| Re: animated png: a new format for scientific animations [message #60450 is a reply to message #60448] |
Wed, 21 May 2008 10:45   |
jeffnettles4870
Messages: 111
Registered: October 2006
|
Senior Member |
|
|
On May 21, 11:38 am, Vince Hradil <hrad...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 21, 9:28 am, pgri...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
>> Hi folks,
>
>> production of animations (i.e. movies) is one
>> perennial subject of discussion in this group.
>> One of the main difficulties is the large number
>> of mutually incompatible formats, not always
>> equally well supported by different platforms
>> and softwares.
>
>> Furthermore, scientific animations are not well
>> suited to lossy compression schemes (i.e. jpeg,
>> mpeg etc.) such that the quality is in general
>> low, or the file size huge when higher bitrate
>> is used.
>
>> For still images, the alternative png format
>> has been available for some time, and has
>> become the format of choice for plots etc.
>> So it seems quite logical that
>> png animations should be the way to go.
>> The mozilla folks have come up with a new
>> specification for animated pngs that is supported
>> in firefox 3. I tried out the new format and
>> I can confidently say that the quality is much
>> better than any other movie format I have ever
>> seen, and the file size is quite reasonable.
>
>> I've put up an example, but bear in mind that
>> to be able to see the animated png you'll need
>> the firefox 3 beta (release candidate)!
>
>> The web page show the animated png and 3 quicktime
>> movies of increasing quality (and file size!).
>
>> http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~pgrigis/scianim/index.html
>
>> Of course, the availability (finally!) of a good
>> format specification for scientific animations does
>> not mean that it is easy or convenient to use.
>> The main problem now are the fact that only a few
>> player and encoders are available.
>
>> On the other hand, you can play the movies with
>> firefox 3 and you can endcode the images using
>> a (cosed source) command line java utility
>> (http://www.reto-hoehener.ch/japng/), therefore
>> at least a minimum of multiplatform support already
>> exist.
>
>> Anyway, if you are willing to live with the limited
>> support for the format, it will probably give you
>> the best quality for your scientific animations
>> (and arguably is still a better solution than having
>> IDL open and issuing for i=0,100 do tv,img[*,*,i] ;-)
>
>> Ciao,
>> Paolo
>
> Nice - thanks for the demo. I'd also like to point out that XnView
> (v1.92 or greater) can view the APNG.
I wouldn't be surprised if ImageMagick didn't also support these files
very soon. I know they already support creating .MNG files which I
believe is an older specification of the animated PNG format. I
mention this because ImageMagick has popped up in other discussions on
this newsgroup recently :)
Jeff
|
|
|
|
comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive
Members
Search
Help
Login
Home
