| Re: animated png: a new format for scientific animations [message #60460 is a reply to message #60450] |
Wed, 21 May 2008 08:38   |
Vince Hradil
Messages: 574
Registered: December 1999
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Senior Member |
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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.
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