand awareness is the most common use for promotional items. Other objectives that marketers use promotional items to facilitate include employee relations and events, tradeshow traffic-building, public relations, new customer generation, dealer and distributor programs, new product introductions, employee service awards, not-for-profit programs, internal incentive programs, safety education, customer referrals, and marketing research. Promotional items are also used in politics to promote candidates and causes. Promotional items as

264-519: A Catalogue Group could also offer improved buying terms, a network of fellow distributor companies, and provide other support services. Examples of catalogue groups include Trade Only Spectrum Catalogue, Page Group and the Envoy Group, offering discounted products to a select group of distributors who have all been in the industry for over three years. Members of the Envoy Group have regional exclusivity as one of their perks providing some protection to

330-506: A DTP program. However, many web designers still prefer to write HTML without the assistance of a WYSIWYG editor, for greater control and ability to fine-tune the appearance and functionality. Another reason that some Web designers write in HTML is that WYSIWYG editors often result in excessive lines of code, leading to code bloat that can make the pages hard to troubleshoot . Desktop publishing produces primarily static print or digital media ,

396-436: A Typewriter , and it had to actually explain how a Mac could do so much more than a typewriter. The ability to create WYSIWYG page layouts on screen and then print pages containing text and graphical elements at 300 dpi resolution was a major development for the personal computer industry. The ability to do all this with industry standards like PostScript also radically changed the traditional publishing industry, which at

462-426: A bad reputation as a result of untrained users who created poorly organized, unprofessional-looking " ransom note effect " layouts. (Similar criticism was leveled again against early World Wide Web publishers a decade later.) However, some desktop publishers who mastered the programs were able to achieve near professional results. Desktop publishing skills were considered of primary importance in career advancement in

528-469: A cause. Almost anything can be branded with a company's name or logo and used for promotion. Common items include T-shirts , caps, keychains, posters , bumper stickers , pens , mugs , koozies , toys or mouse pads . The largest product category for promotional products is wearable items, which make up more than 30% of the total. Eco-friendly promotional products such as those created from recycled materials and renewable resources have been experiencing

594-480: A local printer, then print the same file at DTP service bureaus using optical resolution 600+ ppi PostScript printers such as those from Linotronic . Later, the Macintosh II was released, which was considerably more suitable for desktop publishing due to its greater expandability, support for large color multi-monitor displays, and its SCSI storage interface (which allowed hard drives to be attached to

660-424: A logo, company name, or message usually in specific PMS colors. Distributors help end-users gather artwork in the correct format, and in some cases also create artwork for end-users. Distributors then send the artwork to the manufacturers, printers, or suppliers along with instructions on where and how to print the logo. Many distributors operate on the internet and/or in person. Many suppliers wish not to invest in

726-426: A parameter designating the way text flows around the object (also known as "wraparound" or "runaround"). As desktop publishing software still provides extensive features necessary for print publishing, modern word processors now have publishing capabilities beyond those of many older DTP applications, blurring the line between word processing and desktop publishing. In the early 1980s, the graphical user interface

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792-446: A printable area if bleed printing is not possible as is the case with most desktop printers . A web page is an example of a digital page that is not constrained by virtual paper parameters. Most digital pages may be dynamically re-sized, causing either the content to scale in size with the page or the content to re-flow . Master pages are templates used to automatically copy or link elements and graphic design styles to some or all

858-450: A product in front of potential customers is a completely different skill set and a complex process. Within the UK and Ireland, the promotional merchandise industry a comprehensive network of promotional merchandise distributor companies exist. A promotional merchandise distributor is defined as a company who "has a dedicated focus to the sale of promotional merchandise to end-users". (An 'end-user'

924-497: A representation industry focus group also found that the current fastest-growing product was hand sanitiser , which at the time coincided with the outbreak and growth of swine flu in the UK. Sales of the US promotional products industry totaled $ 24 billion in 2017 and growing at a rate of 2.5 percent since 2012, according to statistics released by IBISWorld. There are 26,413 business in this category and they employ 392,820 people across

990-604: A result deemed more realistic, by taking into account light reflection on textures, atmospheric conditions, inter-reflections between objects, among other things. Raydiosity is often described as Strata's experimental version of radiosity , and at the time was the only implementation of a radiosity-like rendering algorithm available to Macintosh users. It was only found in StrataVision and StrataStudio Pro. Another Strata specific rendering, found in StrataStudio Pro,

