MGH_PLAYER__DEFINE
Class
MGH_Player
Purpose
A window for displaying & managing picture sequences.
Category
Widgets, Object Graphics.
Properties
The following properties (ie keywords to the Init, GetProperty &
SetProperty methods) are supported:
CUMULATIVE (Init, Get, Set)
The number of frames to superpose on each display. Default is 1.
If CUMULATIVE is zero or negative then all frames up to the
current one are superposed.
N_FRAMES (Get)
The number of frames currently managed by the animator.
SLAVE (Init, Get, Set)
Set this property to specify that the player will be
controlled externally.
###########################################################################
Copyright (c) 2001-2012 NIWA:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/
Licensed under the MIT open source license:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php
###########################################################################
Modification History
Mark Hadfield 2001-07.
Written.
Mark Hadfield 2004-04:
Several changes to the code that exports animations to
bitmap-oriented animation formats:
- Removed facility to save an animation in PPM_SEQUENCE
form. Image sequences can be created in other ways,
- Added method WriteAnimationToAVIFile to produce AVI movies
using the IDL_AVI DLM. See also the new function MGH_AVI_REGISTERED.
Mark Hadfield 2005-01:
Fixed bug in WriteAnimationToAVIFile: when USE_RANGE property is set and
frames are skipped, empty frames are being left in the AVI file.
Mark Hadfield 2006-05:
- The WriteAnimationToAVIFile method now uses the MGHaviWriteFile class,
which provides an interface to Olgeg Kornilov's AVI DLL.
- The menu item that supports MPEG output has been deleted, as MPEG
output from the IDLgrMPEG object is pretty awful.
Mark Hadfield 2007-10:
- The WriteAnimationToAVIFile method now forces the output buffer size
to be a multiple of 8 (previously 4) to supprt a wider range of codecs.
Mark Hadfield 2010-01:
- When AVI files are written via the EvenMenuBar method, an hourglass is
now showned and the frames are not displayed. This reduces time taken
by ~ 40%.
Mark Hadfield 2010-10:
- Added menu entries to write a single frame to a PDF file, using the
MGH_Window object's WritePictureToPDF method, which uses the IDLgrPDF
class, added in IDL 8.0.
Mark Hadfield 2010-11:
- Added WriteAnimationToPDFFile method and corresponding menu entries
to write the animation to a multi-page PDF files, using the multi-page
capability of the IDLgrPDF class, added in IDL 8.0.1.
Mark Hadfield 2011-10:
- Removed all remaining MPEG-related code.
Mark Hadfield 2011-11:
- The player will now export animations in AVI format with a choice of 2
codecs: MSVC (Win32 only) and MPEG4 (IDL 8.1 on all platforms). A
QUALITY keyword has been added to WriteAnimationToVideoFile allowing the
target bit rate to be set as a fraction of the bit rate required to
render the images in uncompressed form. The default QUALITY is currently
0.15, which seems to work OK for MPEG4.
- Removed "Tools/Clipboard Viewer" menu item, as the clipboard viewer is
not available in recent versions of Windows.
Mark Hadfield 2012-02:
- Code in EventMenuBar cleaned up.
Mark Hadfield 2013-11:
- Removed support for the AVI DLL and the MSVC codec.
Mark Hadfield, 2014-09:
- The resolution for "hi-res" images and image sequences is now
set by the HIGH_RESOLUTION property inherited from MGH _Window.
The default value is reduced from 2.54/360 to the MGH_Window default,
currently 2.54/240.