Animating a series of images

I have a series of fits files that are of a comet. I can show them as a
'movie' in IRIS and CCDsoft. However I'd like to convert them into an mpeg
or avi file for posting on the web. Does anyone know of a cheap (as in free)
program that will do this? Will AIP4WIN 2 do it? MaximDL??

George N

Hi George,

Don't know about MaximDL or AIP4WIN, but ImageMagick will do it. There's
source code, unix/linux/cygwin binaries, and windows binaries.

http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php

Eric.


George Normandin wrote:
I have a series of fits files that are of a comet. I can show them as a
'movie' in IRIS and CCDsoft. However I'd like to convert them into an mpeg
or avi file for posting on the web. Does anyone know of a cheap (as in free)
program that will do this? Will AIP4WIN 2 do it? MaximDL??

George N

George Normandin wrote:
I have a series of fits files that are of a comet. I can show them as
a 'movie' in IRIS and CCDsoft. However I'd like to convert them into
an mpeg or avi file for posting on the web. Does anyone know of a
cheap (as in free) program that will do this? Will AIP4WIN 2 do it?
MaximDL??
George N

Hi George!

Good question, I have had exactly this idea myself (see my animation of 73P
Schwassmann-Wachmann at my website). The images were captured as 16bit FITS.
I use K3CCDTools for processing, and it can handle both FITS and AVI as
input and output. Unfortunately, it cannot convert directly from FITS to
AVI, but it is possible to use an intermediate step: 16 bit FITS series =
BMP series = AVI. That is what I did. You just have to make sure any
stretching is complete before you store as BMP.

I will probably write code to take a series of 16bit Fits files and convert
directly to AVI, because I see the need for it, but not exactly "next week".

Clear skies
Carsten A. Arnholm
http://arnholm.org/
N59.776 E10.457

Hi George,
the latest version of MaxIm is able to write an AVI from a sequence of
FITS frames. The "Write AVI" command looks pretty powerful based on the
Help page for the command - the Help files are available on-line if you
want to check it out
Regards

Derrick

George Normandin wrote:
I have a series of fits files that are of a comet. I can show them as a
'movie' in IRIS and CCDsoft. However I'd like to convert them into an mpeg
or avi file for posting on the web. Does anyone know of a cheap (as in free)
program that will do this? Will AIP4WIN 2 do it? MaximDL??
--
Derrick Farley
http://www.lh-dome.demon.co.uk/

AVIEdit should be able to do it. I believe it was the program I used to
accomplish this feat, but that was a few years ago. It is free though.

Good Luck !
--- Dave Nakamoto
========================================
Miller's Daughter --- There, I was visited by a bizarre, strange imp of
a man.
Sam Shovel --- Pee Wee Herman?
Miller's Daughter --- Not THAT strange.



George Normandin wrote:
I have a series of fits files that are of a comet. I can show them as a
'movie' in IRIS and CCDsoft. However I'd like to convert them into an mpeg
or avi file for posting on the web. Does anyone know of a cheap (as in free)
program that will do this? Will AIP4WIN 2 do it? MaximDL??

George N

"David Nakamoto" wrote
...
AVIEdit should be able to do it. I believe it was the program I used to
accomplish this feat, but that was a few years ago. It is free though.

Good Luck !

Dave, et al:

Thanks to everyone who had ideas. I'll try them and see......

George Normandin

Carsten A. Arnholm wrote:
George Normandin wrote:
I have a series of fits files that are of a comet. I can show them as
a 'movie' in IRIS and CCDsoft. However I'd like to convert them into
an mpeg or avi file for posting on the web. Does anyone know of a
cheap (as in free) program that will do this? Will AIP4WIN 2 do it?
MaximDL??
George N

Hi George!

Good question, I have had exactly this idea myself (see my animation
of 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann at my website). The images were captured
as 16bit FITS. I use K3CCDTools for processing, and it can handle
both FITS and AVI as input and output. Unfortunately, it cannot
convert directly from FITS to AVI, but it is possible to use an
intermediate step: 16 bit FITS series = BMP series = AVI. That is
what I did. You just have to make sure any stretching is complete
before you store as BMP.
I will probably write code to take a series of 16bit Fits files and
convert directly to AVI, because I see the need for it, but not
exactly "next week".

Hi George,

Well, I wrote it this week instead :-) I now have a program to do what you
ask for. See my first example of its use at the top of
http://arnholm.org/astro/deepsky/73p_sw/ (Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann)

The code is still a bit raw and needs some fine tuning. Would it be possible
for me to test it on your fits files? Any publication of the results would
of course be your decision alone.

Clear skies
Carsten A. Arnholm
http://arnholm.org/
N59.776 E10.457