1056-408: A significant surge in popularity. Most promotional items are relatively small and inexpensive, but can range to higher-end items; for example celebrities at film festivals and award shows are often given expensive promotional items such as expensive perfumes , leather goods, and electronics items. Companies that provide expensive gifts for celebrity attendees often ask that the celebrities allow

1122-474: A software which separates itself from the TeX world and develops itself in the direction of WYSIWYG markup-based typesetting is GNU TeXmacs . On a different note, there is a slight overlap between desktop publishing and what is known as hypermedia publishing (e.g. web design , kiosk, CD-ROM ). Many graphical HTML editors such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver use a layout engine similar to that of

1188-420: A specific visual effect, attracting more attention. The giving of corporate gifts vary across international borders and cultures, with the type of product given often varying from country to country. Promotional merchandise is rarely bought directly by corporate companies from the actual manufacturers of promotional products. A manufacturer's expertise lies in the physical production of the products, but getting

1254-463: A tool for non-commercial organizations, such as schools and charities are often used as a part of fund raising and awareness-raising campaigns. A prominent example was the Livestrong wristband , used to promote cancer awareness and raise funds to support cancer survivorship programs and research. Using promotional merchandise in guerrilla marketing involves branding in such a way as to create

1320-596: A turnover of AUD$ 1340m in Australia and NZ$ 144m in New Zealand APPA states the effectiveness of promotional merchandise is demonstrated by their research which shows that 52% of recipients of promotional merchandise say their impression of a company is more positive after receiving a promotional product, 76% recall the name advertised on the product, 55% keep the item for more than one year, nearly 50% of recipients use them daily and 52% of people do business with

1386-576: A wide variety of content, from menus to magazines to books, without the expense of commercial printing. Desktop publishing often requires the use of a personal computer and WYSIWYG page layout software to create documents for either large-scale publishing or small-scale local printing and distribution – although non-WYSIWYG systems such as TeX and LaTeX are also used, especially in scientific publishing . Originally, desktop publishing methods provided more control over design, layout, and typography than word processing software but

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1452-477: A ‘ business card ’ demonstrating the concept of what a company did, rather than a critical sales tool. In 2009 published results from research involving a representative group of distributor companies, which indicated the usage of hard copy catalogues was expected to fall up to 25% in 2010. Distributor companies are experts in sourcing creative promotional products. Traditionally, to ensure that they had an effective manufacturer network, they kept themselves aware of

1518-421: Is a corporate company or organization that purchases promotional merchandise for their own use.) These distributor companies have the expertise to not only take the product to market but are also to provide the expert support required. The unique aspect of promotional merchandise is that on most occasions the product is printed with the logo, or brand, of a corporate organization. The actual manufacturers rarely have

1584-423: Is important. In the 2010s, interactive front-end components of TeX, such as TeXworks and LyX , have produced "what you see is what you mean" ( WYSIWYM ) hybrids of DTP and batch processing. These hybrids are focused more on the semantics than the traditional DTP. Furthermore, with the advent of TeX editors the line between desktop publishing and markup-based typesetting is becoming increasingly narrow as well;

1650-590: Is that DTP software is generally interactive and "What you see [onscreen] is what you get" ( WYSIWYG ) in design, while other digital typesetting software, such as TeX, LaTeX and other variants, tend to operate in " batch mode ", requiring the user to enter the processing program's markup language (e.g. HTML ) without immediate visualization of the finished product. This kind of workflow is less user-friendly than WYSIWYG, but more suitable for conference proceedings and scholarly articles as well as corporate newsletters or other applications where consistent, automated layout

1716-488: Is the creation of documents using dedicated software on a personal ("desktop") computer . It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online content. Desktop publishing software can generate page layouts and produce text and image content comparable to the simpler forms of traditional typography and printing . This technology allows individuals, businesses, and other organizations to self-publish

1782-504: The BPMA (British Promotional Merchandise Association) established in 1965. These trade associations represent the industry and provide services to both manufacturers and distributors of promotional merchandise. The BPMA provides a range of services including market research into the UK promotional merchandise industry. Since 2010 the BPMA has partnered with Trade Only, A UK company that organizes

1848-532: The United States were commemorative buttons dating back to the election of George Washington in 1789. During the early 19th century, there were some advertising calendars , rulers , and wooden specialties, but there was no organized industry for the creation and distribution of promotional items until later in the 19th century. Jasper Meek, a printer in Coshocton, Ohio , is considered by many to be

