At 01:25 PM 3/30/2006 +0100, you wrote:


>Could you scan a typical page and write a small program to calculate 
>(number of black pixels) / total?  It would be quite easy to do this in VB etc.

;-) That was my first thought. Another idea might be scan one of *your*
typical pages and use an image manipulation program to do a Gaussian blur.
Either blur it completely or blur it enough that your Monte Carlo
methods work easily. You could calibrate it by creating, printing and
blurring a few patterns that are 5%/10%/25% etc. black. You'd want to
scan it (converting if necessary) to a 0/1 bitmap first, then convert
to gray scale. Programs like Photoshop (and I think Irfanview) have
an eyedropper that samples the RGB values at any given point.

It would be interesting to hear the results-- I've wondered about the
'5%' figure they typically use (also note that sometimes these things are
supplied with 'starter' cartridges that are not full, so your time to first
cartridge replacement is not as you'd expect. I know that with color
brochures the 5% figure is probably way low and color toner cartridges
are $$$ each times four. At least they don't dry out like #$#$# inkjets.

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com
->> Inexpensive test equipment & parts http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZspeff


-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist