| Animations: A can or worms? [message #38024] |
Tue, 17 February 2004 09:25  |
Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997
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Senior Member |
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Hi everyone,
I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes as a
can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of animations
with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and AVI2IDL
requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers go
over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a solution
NOW!
Thanks,
Haje
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38072 is a reply to message #38024] |
Thu, 19 February 2004 15:06  |
andrew.cool
Messages: 47
Registered: July 2003
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Member |
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"Haje Korth" <haje.korth@jhuapl.edu> wrote in message news:<c12ibm$b74$1@aplcore.jhuapl.edu>...
> Andrew,
> I looked into this license issue once before when they were still trying to
> make money of the patent. They ticked me off so bad, that I never bothered
> dealing with UNISYS again. I heard from RSI a while ago that they are
> checking with the lawyers on how to make GIF available again to customers in
> countries, where the patent has expired. I am still waiting to hear more.
> Maybe IDL 6.1 will be the answer???
>
> Haje
>
Hi Haje,
Yep, when the patent was still in force in Oz, they wanted something
like USD$1000, so we said Buggar Off!
But now, it's free in Oz and some other places, or at least for the
cost of 2 faxes... ;-)
And although PNG has replaced and in some ways surpassed GIF as
Michael Wallace said, some folk still find a use for the old ways too.
Cheers,
Andrew Cool
DSTO, Adelaide, South Australia
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38081 is a reply to message #38024] |
Thu, 19 February 2004 09:53 |
JD Smith
Messages: 850
Registered: December 1999
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Senior Member |
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On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:00:28 -0500, Haje Korth wrote:
> Reimar,
> thanks for your suggestion. However, I really like to go with a file format
> that can be used with a standard software (see other replies). As I said
> AVI2IDL is really pretty good. So as a Windoof user I am happy and I feel
> sorry for UNIX people that are not able to use it...
Unix users might want to take a look at MEncoder, the encoding half of the
very popular free swiss-army video player MPlayer
(http://www.mplayerhq.hu). Both can playback and encode essentially any
format under the sun (often producing better quality animations in
less time than commercial encoders). The list of supported codecs is
actually somewhat frightening:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/codecs-status.html.
Of interest to IDL users is the ability to encode to many of the various
codecs and container formats from a large pile of PNG files; see:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/menc-feat-enc-images.ht ml
This include MNG, the PNG analog of animated GIFs, along with
MPEG1-3, WMV1/2, DiVX3,4,5, etc. through the open source libavcodec
package bundled inside of MPlayer/MEncoder (and others).
Anyway, I've not experimented with it, but it's been in the back of my
mind for when that next animation project pops up. If anyone plays with
it, I'd appreciate feedback on which codes/formats produce the best
results for various types of animations. Beware that the
installation/compilation process can be somewhat involved.
JD
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38084 is a reply to message #38024] |
Thu, 19 February 2004 06:55 |
Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997
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Senior Member |
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Paul,
yes, indeed, nice animations. But I am missing the instructions how to make
my own animations. Can you provide me with some guidance?
Thanks,
Haje
--
"Paul Sorenson" <aardvark62@msn.com> wrote in message
news:403412a6$1_3@127.0.0.1...
> What I've been doing is generating a series of png files and animating
them
> with java. I wrote an animation player in java that lets the user sweep
> through the animation with their arrow keys if they want to. You can have
a
> look at some examples on my web page: www.paulsorenson.com . The
animations
> on that page automatically cache themselves on your machine via java
> webstart. At this point, I'm not sure how to remove the cache :-) Maybe
> just seek and destroy the files:-)
>
> -Paul Sorenson
>
>
> "Haje Korth" <haje.korth@jhuapl.edu> wrote in message
> news:c0tiq7$dqi$1@aplcore.jhuapl.edu...
>> Hi everyone,
>> I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes
as
> a
>> can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of
animations
>> with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
>> acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and
AVI2IDL
>> requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
>> state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
>> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers
go
>> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
>> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a
solution
>> NOW!
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Haje
>>
>>
>
>
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38086 is a reply to message #38024] |
Thu, 19 February 2004 06:48 |
Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997
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Senior Member |
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Andrew,
I looked into this license issue once before when they were still trying to
make money of the patent. They ticked me off so bad, that I never bothered
dealing with UNISYS again. I heard from RSI a while ago that they are
checking with the lawyers on how to make GIF available again to customers in
countries, where the patent has expired. I am still waiting to hear more.
Maybe IDL 6.1 will be the answer???
Haje
"Andrew Cool" <andrew.cool@dsto.defence.gov.au> wrote in message
news:c6d70400.0402181521.1ea43648@posting.google.com...
> Michael Wallace <mwallace.removethismunge@swri.edu.invalid> wrote in
message news:<1035c1ks11nt3c3@corp.supernews.com>...
>> It would be nice to see RSI add some support for MNG. Just as PNG is
>> replacing GIF, MNG should be replacing animated GIFs. For simple
>> animations, MNG would be viable especially now that web browsers are
>> starting to support it. However, this is all a pipe dream since IDL
>> doesn't support the format. Oh, well.
>>
>> mw
>
> Michael,
>
> The LZW algorithm patent has expired in many countries, and it's a
> fairly simple process to get permission from UNISYS to use LZW in
> non-commercial work, whereupon RSI will activate GIF in your IDL licence.
>
> Ask, and ye might receive...
>
> Andrew Cool
>
> DSTO, Adelaide, South Australia
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38087 is a reply to message #38024] |
Thu, 19 February 2004 06:43 |
Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997
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Senior Member |
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Rick,
I recompiled the routines since this is by far easier than checking changes
in definitions in export.h and idl32.lib. :-) I found by the way another
codec that gives smaller files than MPEG 4, good quality, and is as open
source available for Windows and MAC for Quicktime and WMP: VP3. It can be
found at http://www.vp3.com.
Haje
PS: I could not get DivX to work on my WMP, but I will not bother trying any
further. Too much work....
"Rick Towler" <rtowler@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:c1133h$e3g$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
>
> "Haje Korth" wrote...
>
>> I went back to recompile AVI2IDL for IDL v6.0.
>
> AFAIK, the same .dlm will work with at least 5.5-6.0 so you really don't
> need to recompile.
>
>> The codec questions is really a tough one. I want a codec that gives
>> great animation quality, small file size, and cross-system
compatibility.
>
> Heh, you want it all. And I suppose you want it open source and free :)
>
>> I actually got good quality and reasonable file size with the Indeo
Video
>> 5.10 codec.
>
> The indeo5.1 and the sorenson codecs (quicktime pro) are pretty good for
> animations created in IDL. Indeo5.1 is probably the most "compatible" as
> decoders are available for the more common platforms.
>
> I have found DivX and WindowsMedia9 codecs to be the best overall with
full
> motion animations and use these formats for presentations. Newer versions
> of DivX should work with WMP as I have it working here.
>
>> This makes me wonder, why isn't there an animation standard just like
>> PDF for text documents?
>
> Well it isn't for lack of trying. That's what QuickTime and WMV (to a
> lesser extent) are working towards.
>
> -Rick
>
>
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38089 is a reply to message #38024] |
Wed, 18 February 2004 21:45 |
Yunxiang Zhang
Messages: 19
Registered: October 2003
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Junior Member |
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Hey, Paul
Nice website. Works pretty fluent with IE but my firefox doesn't know how
to open jnlp files although it work fine with other common applets. So
what is jnlp and how to make my firefox understand it? Anybody knows how?
Thanks!
Yunxiang
On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Paul Sorenson wrote:
> What I've been doing is generating a series of png files and animating them
> with java. I wrote an animation player in java that lets the user sweep
> through the animation with their arrow keys if they want to. You can have a
> look at some examples on my web page: www.paulsorenson.com . The animations
> on that page automatically cache themselves on your machine via java
> webstart. At this point, I'm not sure how to remove the cache :-) Maybe
> just seek and destroy the files:-)
>
> -Paul Sorenson
>
>
> "Haje Korth" <haje.korth@jhuapl.edu> wrote in message
> news:c0tiq7$dqi$1@aplcore.jhuapl.edu...