1914-429: The fonts available on the user's web browser or display device. A wide variety of DTP applications and websites are available and are listed separately. The design industry standard is PDF . The older EPS format is also used and supported by most applications. Promotional merchandise Promotional merchandise are products branded with a logo or slogan and distributed at little or no cost to promote

1980-663: The 1980s, but increased accessibility to more user-friendly DTP software has made DTP a secondary skill to art direction , graphic design , multimedia development, marketing communications , and administrative careers . DTP skill levels range from what may be learned in a couple of hours (e.g., learning how to put clip art in a word processor), to what's typically required in a college education. The discipline of DTP skills range from technical skills such as prepress production and programming, to creative skills such as communication design and graphic image development . As of 2014 , Apple computers remain dominant in publishing, even as

2046-458: The 2010s, vendors have sought to provide users with a single application that can meet almost all their publication needs. In earlier modern-day usage, DTP usually did not include digital tools such as TeX or troff , though both can easily be used on a modern desktop system, and are standard with many Unix-like operating systems and are readily available for other systems. The key difference between digital typesetting software and DTP software

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2112-447: The UK and Ireland promotional merchandise industry had an overall value of £850m. By mid-2009 the market had decreased to £712m as the UK's worst-ever recession took a grip. In July 2009 published research demonstrated that the top 10 promotional merchandise products were promotional pens , bags, clothing , plastic items, USB memory sticks , mugs , leather items, polyurethane conference folders, and umbrellas . The July research from

2178-464: The United States. The most common promotional items include T-shirts (25% of the market), writing instruments, tech accessories, bags, keychains , brochures , bookmarks and notepads . The Australasian Promotional Products Association (APPA) has conducted research to show the value of the promotional merchandise industry in Australia and New Zealand. According to APPA the industry has

2244-509: The complexities surrounding the processes to brand the promotional products required. In the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand companies and corporations mainly purchase their merchandise through promotional merchandise distributor companies. These distributors are called "promotional consultants" or "promotional product distributors". Promotional products by definition are custom printed with

2310-437: The composition and editing of purely textual documents. Word did not begin to acquire desktop publishing features until a decade later, and by 2003, it was regarded only as "good" and not "great" at desktop publishing tasks. The term "desktop publishing" is attributed to Aldus founder Paul Brainerd , who sought a marketing catchphrase to describe the small size and relative affordability of this suite of products, in contrast to

2376-758: The creation of manuals and other long-format documents. Desktop publishing moved into the home market in 1986 with Professional Page for the Amiga , Publishing Partner (now PageStream) for the Atari ST , GST's Timeworks Publisher on the PC and Atari ST, and Calamus for the Atari TT030 . Software was published even for 8-bit computers like the Apple II and Commodore 64 : Home Publisher, The Newsroom, and geoPublish . During its early years, desktop publishing acquired

2442-418: The early years, promotional merchandise catalogues were very much sales tools and customers would buy the products offered on the pages. In the 1990s, new catalogue services emerged for distributors from various sources. The nineties also saw the emergence of ‘catalogue groups’ - groups that offered a unique catalogue to a limited geographical group of promotional merchandise distributor companies. Membership in

2508-427: The early years, the range of products available was limited; however, in the early 1980s demand grew from distributors for a generic promotional product catalogue they could brand as their own and then leave with to their corporate customers. In later years, these catalogues could be over-branded to reflect a distributor's corporate image; distributors could then give them to their end user customers as their own. In

2574-401: The expensive commercial phototypesetting equipment of the day. Before the advent of desktop publishing, the only option available to most people for producing typed documents (as opposed to handwritten documents) was a typewriter , which offered only a handful of typefaces (usually fixed-width) and one or two font sizes. Indeed, one popular desktop publishing book was titled The Mac is Not

2640-554: The first trade association for the industry. That organization is now known as the Promotional Products Association International or PPAI, which currently has more than 10,000 global members. PPAI represents the promotional products industry of more than 22,000 distributors and approximately 4,800 manufacturers. The UK and Ireland promotional merchandise industry formally emerged as corporate marketing became more sophisticated during

2706-502: The focus of this article. Similar skills, processes, and terminology are used in web design . Digital typography is the specialization of typography for desktop publishing. Web typography addresses typography and the use of fonts on the World Wide Web . Desktop style sheets apply formatting for print, Web Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) provide format control for web display. Web HTML font families map website font usage to

