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 run‐
ning 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 continu‐
ous-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 Colormap; 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 col‐
ormapped 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 Standard Colormap
"best", use:
xstdcmap -best
animate-map best cockatoo.*
To animate an image of a cockatoo without a border centered on a back‐
drop, use:
animate +borderwidth -backdrop cockatoo.*
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 back‐
ground color. Refer to X RESOURCES for details.
-cache threshold
megabytes of memory available to the pixel cache.
Image pixels are stored in memory until 80 megabytes of memory
have been consumed. Subsequent pixel operations are cached on
disk. Operations to memory are significantly faster but if your
computer does not have a sufficient amount of free memory you
may want to adjust this threshold value.
-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 approx‐
imated, 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 have any duplicate or unused colors removed. 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, Transparent, XYZ,
YCbCr, YIQ, YPbPr, YUV, or CMYK.
Color reduction, by default, takes place in the RGB color space.
Empirical evidence suggests that distances in color spaces such
as YUV or YIQ correspond 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 pre‐
serves the matte channel of the image if it exists.
The -colors or -monochrome option is required for 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 specification.
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 cropping to crop a particular area of an image. Use -crop
0x0 to trim edges that are the background color. Add an x and y
offset to leave a portion of the trimmed edges with the image.
The equivalent X resource for this option is cropGeometry (class
CropGeometry). See X RESOURCES for details.
-delay <1/100ths of a second>
display the next image after pausing.
This option is useful for regulating the animation of a sequence
of GIF images within Netscape. 1/100ths of a second must expire
before the redisplay of the image sequence. The default is no
delay between each showing of the image sequence.
You can specify a delay range (e.g. -delay 10-500) which sets
the minimum and maximum delay.
-density <width>x<height>
vertical and horizontal resolution in pixels of the image.
This option specifies an image density when decoding a Post‐
script 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 intensity 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.
Use +dither to render Postscript without text or graphic alias‐
ing.
-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. Reason‐
able values 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).
Use +gamma to set the image gamma level without actually adjust‐
ing the image pixels. This option is useful if the image is of
a known gamma but not set as an image attribute (e.g. PNG
images).
-geometry <width>x<height>{+-}<x offset>{+-}<y offset>{%}{!}{<}{>}
preferred size and location of the Image window. See X(1) for
details about the geometry specification. By default, the win‐
dow size is the image size and the location is chosen by you
when it is mapped.
By default, the width and height are maximum values. 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 exclamation 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 off‐
set> is relative to the root window.
The equivalent X resource for this option is geometry (class
Geometry). See X RESOURCES for details.
-interlace type
the type of interlacing scheme: None, Line, Plane, or Partition.
The default is None.
This option is used to specify the type of interlacing scheme
for raw image formats such as RGB or YUV. None means do not
interlace (RGBRGBRGBRGBRGBRGB...), Line uses scanline interlac‐
ing (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, oth‐
erwise 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.
-pause <seconds>
the number of seconds to pause before repeating your animation
sequence.
-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 specify -90> and the image size is 480x640,
the image is not rotated by the specified angle. However, if
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 file‐
name. 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 other image attributes by
embedding special format characters:
%b file size
%c comment
%d directory
%e filename extention
%f filename
%h height
%i input filename
%l label
%m magick
%n number of scenes
%o output filename
%p page number
%q quantum depth
%s scene number
%t top of filename
%u unique temporary filename
%w width
%x x resolution
%y y resolution
\n newline
\r carriage return
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.
If the first character of string is @, the image title is read
from a file titled by the remaining characters in the string.
-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 representation of the
source image with the fastest computational 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. 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 (DirectClass 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 descrip‐
tion of the image class.
If -colors is also specified, the total unique colors in the
image and color reduction error values are printed. Refer to
quantize(9) for a description 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 background 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 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: -background, -bordercolor, -border‐
width, -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 second 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.
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 mean‐
ing. 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 uncompress 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 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 speci‐
fied in the image. Otherwise the images will display in the order they
appear on the command line.
BUTTONS
Press any button to map or unmap the Command widget. See the next sec‐
tion for more information about the Command widget.
COMMAND WIDGET
The Command widget lists a number of sub-menus and commands. They are
Animate
Open
Play
Step
Repeat
Auto Reverse
Speed
Faster
Slower
Direction
Forward
Reverse
Help
Help
Browse Documentation
About Display
Image Info
Quit
Menu items with a indented triangle have a sub-menu. They are repre‐
sented 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 executed. 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 particular com‐
mand. The keyboard accelerators that animate(1) understands is:
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.
F1 Press to display helpful information about animate(1).
Find Press to browse documentation about ImageMagick.
? 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.
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 back‐
ground. The default is #ccc.
borderColor (class BorderColor)
Specifies the preferred color to use for the Image window bor‐
der. 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 for‐
matted 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.
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 man‐
agers.
iconic (class Iconic)
This resource indicates that you would prefer that the applica‐
tion'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 distinguish between invocations of an application,
without resorting to creating links to alter the executable 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 (type‐
writer style) formatted text. The default is 14 point Courier.
title (class Title)
This resource specifies the title to be used for the Image win‐
dow. 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.
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 (C) 2001 ImageMagick Studio, a non-profit organization dedi‐
cated to making software imaging solutions freely available.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files ("ImageMag‐
ick"), to deal in ImageMagick without restriction, including without
limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of ImageMagick, and to permit persons to
whom the ImageMagick is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of ImageMagick.
The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express
or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of mer‐
chantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. In
no event shall ImageMagick Studio be liable for any claim, damages or
other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise,
arising from, out of or in connection with ImageMagick or the use or
other dealings in ImageMagick.
Except as contained in this notice, the name of the ImageMagick Studio
shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use
or other dealings in ImageMagick without prior written authorization
from the ImageMagick Studio.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The MIT X Consortium for making network transparent graphics a reality.
Michael Halle, Spatial Imaging Group at MIT, for the initial implemen‐
tation of Alan Paeth's image rotation algorithm.
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, ImageMagick Studio
ImageMagick 1 May 1994 animate(1)