>> Hi everyone,
>> I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes as
> a
>> can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of animations
>> with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
>> acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and AVI2IDL
>> requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
>> state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
>> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers go
>> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
>> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a solution
>> NOW!
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Haje
>>
>>
>
>
>
--
Yunxiang ZHANG
Rm. W080
James H Clark Center Tel: (650) 723 1087
318 Campus Drive Fax: (650) 723 9173
Stanford, CA 94305 E-mail: yxzhang@Stanford.EDU
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38090 is a reply to message #38024] |
Wed, 18 February 2004 21:04 |
Paul Sorenson
Messages: 48
Registered: May 2002
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Member |
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"Haje Korth" <haje.korth@jhuapl.edu> wrote in message
news:c10219$cae$1@aplcore.jhuapl.edu...
> Mike,
> Thank you for your reply. I tried animated gifs before. The problem there
> was the players. In a scientific animation with 10 images, it does not
help
> me seeing all these within 0.5 seconds in certain players.
My Java animation player (see below) allows users to control the speed of
an animation.
-Paul Sorenson
"Paul Sorenson" <aardvark62@msn.com> wrote in message
news:403412a6$1_3@127.0.0.1...
> What I've been doing is generating a series of png files and animating
them
> with java. I wrote an animation player in java that lets the user sweep
> through the animation with their arrow keys if they want to. You can have
a
> look at some examples on my web page: www.paulsorenson.com . The
animations
> on that page automatically cache themselves on your machine via java
> webstart. At this point, I'm not sure how to remove the cache :-) Maybe
> just seek and destroy the files:-)
>
> -Paul Sorenson
>
>
> "Haje Korth" <haje.korth@jhuapl.edu> wrote in message
> news:c0tiq7$dqi$1@aplcore.jhuapl.edu...
>> Hi everyone,
>> I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes
as
> a
>> can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of
animations
>> with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
>> acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and
AVI2IDL
>> requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
>> state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
>> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers
go
>> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
>> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a
solution
>> NOW!
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Haje
>>
>>
>
>
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38096 is a reply to message #38024] |
Wed, 18 February 2004 15:54 |
Michael Wallace
Messages: 409
Registered: December 2003
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Senior Member |
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>> It would be nice to see RSI add some support for MNG. Just as PNG is
>> replacing GIF, MNG should be replacing animated GIFs. For simple
>> animations, MNG would be viable especially now that web browsers are
>> starting to support it. However, this is all a pipe dream since IDL
>> doesn't support the format. Oh, well.
>>
>> mw
>
>
> Michael,
>
> The LZW algorithm patent has expired in many countries, and it's a
> fairly simple process to get permission from UNISYS to use LZW in
> non-commercial work, whereupon RSI will activate GIF in your IDL licence.
>
> Ask, and ye might receive...
Yes, it is a fairly simple process to activate GIF in IDL, but you don't
have to do anything special to use write_png. We've been using PNGs for
years now with no problems. PNG was specifically designed as a
patent-free replacement for GIF and even managed to improve on the
compression technique. Like GIF, PNG also has transparency, but unlike
GIF, PNG also supports opacity. And PNG can support a greater color
depth. As far as I can tell, PNG is a superior format. The only reason
to even think of using GIF is if you want animation.
And the LZW patents haven't expired everywhere yet. The US patent
expired last June, but the patents in Canada and most of Europe won't
expire until sometime this year.
mw
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38098 is a reply to message #38024] |
Wed, 18 February 2004 15:21 |
andrew.cool
Messages: 47
Registered: July 2003
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Member |
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Michael Wallace <mwallace.removethismunge@swri.edu.invalid> wrote in message news:<1035c1ks11nt3c3@corp.supernews.com>...
> It would be nice to see RSI add some support for MNG. Just as PNG is
> replacing GIF, MNG should be replacing animated GIFs. For simple
> animations, MNG would be viable especially now that web browsers are
> starting to support it. However, this is all a pipe dream since IDL
> doesn't support the format. Oh, well.
>
> mw
Michael,
The LZW algorithm patent has expired in many countries, and it's a
fairly simple process to get permission from UNISYS to use LZW in
non-commercial work, whereupon RSI will activate GIF in your IDL licence.
Ask, and ye might receive...
