In this tab also the type of output can be selected (otherwise done at start):

The Calligram work area

In some cases, the Calligram black parts are not really reflecting a good snapshot, but when the two controls are set visible on this tab, the techie should be good.

The work area has four buttons:

• 'Create Calligram' = press this button to start the Calligram creation sequence. It may take 4-10 seconds to finish, depending on the speed of your system (i5 will take 4-7 seconds, i3 can easily take 12 seconds).
• 'Take snapshot' = press this button to take a snapshot from the attached webcam (or video cam). It does not trigger a tethered digital photo camera, because there is no interface between Calligram Creator and the application that manages a tethered camera (e.g. the Canon Rebel needs its own proprietary interface).
• 'Print Calligram' = this will send the currently showing Calligram to the printer. Make sure your printer has been preconfigured to match with the Calligram output size.
• 'Send and e-mail' = manually start the mail client. It will ask for a mail address, and the currently visible Calligram will be sent by e-mail. When the option 'Ask for e-mail address after Calligram completion' is checked, you get a pop-up window after Calligram creation asking for the e-mail address.

These 4 buttons are used for a normal (first) Calligram creation sequence, but have exactly the same functions when a reprint is requested from the 'Print and reprint' tab.

On the left, below the Calligram black and white source you see a zoom bar, and two quick zoom buttons. On their right two small buttons are added in this tab. These are only visible when the webcam is active. With these two buttons you can toggle between the webcam live stream, and the Calligram picture (still picture). Also, a second set of orientation radio buttons is available (landscape or portrait), which are synced between those in the 'Print and size' tab of the 'Admin' page (and vice versa). 

Below these four buttons two tabs are placed. The first tab has a few event controls (as shown in the screenshot above):

• Tweak the outline and the fill strengths. This is usually not required, but in some rare cases you might want to tweak the snapshot.
• Use a custom text instead of the pre-loaded file text. First check the box on the left, then type the text you want. Only two lines of text are visible, but the text may be bigger. Multiple words is possible, the minimum length must at least be one character. Even in case just the 'A' is provided, the entire Calligram will be built up with A's.
• Select if you like to create a Calligram or a Legogram
• The colour pattern of the Calligram:
  • On the left you see (in this example) four colour patches. These are the 4 colour codes in the colour code text file. When the application creates the colour profile from e.g. these 4 colours it will interpolate between each of the 4 colours, via the HSL colour system.
  • When you change the number of colours it will now create a next (random) colour at the bottom of these patches. When decreasing it will again delete the last colour patch (from the bottom). The colour profile is immediately updated.
  • To return to the text file patches, press the 'Revert' button. In case of a picture file, the 'Save' button is disabled (see also next bullet).
  • To save the current colour codes, press the 'Save' button. In case the original colour profile was a file with colour codes, it will replace the currently indicated colour code text file. In case the colour profile was generated on the spot and the original file was a picture file, the new on-the-fly colour profile is saved in a new file (a new filename request is prompted).
  • The 'Preset' identifier has 18 different presets.
  • The checkbox 'Radial' will create a circular colour profile, but only when custom colours are used (so: not valid for a picture file).
  • You can also change each individual colour patch, by clicking on it (the hand cursor indicates a clickable area). Make sure you first select the number of colours: when you now change the number of colours the colour patches can also change colour because it selects a random colour when more colours are chosen, but also discards previous colours when fewer colours are chosen.

Snapshot queue

The second tab contains a Hot Folder explorer. In case you want to create all snapshots at the time, and the process them later on, you can't use the 'Print and reprint' option. Instead, double-click on a picture in the overview. This will reload the snapshot, and you can now create a Calligram/Legogram, print, send e-mail, etc. When finished you are asked if the snapshot must be removed form this overview. If not, the picture remains visible. If yes, then the snapshot will be removed, but it has been saved on the backup folder anyway. In that case it can now be used from the 'Print and reprint' tab. This confirmation question can be turned off by unchecking the box in the tab 'Event Management', group 'General preferences', 'Ask for confirmation when reprinted'. The default option is to keep the image in the snapshot folder. You can force the snapshot to be deleted after postprocessing by checking the tickbox 'Remove the image after (post-)processing the Snapshot queue'. 

Alternatively, since this overview behaves as a Windows Explorer, you can also right-click on any image, and select an action from the pop-up menu. So: deleting an image will actually delete the image from the Hot folder directory! For extra convenience, the snapshot queue also has the controls embedded for skin and face detection. 

The other two techie interfaces

For completeness we will also show the two interfaces with the Emojigram and the Legogram:

The coloured patterns on top are the same ones as can be found in the Homework tab: every point represents an image of the library in the (Y)UV colour space.

The Legogram interface only has a simple selector of the paper orientation. The effect is immediate.