Twips / Pixels and Wide Screen Monitors

[Guest]

Background: What are Twips and Pixels?

Twips are screen-independent units to ensure that the
proportion of screen elements are the same on all display
systems. A twip is defined as being 1/1440 of an inch.
(When is that backward counrty USA going to go METRIC)

A Pixel is a screen-dependent unit, standing for 'picture
element'. A pixel is a dot that represents the smallest
graphical measurement on a screen.
source:http://www.applecore99.com/api/api012.asp

Twip / Pixel Converter 1.0
Download Now
Free download 4.1M No. of downloads: 160
Publisher: Yellow Cow Productions
Date added: 26/07/2005
File size: 4.1M
Licence: Free
Minimum requirements: Windows
3.x/95/98/Me/NT/2000/2003 Server

"This small program will help developers convert Twips to
Pixels and Pixels to Twips quickly. As a developer knows
the ratio of twips to pixels changes with your screen
resolution. This will help you when making graphics for
your program. It uses an ActiveX Control that I developed,
which is reusable freely as long as you don't charge for it directly."
source:http://uk.builder.com/downloads/0,39026698,39178937s,00.htm

Question 1:
Why is it so ?
That the Ratio of Twips to Pixels changes with resolution.

Question 2:
Why do they call them Twips ?
I called my neighbour a Twip, and he hit me with a baseball bat. LOL.
Being a Twip is not a bad thing is it ?
Its Twits that are fools !

Question 3:
With very wide screen Monitors, say 108cm in Aspect
Ratios 1.77:1 (16:9) what happens in Vista (or XP) as
they only have preset aspect ratio screen resolutions of;
800x600
1024x768
1152x864
1280x600
1280x720
1280x768
1280x960
1280x1024
1400x1050
1600x900
1600x1200
1856x1392
1920x1080 High Defination (Good)
1920x1200
1920x1440
2048x1536
etc....

Question 4:Why do we need to convert between the two?

"Within Access, screen elements are measured in twips,
so if you get the width of a form (using its .WindowWidth
property) it will be returned in Twips, for example 14205.
However, most of the Win32 API calls, such as
GetWindowPlacement, will use pixels, and this will return
something like 947 for the width of the same form"
source: http://uk.builder.com/downloads/0,39026698,39178937s,00.htm

Durrh ! What does this mean, my on-screen ruler when
using Access is not going to give me accurate
measurement as when I use an API appliction ?

 

[Nick]

And your point?

Nick

 

[Guest]

Hi Nick

Question1:
Why do the Twips / Pixels ratio change when you change
the resolution, is it just because of the defination of Twips.

Question 2:
Why did they call them Twips ?

Question 3:
Using a wide screen monitor of 108cm, and changing the
XP OS standard resolutions, will that change the Twips / Pixel ratio?

Question 4:
Why do we need to convert between Twips and Pixels?

The problem I find is sometimes when I use the on-screen
ruler to measure a graphic or form, it does not print, or fit
on A4 paper when I print it.

Also I don't always get exactly the calculated size of
photos, graphics, the ruler conversion differs from the
calculated values, the printer is set up correctly. Its just that

 

[Guest]

Twips make like easy.

MS Access and Twips

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=210590

"Because Microsoft Access stores dimension / location
properties as twips, in certain cases you may have to
convert twips to pixels, such as when you call a Windows
API function. This article shows you how to do this

Remember that pixels are not always square (the height
and width are not the same); therefore, it is necessary to
pass in the desired "direction" to use (horizontal or
vertical)."


Twips, Inches and Millimeters

http://www.inetsoftware.de/products/crystalclear/Manual/Doc/Programming/RDC/units.html

"Twip (twentieth of a point) is a screen-independent unit
to ensure that the proportion and position of screen
elements are the same on all graphical display systems.
A twip is equal to a 20th of a printer's point.

Conversion
1 pica = 1/6 inch
1 point = 1/12 pica
1 twip = 1/20 point or 20 twips = 1 point
1 twip = 1/567 centimeter or 567 twips = 1 centimeter
1 twip = 1/1440 inch or 1440 twips = 1 inch

The number of twips per pixel depends on hardware and
screen resolution (e.g. 800x600: approx. 15 twips per
pixel)."

When you move up to HD big screen monitors of say
108cm, 122cm, 142cm and run them at HD Resolution
of 1920x1080 life gets interesting !

Good Onscreen rulers and Calipers are listed here:
http://twips.qarchive.org/

Developers don't forget VBcode, etc use twips, so your display will not be
accurate for all resolutions if you don't convert to twips.

Happy Twipping everyone.