Andrew Cool
DSTO, Adelaide, South Australia
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38103 is a reply to message #38024] |
Wed, 18 February 2004 07:57 |
Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997
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Senior Member |
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Mike,
Thank you for your reply. I tried animated gifs before. The problem there
was the players. In a scientific animation with 10 images, it does not help
me seeing all these within 0.5 seconds in certain players. Thus one had to
search for a while to find a reasonable player. I really want to go with a
standard like quicktime or WMP that everyone has.
Greetings,
Haje
"Michael Wallace" <mwallace.removethismunge@swri.edu.invalid> wrote in
message news:1035c1ks11nt3c3@corp.supernews.com...
>> Hi everyone,
>> I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes
as a
>> can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of
animations
>> with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
>> acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and
AVI2IDL
>> requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
>> state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
>> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers
go
>> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
>> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a
solution
>> NOW!
>
> It would be nice to see RSI add some support for MNG. Just as PNG is
> replacing GIF, MNG should be replacing animated GIFs. For simple
> animations, MNG would be viable especially now that web browsers are
> starting to support it. However, this is all a pipe dream since IDL
> doesn't support the format. Oh, well.
>
> mw
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38112 is a reply to message #38024] |
Tue, 17 February 2004 16:22 |
Michael Wallace
Messages: 409
Registered: December 2003
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Senior Member |
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> Hi everyone,
> I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes as a
> can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of animations
> with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
> acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and AVI2IDL
> requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
> state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers go
> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a solution
> NOW!
It would be nice to see RSI add some support for MNG. Just as PNG is
replacing GIF, MNG should be replacing animated GIFs. For simple
animations, MNG would be viable especially now that web browsers are
starting to support it. However, this is all a pipe dream since IDL
doesn't support the format. Oh, well.
mw
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38149 is a reply to message #38024] |
Sat, 21 February 2004 12:32 |
Yunxiang Zhang
Messages: 19
Registered: October 2003
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Junior Member |
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Hi Paul,
Thanks for the info. I think the reason is I installed my firefox over
firebird and I could not get the download manager working properly.
Instead of reinstall firefox, I just installed a mimetype editor extention
and now I can tell ff what to do with jnlp files. How nice to see the
animation on my gentoo box!:)
BTW: Is it ok to download your jar files and make my own animation out of
it for my homework?
Best,
Yunxiang
On 20 Feb 2004, Paul Sorenson wrote:
> Hi Yunxiang,
>
> Hmmm, have you tried getting a fresh download from www.java.com?
> There is a button on that page that downloads just what is needed for
> a user, rather than the entire developement package.
>
> JNLP is Java Network Launch Protocol. .jnlp files are used by java
> webstart. Java webstart causes java to be launched from web pages in
> the same way as programs like Windows Media Player get launched. In
> other words, webstart lets java run as what I think of as a satellite
> application rather than a plug-in or embedded applet. Webstart gets
> installed from the "Get It Now" button at www.java.com
>
> -Paul Sorenson
>
>
> Yunxiang Zhang <yxzhang@stanford.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.44.0402182139210.815-100000@elaine21.Stanford.EDU>...
>> Hey, Paul
>>
>> Nice website. Works pretty fluent with IE but my firefox doesn't know how
>> to open jnlp files although it work fine with other common applets. So
>> what is jnlp and how to make my firefox understand it? Anybody knows how?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Yunxiang
>>
>> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Paul Sorenson wrote:
>>
>>> What I've been doing is generating a series of png files and animating them
>>> with java. I wrote an animation player in java that lets the user sweep
>>> through the animation with their arrow keys if they want to. You can have a
>>> look at some examples on my web page: www.paulsorenson.com . The animations
>>> on that page automatically cache themselves on your machine via java
>>> webstart. At this point, I'm not sure how to remove the cache :-) Maybe
>>> just seek and destroy the files:-)
>>>
>>> -Paul Sorenson
>>>
>>>
>>> "Haje Korth" <haje.korth@jhuapl.edu> wrote in message
>>> news:c0tiq7$dqi$1@aplcore.jhuapl.edu...
