Converting Animations to QuickTime Movies Using iView MediaPro
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg39506] Converting Animations to QuickTime Movies Using iView MediaPro
- From: AES/newspost <siegman at stanford.edu>
- Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 05:13:52 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
It's possible to convert Mathematica animations to QuickTime movies using front end menu commands on the Macintosh, although to have this work right it's essential that the magnification of the front end notebook window be set to 100%. (Thanks to Selwyn Hollis for pointing this out.) (WRI: Add this crucial condition to the Help documentation?) An alternative and possibly somewhat better way to accomplish the same thing is to use Mathematica in combination with iView MediaPro. The required steps are: 1) Generate the movie images as individual JPEGs in a folder using a notebook something like the following: SetDirectory["my Hard Disk:my Project Folder:my Images Folder"]; Do[ g[k] = Plot[ - - - - - - ]; Export["Image "<>ToString[k], g[k], "JPEG"], {k, 1, nplots}]; 2) Catalog the resulting folder of images using iView MediaPro (drag and drop to an iView icon makes this trivial), and note the image size in pixels. 3) Correct the sort order of the images in the catalog if necessary. (Anyone know how to modify the ToString[k] coding above so that k = 1, 2, 3 will appear with prepended zeros, i.e. as 01, 02, 03?) 4) With the catalog open in Thumbnail view, Select All and execute Make >> Setup Slide show. 5) Execute Make >> Movie Presentation; set pixel dimensions to be as large or larger than the individual JPEGs; and select other options in the resulting dialog box. Result is a valid (and highly compressed) QuickTime movie. One advantage of this approach is that the movie is explicitly "flattened" so that it can be viewed on other platforms; I don't believe the Mathematica menu command does this. iView MediaPro has been a great program for me. Maybe a Windows version is also on the way? -- "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton (1834-1902) "Dependence on advertising tends to corrupt. Total dependence on advertising corrupts totally." (today's equivalent)