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image_capture
Synopsis
Records, plays back, and encodes collections of images in AVI or MPEG formats
Input Port
Parameters
The following table lists amimator's public parameters stored in the imcapParam subobject. They carry data and flags used by other objects in the macro. They are set by UI controls defined in the imcapUI subobject.
Output Port
Subobjects
The following table lists the immediate subobjects of the image capture macro.
Description
The image_capture macro includes GUI controls to enable the user to control some of the MPEG encoding parameters. MPEG which stands for Moving Picture Experts Group, is the nickname given to a family of International Standards used for coding audio-visual information in a digital compressed format. There is a choice of either constant bitrate/variable quality mode (CBR) and control the bitrate of the movie or variable bitrate/constant (VBR) quality mode and control the quality of the movie. On Windows, the encoder is MMX and SSE accelerated.
The encoder is not tightly integrated into the rest of the animator library; it's a separate DLL on Windows and a separate shared library on Unix. Furthermore, the encoder uses a "plugin" interface that is the same as that used by the well-known bbMPEG encoder. The bbMPEG encoder can be downloaded from the bbMPEG home page. This makes it possible to upgrade the encoder on Windows merely by downloading a new version of the DLL and replacing the one that comes with AVS/Express.
There is one crucial difference between using the AVS/Express version of the DLL and using the download version of the DLL. The download version of the DLL has its own integrated GUI. The integrated GUI has the advantage that it allows detailed control over the myriad MPEG encoding parameters and a help system that explains some of the parameters. The disadvantage is that any encoding settings done through AVS/Express will be ignored. Any parameter that you can set through the AVS/Express GUI can be set through bbMPEG's integrated GUI, but you may be surprised to find that your settings in the AVS/Express GUI have no effect.
When the capture mode is set to Disk, the user may specify which directory to store the temporary images captured while recording. When Disk mode is selected the type in box for Temp File Dir becomes available.
In both Windows and UNIX, the Image Capture module contains the means to compress AVI files. In Windows, you have the ablity to choose the compression type as well as the settings. When the Movie Control Mode in the Windows version is selected to AVI, two options are given. The first is a check box which asks if you wish to compress the AVI. If this is checked, the second button to choose the Compression Codec becomes available. By pressing this button a pop up screen will appear with a list of compressors that are available on the users machine. The user can then press configure to set the compression to compressor they wish.
In the UNIX version of this there is one built-in codec. The built-in codec emulates the Windows codec known as "AVIzlib".
Input
Parameters
When reset is set to nonzero, the animation is set to the first frame. If the animation is running, it continues from the first frame. reset is automatically reset to 0 after the reset is done.
UIbutton:intWhen reset_back is set to nonzero, the animation is set to the last frame. If the animation is running, it continues from the first frame. reset_back is automatically reset to 0 after the reset is done.
UIbutton. When nonzero, the animation runs. When the animation reaches the end, the run parameter is automatically set to zero unless the cycle parameter is nonzero. If run is set to zero while the loop is running, it stops at the current value until run is set to one.
int__While run back is set to a non-zero value, the currrent sequence of frames is displayed backwards, from last to first, according to the mode set in the run options parameter. When the animated sequence is complete, run back is automatically reset to 0.
The run back parameter is set to 1 by the Run Backwards UIbutton control, and to 0 by the Stop control.
int__When step is set to a non-zero value, the current frame is advanced to the next frame forwards in the animation sequence. When the new frame is set, step is automatically reset to 0.
int__When step back is set to a non-zero value, the current frame is set to the previous frame in the animation sequence. When the new frame is set, step back is automatically reset to 0.
int__The run options parameter specifies one of three modes for running the animation:
·__0 = Once
·__1 = Cycle
·__2 = Bounce
1 = Capture from View
Records images from the view connected to the LGDview port on the image capture object.
2 = Capture from Framebuffer
Records images from the view connected to the LInputFrameBuffer port on the image capture object.
3 = Playback to view
Plays back the images to the view connected to the LGDview port on the image capture object.
4 = Playback to Framebuffer
Plays back the images to the LFrameBuffer output port on the image capture object.
In Windows only, this pops up a menu listing the available VFW (Video for Windows) codecs installed on the machine. The menu allows for setting the codec-specific compression parameters as well as the codec.
Output Port
Example
File
See also related modules
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