>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>> I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes as
>> a
>>>> can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of animations
>>>> with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
>>>> acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and AVI2IDL
>>>> requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
>>>> state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
>>>> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers go
>>>> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
>>>> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a solution
>>>> NOW!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Haje
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38158 is a reply to message #38089] |
Fri, 20 February 2004 11:26 |
aardvark62
Messages: 6
Registered: November 2002
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Junior Member |
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Hi Yunxiang,
Hmmm, have you tried getting a fresh download from www.java.com?
There is a button on that page that downloads just what is needed for
a user, rather than the entire developement package.
JNLP is Java Network Launch Protocol. .jnlp files are used by java
webstart. Java webstart causes java to be launched from web pages in
the same way as programs like Windows Media Player get launched. In
other words, webstart lets java run as what I think of as a satellite
application rather than a plug-in or embedded applet. Webstart gets
installed from the "Get It Now" button at www.java.com
-Paul Sorenson
Yunxiang Zhang <yxzhang@stanford.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.44.0402182139210.815-100000@elaine21.Stanford.EDU>...
> Hey, Paul
>
> Nice website. Works pretty fluent with IE but my firefox doesn't know how
> to open jnlp files although it work fine with other common applets. So
> what is jnlp and how to make my firefox understand it? Anybody knows how?
>
> Thanks!
> Yunxiang
>
> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Paul Sorenson wrote:
>
>> What I've been doing is generating a series of png files and animating them
>> with java. I wrote an animation player in java that lets the user sweep
>> through the animation with their arrow keys if they want to. You can have a
>> look at some examples on my web page: www.paulsorenson.com . The animations
>> on that page automatically cache themselves on your machine via java
>> webstart. At this point, I'm not sure how to remove the cache :-) Maybe
>> just seek and destroy the files:-)
>>
>> -Paul Sorenson
>>
>>
>> "Haje Korth" <haje.korth@jhuapl.edu> wrote in message
>> news:c0tiq7$dqi$1@aplcore.jhuapl.edu...
>>> Hi everyone,
>>> I need to bring up a question (again after a year) that David describes as
> a
>>> can of worms: Animations. I need to create a massive amount of animations
>>> with IDL. The problem: Animated GIFs are due to license issues not
>>> acceptable, the IDL MPEG routines have serious quality issues, and AVI2IDL
>>> requires constant interaction. Therefore can anyone update me on
>>> state-of-the-art animations creation in IDL?
>>> IMHO, RSI really has to start think about this problem before customers go
>>> over to other solutions. Time is moving on and technology advances.
>>> Presentation without animations are almost history, and we need a solution
>>> NOW!
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Haje
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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| Re: Animations: A can or worms? [message #38166 is a reply to message #38074] |
Fri, 20 February 2004 06:17 |
Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997
|
Senior Member |
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Rick,
Thanks, I think this is really all I wanted to know. Basically, there is
nothing I have seriously overlooked.
Greetings,
Haje
"Rick Towler" <rtowler@u.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:c136m6$hci$1@nntp6.u.washington.edu...
>
> "Haje Korth" wrote...
>
>> do you have a write up or web page of your codec comparison? I noticed
the
>> other day on your website I got a page not found. Today I think the
topic
>> wasn't even clickable. I take any information...
>
> Yeah, when I started updating my site I thought I would get that page
done.
> I haven't yet so the link isn't live.
>
> A few years back I surveyed every free or almost free codec I could get my
> hands on. I took a sample clip and noted visual quality, file size,
> compression speed, playback can platform support. I compiled the numbers
> and it ended there.
>
> In short what I found was that the Indeo video 5.1 codec is the best for
> quality vs file size when multi platform support is key. The Sorenson
> video5 codec (in QuickTime pro) was best when only Mac and PC support was
> required.
>
> Lately I have been working with the DivX and WMV encoders but I haven't
> taken the time to compare them against the others I have tested. They are
> on my to-do list. My feeling is that they are at least as good as the
> Sorenson codec and probably better in many cases.
>
> And you pointed me to vp3 which I need to look at.
>
> I'll see what I can do to put this all together but it probably won't be
> anytime real soon. I'll post to the list when the page is live.
>
> -Rick
>
>
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comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive
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