QUESTIONSFEEDBACKHOMEEmploymentEventsLinksPeopleProgramsPublicationsSupportWelcome

IDL: Animation

1. Animating a Series of Images
2. Displaying Animation as a Wire Mesh
3. Aniamation with XINTERANIMATE
4. Cleaning Up Animation Windows

Animating a Series of Images

1. Enter:

heart=read_binary('/usr/local/rsi/idl_5.4/idl_5.4/examples/data/abnorm.dat',$
data_dims=[64,64,16],data_type=1)

2. Load an appropriate color table:

loadct, 3

3. Display the first slice of our 3-D array:

tv,heart[*, *, 0]

4. Now resize each image in the array with bi-linear interpolation by entering:

h=rebin(heart,320,320,16)

5. Then display:

tv,h[*, *, 0]

6. To animate, enter:

for i=0,15 do tvscl,h[*,*,i]

IDL displays the 16 images in the array H sequentially. To repeat the animation, press the up arrow key to recall the command and press enter.

7. Dismiss the window:

wdelete

Displaying Animation as a Wire Mesh

1. Create a new array to hold the heartbeat data:

s=rebin(heart,32,32,16)

2. Display the first image in s, as a wire-mesh surface by entering:

surface,s[*,*,0]

Now create a whole series of SURFACE plots, one for each image in the original dataset.

3. To do this, first create a three-dimensional array to hold all of the images by entering:

frames=bytarr(300,300,16)

4. Now create a 300 by 300 pixel window in which to display the images:

window,1,title='IDL Animation',xsize=300,ysize=300

5. Enter:

for i=0,15 do begin surface,s[*,*,i],zrange=[0,250]$
& frames[0,0,i]=tvrd()&end

6. Now display the new images in series by entering:

for i=0,15 do tv,frames[*,*,i]

Aniamation with XINTERANIMATE

1. Save the first frame of the S dataset in the variable A to simplify the next set of commands:

a=s[*,*,0]

2. Create a window in which to display your surface:

window,0,xsize=300,ysize=300

3. Display a as a wire-mesh surface:

surface,a,xstyle=4,ystyle=4,zstyle=4

4. Force the X and Y axis ranges to run from 0 to 32 and the Z axis range to run from 0 to 250:

scale3,xrange=[0,31],yrange=[0,31],zrange=[0,250]

5. Set up the XINTERANIMATE routine to hold 40, 300 by 300 byte images:

xinteranimate,set=[300,300,40],/showload

6. Generate each frame of the animation and store it for the XINTERANIMATE routine. Once a 3-D transformation has been established, most IDL plotting routines can be made to use it by including the T3D keyword. The [XYZ]STYLE keywords are shortened to [XYZ]ST:

for i=0,39 do begin scale3,az= -i * 9 & surface,a, $
/t3d,xstyle=4,ystyle=4,zstyle=4 & xinteranimate,$
frame=i,win=0 & end

7. Play images back as an animation after all the images have been saved in the XINTERANIMATE routine:

xinteranimate

The XINTERANIMATE window should appear, as shown above. Tape recorderstyle controls can be used to play the animation forward, play it backward, or stop.  Individual frames can also be selected by moving the Animation Frame slider. TheOptions menu controls the style and direction of image playback. Click on End Animation when you are ready to return to the IDL Command Line.

Cleaning Up Animation Windows

1. Delete both window 0 and window 1 by entering:

wdelete, 0
wdelete, 1