NAME¶
xmorph - image warping and dissolving (morphing) for X window system
morph - command line interface image morphing program
SYNOPSIS¶
xmorph [
-start srcimgfile [
-finish
destimgfile]] [
-src srcmeshfile [
-dst
dstmeshfile ]] [
-help]
morph [
-start srcimgfile [
-finish
destimgfile]] [
-src srcmeshfile [
-dst
dstmeshfile ]] [
-out outimgfile ] [
-mt
morphtween ] [
-dt dissolvetween ] [
-help]
DESCRIPTION¶
xmorph is a digital image warping and dissolving program, also known as a
"morphing" program. It runs under the X Window System. The primary
use of
xmorph is to generate and modify meshes which control the shape
of an image.
xmorph also has the capacity to dissolve images together,
and to generate a sequence of warped and dissolved images. When this sequence
is made into a movie, it is called a "morph".
morph is a morphing program with no graphical user interface.
morph performs image warping and dissolving but provides no means to
create or modify meshes. The intent is to use
morph after meshes have
already been generated with
xmorph. Since
morph has no GUI, it
can be run as a background job and can be distributed over many machines or
processes. This parallelization of the task can significanly speed up the
image processing.
morph can run on machines which have no display
whatsoever, and is therefore very portable.
Both
xmorph and
morph use a library called
libmorph which
can be used separately in the creation of other morphing programs.
If
imgfile names are provided on the command line, then those images are
loaded in. Otherwise,
xmorph generates images to be used in lieu of
images provided by the user. Images may be loaded from menus within
xmorph.
xmorph has built-in help pages that answer questions about the details of
its use. Run
xmorph and look at the online help for more information.
OPTIONS¶
- -start srcimgfile
- Read the srcimgfile as the "source" image.
- -finish destimgfile
- Read the destimgfile as the "destination" image.
- -src srcmeshfile
- Read the srcmeshfile as the "source" mesh.
- -dst destmeshfile
- Read the destimgfile as the "destination" mesh.
- -help
- Display command line options.
MORPH OPTIONS¶
- -out outimgfile
- Write the the output image to outimgfile .
- -mt morphtween
- Use morphtween as the warping tween parameter. Values are from 0 to
1. 0 means that the shape of the output is according to the source mesh. 1
means that the shape is according to the destination mesh. Default value
is 0.
- -dt dissolvetween
- Use dissolvetween as the dissolve tween parameter. Values are from
0 to 1. 0 means that the image of the output is according to the source
image. 1 means that the image is according to the destination image.
Negative values indicate that a sigmoid sharpening function is to be
applied to make the dissolving more concentrated to values near 0.5. The
idea is that the dissolvetween value should be the negative of the
morphtween value in order to have the dissolve be more rapid during
middle values of the warp tween parameter, and less rapid otherwise. This
makes the morph more visually acceptable. Default value is 0.
MAKING MOVIES¶
xmorph is NOT a tool for making movies.
xmorph is intended to be
used with OTHER tools for editting movies in the digital domain. I do not
intend to add movie making abilities to
xmorph.
Here is a brief explanation of how to make a movie from the images generated by
xmorph:
xmorph uses the TrueVision Targa (TGA) image file format. You can use
PBMplus, netpbm, ImageMagick or some other program to convert Targa to other
still image formats. (This will be necessary if, for example, you use the
Berkeley MPEG encoder or want to make an animated GIF.) See, e.g.,
ftp://ikaros.fysik4.kth.se/pub/netpbm/.
Use another program, such as Berkeley's mpeg_encode, or SGI's dmconvert, or
whirlgif to turn the sequence of images that
xmorph created into a
single animation. See, e.g.,
ftp://mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/multimedia/mpeg/encode/.
Use another program, such as mpeg_play, xanim or movieplayer, to view the
animation. See, e.g.,
ftp://mm-ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/multimedia/mpeg/play/.
There are plenty of other programs available for viewing movies.
AUTHOR¶
Written and Copyright (C) 1994-2000 by Michael J. Gourlay.
Help came from many places, including Andy Thaller, Warwick Allison, and Mike
Hoefelein.
The original morphing algorithm is presented in ``A Two-Pass Mesh Warping
Algorithm for Object Transformation and Image Interpolation'', ILM Technical
Memo #1030, Computer Graphics Department, Lucasfilm Ltd., 1990.
Mesh-based digital image warping is discussed in detail in
Digital Image
Warping by George Wolberg.
Xmorph is a GNU program.
SEE ALSO¶
X(1),
ppmtotga(1) (part of netpbm or PBMplus),
tgatoppm(1)
(part of netpbm or PBMplus),
whirlgif(1),
mpeg_encode(1) from
U.C. Berkeley,
mpeg_play(1) from U.C. Berkeley, ImageMagick,
dmconvert(1), (under Silicon Graphics IRIX).
movieplayer(1)
(under Silicon Graphics IRIX),
xanim(1),
GIMP(1).
NOTES¶
The only image file type currently supported is Truevision Targa (TGA) but
xmorph will load any type of Targa, such as 8-bit, 15-bit, or 16-bit
colormapped or grayscale; 24-bit or 32-bit true color (with or without alpha
channel); run-length encoded or uncompressed.
Some versions of the program "xv" can not read xmorph's TGA image
files. This is a bug in "xv", not in xmorph.
Use image conversion programs (such as those listed in the SEE ALSO section) to
convert to and from TGA image files for use with
xmorph and morph
.
Report bugs to gourlay@colorado-research.com or mennucc1@debian.org
WEB SITE¶
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xmorph
http://colorado-research.com/~gourlay/
http://colorado-research.com/~gourlay/software/
http://colorado-research.com/~gourlay/software/Graphics/
http://colorado-research.com/~gourlay/software/Graphics/Xmorph/