animate(1)animate(1)NAMEanimate - display a sequence of images on any workstation
running X
SYNOPSISanimate [ options ...] file [ [ options ...] file ...]
DESCRIPTIONanimate displays a sequence of images on any workstation
display running an X server. animate first determines the
hardware capabilities of the workstation. If the number
of unique colors in an image is less than or equal to the
number the workstation can support, the image is displayed
in an X window. Otherwise the number of colors in the
image is first reduced to match the color resolution of
the workstation before it is displayed.
This means that a continuous-tone 24 bits-per-pixel image
can display on a 8 bit pseudo-color device or monochrome
device. In most instances the reduced color image closely
resembles the original. Alternatively, a monochrome or
pseudo-color image sequence can display on a continuous-
tone 24 bits-per-pixel device.
To help prevent color flashing on X server visuals that
have colormaps, animate creates a single colormap from the
image sequence. This can be rather time consuming. You
can speed this operation up by reducing the colors in the
image before you `animate' them. Use mogrify to color
reduce the images to a single colormap. See mogrify(1)
for details. Alternatively, you can use a Standard Col-
ormap; or a static, direct, or true color visual. You can
define a Standard Colormap with xstdcmap. See XSTDCMAP(1)
for details. This method is recommended for colormapped X
server because it eliminates the need to compute a global
colormap.
EXAMPLES
To animate a set of images of a cockatoo, use:
animate cockatoo.*
To animate a cockatoo image sequence while using the Stan-
dard Colormap "best", use:
xstdcmap -best
animate-map best cockatoo.*
To animate an image of a cockatoo without a border cen-
tered on a backdrop, use:
animate +borderwidth -backdrop cockatoo.*
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 1
animate(1)animate(1)OPTIONS-backdrop
display the image centered on a backdrop.
This backdrop covers the entire workstation screen
and is useful for hiding other X window activity
while viewing the image sequence. The color of
the backdrop is specified as the background color.
Refer to X RESOURCES for details.
-colormap type
the type of colormap: Shared or Private.
This option only applies when the default X server
visual is PseudoColor or GrayScale. Refer to
-visual for more details. By default, a shared
colormap is allocated. The image shares colors
with other X clients. Some image colors could be
approximated, therefore your image may look very
different than intended. Choose Private and the
image colors appear exactly as they are defined.
However, other clients may go "technicolor" when
the image colormap is installed.
-colors value
preferred number of colors in the image.
The actual number of colors in the image may be
less than your request, but never more. Note, this
is a color reduction option. Images with less
unique colors than specified with this option will
remain unchanged. Refer to quantize(9) for more
details.
Note, options -dither, -colorspace, and -treedepth
affect the color reduction algorithm.
-colorspace value
the type of colorspace: GRAY, OHTA, RGB, Transpar-
ent, XYZ, YCbCr, YIQ, YPbPr, or YUV.
Color reduction, by default, takes place in the RGB
color space. Empirical evidence suggests that dis-
tances in color spaces such as YUV or YIQ corre-
spond to perceptual color differences more closely
than do distances in RGB space. These color spaces
may give better results when color reducing an
image. Refer to quantize(9) for more details.
The Transparent color space behaves uniquely in
that it preserves the matte channel of the image if
it exists.
The -colors or -monochrome option is required for
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 2
animate(1)animate(1)
this option to take effect.
-crop <width>{%}x<height>{%}{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>
preferred size and location of the cropped image.
See X(1) for details about the geometry specifica-
tion.
To specify a percentage width or height instead,
append %. For example to crop the image by ten
percent on all sides of the image, use -crop 10%.
Use cropping to apply image processing options, or
display, only a particular area of an image. Use
-crop 0x0 to remove edges that are the background
color.
The equivalent X resource for this option is crop-
Geometry (class CropGeometry). See X RESOURCES for
details.
-delay <milliseconds>x<seconds>
display the next image after pausing.
This option is useful for regulating the display of
the sequence of images. Milliseconds must expire
before the display of the next image. The default
is 60 milliseconds between each frame of the image
sequence. The second value is optional. It speci-
fies the number of seconds to pause before repeat-
ing your animation sequence.
-density <width>x<height>
vertical and horizontal resolution in pixels of the
image.
This option specifies an image density when decod-
ing a Postscript or Portable Document page. The
default is 72 pixels per inch in the horizontal and
vertical direction.
-display host:display[.screen]
specifies the X server to contact; see X(1).
-dither
apply Floyd/Steinberg error diffusion to the image.