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2772-592: The inability to control letter spacing , kerning , and other typographic features , and the discrepancies between screen display and printed output. However, it was an unheard-of combination at the time, and was received with considerable acclaim. Behind the scenes, technologies developed by Adobe Systems set the foundation for professional desktop publishing applications. The LaserWriter and LaserWriter Plus printers included scalable Adobe PostScript fonts built into their ROM memory. The LaserWriter's PostScript capability allowed publication designers to proof files on

2838-644: The industry's largest tradeshow (The PPAI Expo), as well as training, online member resources, and legal advocacy. Another organization, the Advertising Specialty Institute , promotes itself as the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry. In Europe, the existing EPPA will be replaced by a new organization setup by the key countries welcoming all other countries to join. The new umbrella organization will be called EPMO or PME (Product Media Europe). According to research completed and published in 2008

2904-670: The introduction of TeX , and was extended in 1985 with the introduction of LaTeX . The desktop publishing market took off in 1985 with the introduction in January of the Apple LaserWriter laser printer for the year-old Apple Macintosh personal computer. This momentum was kept up with the release that July of PageMaker software from Aldus , which rapidly became the standard software application for desktop publishing. With its advanced layout features, PageMaker immediately relegated word processors like Microsoft Word to

2970-441: The late 1950s. Before this, companies may have provided occasional gifts , but there was no recognised promotional merchandise industry. The real explosion in the growth of the promotional merchandise industry took place in the 1970s. At this time an ever-increasing number of corporate companies recognised the benefits gained from promoting their corporate identity , brand or product, with the use of gifts featuring their own logo. In

3036-455: The latter has evolved to include most, if not all, capabilities previously available only with dedicated desktop publishing software. The same DTP skills and software used for common paper and book publishing are sometimes used to create graphics for point of sale displays , presentations , infographics , brochures , business cards , promotional items , trade show exhibits , retail package designs and outdoor signs . Desktop publishing

3102-412: The launch an online trade sourcing service, which united distributors with manufacturers worldwide. This service is purely for vetted trade promotional merchandise distributor companies and is not available to corporate end user companies. By 2008 almost every distributor had a website demonstrating a range of available promotional products. Very few offer the ability to order products online mainly due to

3168-517: The layout, placed, or – with database publishing applications – linked to an external source of text which allows multiple editors to develop a document at the same time. Graphic design styles such as color, transparency and filters may also be applied to layout elements. Typography styles may be applied to text automatically with style sheets . Some layout programs include style sheets for images in addition to text. Graphic styles for images may include border shapes, colors, transparency, filters, and

3234-443: The low entry barrier of the market Before the 1990s, the industry had a peak season in which the majority of promotional products were sold. The season featured around Christmas and the giving of gifts. This changed significantly in the early 1990s as Christmas gifts became less appropriate in a multicultural society. Companies were also becoming more inventive in their marketing and were now using promotional merchandise throughout

3300-773: The most popular software has changed from QuarkXPress – an estimated 95% market share in the 1990s – to Adobe InDesign . An Ars Technica writer said in an article: "I've heard about Windows-based publishing environments, but I've never actually seen one in my 20+ years in design and publishing". There are two types of pages in desktop publishing: digital pages and virtual paper pages to be printed on physical paper pages . All computerized documents are technically digital, which are limited in size only by computer memory or computer data storage space. Virtual paper pages will ultimately be printed , and will therefore require paper parameters coinciding with standard physical paper sizes such as A4, letterpaper and legalpaper. Alternatively,

3366-457: The network. MacUser in the September 1992 issue gave 4 1/2 mice (out of five) to StrataVision 3D 2.5 praising its excellent rendering quality and advanced texture control despite the slow rendering and the mediocre animation tools. This graphics software –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Desktop publishing Desktop publishing ( DTP )

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3432-453: The originator of the industry when he convinced a local shoe store to supply book bags imprinted with the store name to local schools. Henry Beach, another Coshocton printer and a competitor of Meek, picked up on the idea, and soon the two men were selling and printing marble bags, buggy whips , card cases, fans , calendars, cloth caps, aprons , and even hats for horses . In 1904, 12 manufacturers of promotional items got together to found

3498-401: The pages of a multipage document. Linked elements can be modified without having to change each instance of an element on pages that use the same element. Master pages can also be used to apply graphic design styles to automatic page numbering. Cascading Style Sheets can provide the same global formatting functions for web pages that master pages provide for virtual paper pages. Page layout is

