Project Phoenix: 1973 K5 Blazer Restoration - Nerds - Trucks 4x4 @ Off-Road.com
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Project Phoenix: 1973 K5 Blazer Restoration - NerdsProject Pheonix
Publish date: Oct 1, 1998
By: Donald K. Duncan
Source: Chevy at Off-Road.com
    Yes I know this is a 4x4 site but I can't help but mention the software tools I'm using for this project. 
 
  When restoring a vehicle it is important to develop a good foundation and begin with the frame and axles.  Similarly, it's important to choose a superior OS for support of the tools used for the project as that OS will form the foundation for everything else to run upon.  The operating system I'm using at home and work for project development is FreeBSD 2.2.7.   For those attempting to live in a Microsoft Free zone, this is a robust, bullet-proof, full-featured operating system.  I can't recommend it more highly. 
    The Gimp stands for The Gnu Image Manipulation Program. This wonderful, easy to use PhotoShop-like tool has been ported to just about every Unix platform on the planet and best of all, it's FREE. Take a looksee at http://www.gimp.org.   The above image of the rainbow blazer was produced using The Gimp.   All photo editing and retouching as well as graphics and logos are produced using The Gimp. 
  chevynova.jpg   This is one of my favorite Gimp images to date.  It was produced by removing the chrome emblem from the rear of Project Phoenix,  slapping it on the scanner and performing some cleanup of the resultant image with Gimp.  I then used the supernova effect in Gimp to produce the starburst behind the image.  To give you some food for thought as to the power of The Gimp, the Chevy emblem is about 2 feet long but the scanner bed is 8.5 x 11 inches.  Go figure... 
    Scanner driver software was provided by the Sane project.  This project consists of a front end GUI and backend device drivers.  Supported scanners include HP, UMAX and a variety of digital cameras.  Try it!    Web page development is being done using Netscape in conjuction with running local http servers on my FreeBSD boxes.  The server daemon I chose is Apache and it just so happens that this is the same server employed by off-road.com. 
For schematic capture I'll be using XCircuit which was written by tim@bach.ece.jhu.edu. More to come! 
 
 
 
Questions or Comments about this page should be directed to: duncan@off-road.com.
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Source: Chevy at Off-Road.com, 10/1/1998
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