The basic strategy of dithering is to trade inten-
sity resolution for spatial resolution by averaging
the intensities of several neighboring pixels.
Images which suffer from severe contouring when
reducing colors can be improved with this option.
The -colors or -monochrome option is required for
this option to take effect.
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 3
animate(1)animate(1)-gamma value
level of gamma correction.
The same color image displayed on two different
workstations may look different due to differences
in the display monitor. Use gamma correction to
adjust for this color difference. Reasonable val-
ues extend from 0.8 to 2.3.
You can apply separate gamma values to the red,
green, and blue channels of the image with a gamma
value list delineated with slashes (i.e.
1.7/2.3/1.2).
-geometry <width>{%}x<height>{%}{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y off-
set>{!}{<}{>}
preferred size and location of the Image window.
See X(1) for details about the geometry specifica-
tion. By default, the window size is the image
size and the location is chosen by you when it is
mapped.
By default, the width and height are maximum val-
ues. That is, the image is expanded or contracted
to fit the width and height value while maintaining
the aspect ratio of the image. Append an exclama-
tion point to the geometry to force the image size
to exactly the size you specify. For example, if
you specify 640x480! the image width is set to 640
pixels and height to 480. If only one factor is
specified, both the width and height assume the
value.
To specify a percentage width or height instead,
append %. The image size is multiplied by the
width and height percentages to obtain the final
image dimensions. To increase the size of an
image, use a value greater than 100 (e.g. 125%).
To decrease an image's size, use a percentage less
than 100.
Use > to change the dimensions of the image only if
its size exceeds the geometry specification. <>
resizes the image only if its dimensions is less
than the geometry specification. For example, if
you specify 640x480> and the image size is 512x512,
the image size does not change. However, if the
image is 1024x1024, it is resized to 640x480.
When displaying an image on an X server, <x offset>
and <y offset> is relative to the root window.
The equivalent X resource for this option is geome-
try (class Geometry). See X RESOURCES for details.
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 4
animate(1)animate(1)-interlace type
the type of interlacing scheme: None, Line, Plane,
or Partition. The default is Plane.
This option is used to specify the type of inter-
lacing scheme for raw image formats such as RGB or
YUV. None means do not interlace (RGBRGBRGBRGBRG-
BRGB...), Line uses scanline interlacing
(RRR...GGG...BBB...RRR...GGG...BBB...), and Plane
uses plane interlacing
(RRRRRR...GGGGGG...BBBBBB...). Partition is like
plane except the different planes are saved to
individual files (e.g. image.R, image.G, and
image.B).
Use Line, or Plane to create an interlaced GIF or
progressive JPEG image.
-map type
display image using this Standard Colormap type.
Choose from these Standard Colormap types:
best
default
gray
red
green
blue
The X server must support the Standard Colormap you
choose, otherwise an error occurs. Use list as the
type and animate(1) searches the list of colormap
types in top-to-bottom order until one is located.
See xstdcmap(1) for one way of creating Standard
Colormaps.
-monochrome
transform the image to black and white.
-remote string
execute a command in an remote display process.
The only command recognized at this time is the
name of an image file to load.
-rotate degrees{<}{>}
apply Paeth image rotation to the image.
Use > to rotate the image only if its width exceeds
the height. < rotates the image only if its width
is less than the height. For example, if you spec-
ify -90> and the image size is 480x640, the image
is not rotated by the specified angle. However, if
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 5
animate(1)animate(1)
the image is 640x480, it is rotated by -90 degrees.
Empty triangles left over from rotating the image
are filled with the color defined as bordercolor
(class borderColor).
-scene value{-value}
image scene number.
Use this option to specify an image sequence with a
single filename. See the discussion of file below
for details.
-size <width>{%}x<height>{%}{+offset}{!}
width and height of the image.
Use this option to specify the width and height of
raw images whose dimensions are unknown such as
GRAY, RGB, or CMYK. In addition to width and
height, use -size to skip any header information in
the image or tell the number of colors in a MAP
image file, (e.g. -size 640x512+256).
-title string
assign a title to the displayed image.
Use this option to assign a specific title to the
image. This is assigned to the image window and is
typically displayed in the window title bar.
Optionally you can include the image filename,
type, width, height, or scene number in the label
by embedding special format characters. Embed %f
for filename, %d for directory, %e for filename
extention, %t for top of filename, %m for magick,
%w for width, %h for height, %s for scene number,
or %b for file size in kilobytes. For example,
-title "%m:%f %wx%h"
produces an image title of MIFF:bird.miff 512x480
for an image titled bird.miff and whose width is
512 and height is 480.
