> I still don't Know how to create my own patterns: it was very simple on
> cam-6 to create and edit a pattern, but at the moment I can't find the
> way to "build" my own images. I' ve used xfig to create jpg, gif and
> bitmaps and then I've renamed those files using the extension .pat but
> it doesn't seem to work. What can I do? Is there any program that suites
> my actual needs?

Here's an answer about converting files, that comes from the file
"/cam8/doc/FAQ":

   Look at the man page for the "ppmtopat" program -- this is a unix
   utility that takes a ppm file, and changes it into a ".pat" file and a
   ".map" file.  If you have a "gif" for example, you type the following
   at the unix prompt:
   
        giftoppm filename.gif | ppmtopat newname 
   
   This would produce "newname.pat" and "newname.map", which you use in
   your experiment exactly as you expect
   
        "" newname.map file>palette
        "" newname.pat file>cam       show
   
   You may want to gzip the .pat file to save space -- "file>cam" will
   automatically ungzip a pat file as it loads it.  Note that there are
   conversion programs in the same directory as "giftoppm" to convert
   between a very wide variety of image formats: your original color
   images can be in almost any format.


If you want to create .pat files directly, one easy way is to use the
program "campat":  it has a man page.  You should be able to find
examples of text files that describe patterns in some of the
experiment directories.  For example, look at
"/cam8/demos/hpp/2blocks.8p".  By convention, the input files for
the campat program end with ".8p".  To generate the file
"2blocks.pat.gz", you would use the unix command,

        campat < 2blocks.8p | gzip >! 2blocks.pat.gz