3564-678: The primary UK Trade Show for the Promotional Product Industry, this takes place at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry usually the third week of January. The BPMA host an awards dinner and banquet on the middle night of the exhibition which is called the Trade Only National Show. In the United States, PPAI (the Promotional Products Association International ) is the not for profit association, offering

3630-463: The process by which the elements are laid on the page orderly, aesthetically and precisely. The main types of components to be laid out on a page include text , linked images (that can only be modified as an external source), and embedded images (that may be modified with the layout application software). Some embedded images are rendered in the application software, while others can be placed from an external source image file. Text may be keyed into

3696-479: The set up to actually print the item. Promotional merchandise distributor companies are experts in artwork and printing processes. In addition to this, the promotional merchandise distributors also provide full support in processing orders, artwork, proofing, progress chasing and delivery of promotional products from multiple manufacturing sources. In the UK, the industry has two main trade bodies, Promota (Promotional Merchandise Trade Association) founded in 1958, and

3762-472: The staffing to service end-users' needs, which is the purpose of merchandise distributor companies. Promotional merchandise is used globally to promote brands, products, and corporate identity. They are also used as giveaways at events, such as exhibitions and product launches. Promotional products can be used for non-profit organizations to promote their cause, as well as promote certain events that they hold, such as walks or any other event that raises money for

3828-492: The system). Macintosh-based systems continued to dominate the market into 1986, when the GEM -based Ventura Publisher was introduced for MS-DOS computers. PageMaker's pasteboard metaphor closely simulated the process of creating layouts manually, but Ventura Publisher automated the layout process through its use of tags and style sheets and automatically generated indices and other body matter. This made it particularly suitable for

3894-616: The time was accustomed to buying end-to-end turnkey solutions for digital typesetting which came with their own proprietary hardware workstations. Newspapers and other print publications began to transition to DTP-based programs from older layout systems such as Atex and other programs in the early 1980s. Desktop publishing was still in its early stage in the early 1980s. Users of the PageMaker/LaserWriter/Macintosh 512K system endured frequent software crashes, Mac's low-resolution 512x342 1-bit monochrome screen,

3960-729: The trade product ranges available from mailings received from manufacturers themselves and by attending trade exhibitions across the world, for example the Trade Only National Show in the UK, the Promotional Product Service Institute (PSI) show in Europe and the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) Show in Las Vegas. In 2004, the way the trade sourced promotional products began to change with

4026-462: The virtual paper page may require a custom size for later trimming. Some desktop publishing programs allow custom sizes designated for large format printing used in posters , billboards and trade show displays . A virtual page for printing has a predesignated size of virtual printing material and can be viewed on a monitor in WYSIWYG format. Each page for printing has trim sizes (edge of paper) and

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4092-423: The year to support the promotion of brands, products and events. In the early 21st century the role of a promotional merchandise catalogue started to change, as it could no longer fully represent the vast range of products in the market place . By 2007, catalogues were being mailed to targeted customer lists, rather than the blanket postal mailings that had taken place before. The catalogue had now become seen more as

4158-536: Was added to the product line, with StrataVision remaining a reduced-feature "light" version. In May 2000, the Strata product lineup was consolidated into Strata 3D which is still developed to this day. At the time, StrataVision and StrataStudio Pro offered certain features found on dedicated workstations that had not available before on Macintosh. StrataVision 2.0 introduced the Raydiosity rendering algorithm, an algorithm slower than ray tracing , but offering

4224-418: Was called RayPainting and applied splotches of colour onto the surface of the object, making it looks like if it were hand painted. Different effects can be applied to simulate the medium used, like, for example, chalk or water color. StrataVision 2.0 introduced an extension architecture, named SRX, that allowed, for example, to interoperate with Pixar RenderMan or to distribute rendering across computers on

4290-500: Was first developed at Xerox PARC in the 1970s. A contradictory claim states that desktop publishing began in 1983 with a program developed by James Davise at a community newspaper in Philadelphia. The program Type Processor One ran on a PC using a graphics card for a WYSIWYG display and was offered commercially by Best Info in 1984. Desktop typesetting with only limited page makeup facilities arrived in 1978–1979 with

4356-560: Was still in its embryonic stage and DTP software was in a class of its own when compared to the leading word processing applications of the time. Programs such as WordPerfect and WordStar were still mainly text-based and offered little in the way of page layout, other than perhaps margins and line spacing. On the other hand, word processing software was necessary for features like indexing and spell checking – features that are common in many applications today. As computers and operating systems became more powerful, versatile, and user-friendly in

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