-treedepth value
Normally, this integer value is zero or one. A
zero or one tells animate to choose a optimal tree
depth for the color reduction algorithm.
An optimal depth generally allows the best repre-
sentation of the source image with the fastest com-
putational speed and the least amount of memory.
However, the default depth is inappropriate for
some images. To assure the best representation,
try values between 2 and 8 for this parameter.
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 6
animate(1)animate(1)
Refer to quantize(9) for more details.
The -colors or -monochrome option is required for
this option to take effect.
-verbose
print detailed information about the image.
This information is printed: image scene number;
image name; image size; the image class (Direct-
Class or PseudoClass); the total number of unique
colors; and the number of seconds to read and
transform the image. Refer to miff(5) for a
description of the image class.
If -colors is also specified, the total unique col-
ors in the image and color reduction error values
are printed. Refer to quantize(9) for a descrip-
tion of these values.
-visual type
animate images using this visual type.
Choose from these visual classes:
StaticGray
GrayScale
StaticColor
PseudoColor
TrueColor
DirectColor
default
visual id
The X server must support the visual you choose,
otherwise an error occurs. If a visual is not
specified, the visual class that can display the
most simultaneous colors on the default screen is
chosen.
-window id
set the background pixmap of this window to the
image.
id can be a window id or name. Specify root to
select X's root window as the target window.
By default the image is tiled onto the background
of the target window. If -backdrop or -geometry
are specified, the image is surrounded by the back-
ground color. Refer to X RESOURCES for details.
The image will not display on the root window if
the image has more unique colors than the target
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 7
animate(1)animate(1)
window colormap allows. Use -colors to reduce the
number of colors.
In addition to those listed above, you can specify these
standard X resources as command line options: -back-
ground, -bordercolor, -borderwidth, -font, -foreground,
-iconGeometry, -iconic, -mattecolor, -name, or -title.
See X RESOURCES for details.
Any option you specify on the command line remains in
effect until it is explicitly changed by specifying the
option again with a different effect. For example, to
animate two images, the first with 32 colors and the sec-
ond with only 16 colors, use:
animate-colors 32 cockatoo.1 -colors 16 cockatoo.2
Options are processed in command line order. Any option
you specify on the command line remains in effect until it
is explicitly changed by specifying the option again with
a different effect.
Change - to + in any option above to reverse its effect.
For example, specify +dither to not apply error diffusion
to an image.
By default, the image format is determined by its magic
number. To specify a particular image format, precede the
filename with an image format name and a colon (i.e.
ps:image) or specify the image type as the filename suffix
(i.e. image.ps). See convert(1) for a list of valid image
formats.
When you specify X as your image type, the filename has
special meaning. It specifies an X window by id, name, or
root. If no filename is specified, the window is selected
by clicking the mouse in the desired window.
Specify file as - for standard input, If file has the
extension .Z or .gz, the file is uncompressed with uncom-
press or gunzip respectively. Precede the image file name
with | to pipe from a system command.
Use an optional index enclosed in brackets after a file
name to specify a desired subimage of a multi-resolution
image format like Photo CD (e.g. img0001.pcd[4]) or a
range for MPEG images (e.g. video.mpg[50-75]). A subimage
specification can be disjoint (e.g. image.tiff[2,7,4]).
For raw images, specify a subimage with a geometry (e.g.
-size 640x512 image.rgb[320x256+50+50]).
Single images are read with the filename you specify.
Alternatively, you can animate an image sequence with a
single filename. Define the range of the image sequence
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 8
animate(1)animate(1)
with -scene. Each image in the range is read with the
filename followed by a period (.) and the scene number.
You can change this behavior by embedding a printf format
specification in the file name. For example,
-scene 0-9 image%02d.miff
animates files image00.miff, image01.miff, through
image09.miff.
Image filenames may appear in any order on the command
line if the image format is MIFF (refer to miff(5) and the
scene keyword is specified in the image. Otherwise the
images will display in the order they appear on the com-
mand line.
BUTTONS
Press any button to map or unmap the Command widget. See
the next section for more information about the Command
widget.
