How do I make a GIF animation?
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Q26. How do I make a GIF animation?
The program whirlgif can create an animated GIF (for inclusion on a Web page, like this one) from a sequence of single frame GIFs. These can be created from pnm images saved out of AFNI using the program ppmtogif (part of netpbm). Whirlgif is included in the AFNI source code package, but must be compiled manually with "make whirlgif". See the output of "whirgif -help" for what documentation there is. (Whirlgif was written by Kevin Kadow; all I did was add the "-help" option.) The csh script gmovie that is included in afni_src.tgz can be used to convert a buch of PNM format images to a single animated GIF. You may need to tweak its operation for your particular needs, though.
Another program that does something similar is gifsicle. You can search for this (and many other things) at Google.
[29 Jun 2001] Now that AFNI can write GIF images directly from an image viewer (if you have netpbm installed -- AFNI just pipes the .ppm format through program ppmtogif), this makes it pretty easy to make animated GIFs. After saving the requisite .gif files, then issue one of the following commands
whirlgif -loop -time 20 fred*.gif > anim.gif # if you have whirlgif compiled gifsicle -d 20 -l -O fred*.gif > anim.gif # if you have gifsicle compiled
[05 Aug 2001] AFNI now has the capability to run gifsicle (preferred) or whirlgif directly to produce Animated GIFs. AFNI can also use the program mpeg_encode to write a sequence of images into an MPEG-1 animation. These programs are supplied with the AFNI source code, but are not compiled by default. You can make them by issuing the command
make gifsicle mpeg_encodeThis will leave the program files gifsicle and mpeg_encode in the AFNI source code directory. You then must move these files to be in your path (perhaps in the same place you keep the rest of the AFNI executable files).
If these programs are installed, the image-viewer Disp control panel will have two new items: "Save Anim GIF" and "Save Anim MPG". Choosing one of these means that the next image sequence you write out using the image-viewer Save button will be written to a single animation file, rather than a set of single-image files. Note that if Save One is also selected, the choice of an animation format will override that selection, and the animation will be written. (Recall that Save One is the only way to write out a montage image layout.)
This FAQ applies to: Any version.