COMMAND WIDGET
The Command widget lists a number of sub-menus and com-
mands. They are
Animate
Open
Play
Step
Repeat
Auto Reverse
Speed
Faster
Slower
Direction
Forward
Reverse
Image Info
Help
Quit
Menu items with a indented triangle have a sub-menu. They
are represented above as the indented items. To access a
sub-menu item, move the pointer to the appropriate menu
and press a button and drag. When you find the desired
sub-menu item, release the button and the command is exe-
cuted. Move the pointer away from the sub-menu if you
decide not to execute a particular command.
KEYBOARD ACCELERATORS
Accelerators are one or two key presses that effect a par-
ticular command. The keyboard accelerators that ani-
mate(1) understands is:
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 9
animate(1)animate(1)
Ctl+O Press to load an image from a file.
space Press to display the next image in the sequence.
< Press to speed-up the display of the images. Refer
to -delay for more information.
> Press to slow the display of the images. Refer to
-delay for more information.
? Press to display information about the image.
Press any key or button to erase the information.
This information is printed: image name; image
size; and the total number of unique colors in the
image.
F1 Press to display helpful information about ani-
mate(1).
Ctl-q Press to discard all images and exit program.
X RESOURCESanimate options can appear on the command line or in your
X resource file. Options on the command line supersede
values specified in your X resource file. See X(1) for
more information on X resources.
All animate options have a corresponding X resource. In
addition, the animate program uses the following X
resources:
background (class Background)
Specifies the preferred color to use for the Image
window background. The default is #ccc.
borderColor (class BorderColor)
Specifies the preferred color to use for the Image
window border. The default is #ccc.
borderWidth (class BorderWidth)
Specifies the width in pixels of the Image window
border. The default is 2.
font (class Font or FontList)
Specifies the name of the preferred font to use in
normal formatted text. The default is 14 point
Helvetica.
foreground (class Foreground)
Specifies the preferred color to use for text
within the Image window. The default is black.
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 10
animate(1)animate(1)
geometry (class geometry)
Specifies the preferred size and position of the
image window. It is not necessarily obeyed by all
window managers.
iconGeometry (class IconGeometry)
Specifies the preferred size and position of the
application when iconified. It is not necessarily
obeyed by all window managers.
iconic (class Iconic)
This resource indicates that you would prefer that
the application's windows initially not be visible
as if the windows had be immediately iconified by
you. Window managers may choose not to honor the
application's request.
matteColor (class MatteColor)
Specify the color of windows. It is used for the
backgrounds of windows, menus, and notices. A 3D
effect is achieved by using highlight and shadow
colors derived from this color. Default value:
#ddd.
name (class Name)
This resource specifies the name under which
resources for the application should be found.
This resource is useful in shell aliases to distin-
guish between invocations of an application, with-
out resorting to creating links to alter the exe-
cutable file name. The default is the application
name.
sharedMemory (class SharedMemory)
This resource specifies whether animate should
attempt use shared memory for pixmaps. ImageMagick
must be compiled with shared memory support, and
the display must support the MIT-SHM extension.
Otherwise, this resource is ignored. The default
is True.
text_font (class textFont)
Specifies the name of the preferred font to use in
fixed (typewriter style) formatted text. The
default is 14 point Courier.
title (class Title)
This resource specifies the title to be used for
the Image window. This information is sometimes
used by a window manager to provide some sort of
header identifying the window. The default is the
image file name.
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 11
animate(1)animate(1)ENVIRONMENT
display
To get the default host, display number, and
screen.
SEE ALSOdisplay(1), import(1), montage(1), mogrify(1), convert(1),
combine(1), xtp(1)COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1997 E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this
software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby
granted without fee, provided that the above copyright
notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright
notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
documentation, and that the name of E. I. du Pont de
Nemours and Company not be used in advertising or public-
ity pertaining to distribution of the software without
specific, written prior permission. E. I. du Pont de
Nemours and Company makes no representations about the
suitability of this software for any purpose. It is pro-
vided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company disclaims all war-
ranties with regard to this software, including all
implied warranties of merchantability and fitness, in no
event shall E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company be liable
for any special, indirect or consequential damages or any
damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or
profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence or
other tortious action, arising out of or in connection
with the use or performance of this software.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The MIT X Consortium for making network transparent graph-
ics a reality.
Michael Halle, Spatial Imaging Group at MIT, for the ini-
tial implementation of Alan Paeth's image rotation algo-
rithm.
David Pensak, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, for
providing a computing environment that made this program
possible.
Paul Raveling, USC Information Sciences Institute, for the
original idea of using space subdivision for the color
reduction algorithm.
AUTHORS
John Cristy, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company Incorpo-
rated
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 12
