IMDISPLAY(1)

NAME

imdisplay - Render a stack of still images or display an animation

SYNOPSIS

imdisplay FileName_or_TransformOption [  ... ]

DESCRIPTION

imdisplay is a S-Lang / Gtk utility which accepts an arbitrary number of images as input and by default renders them stacked upon one another, respecting transparency. The composite image may be easily tiled or scaled, as well as automatically scrolled for images too large to fit reasonably within your display. Images may also be displayed in one of several alternate modes: First, the panes option causes each input image to be displayed within its own window, tiled either vertically or horizontally; second, the 'anim' option may be used to animate a series of 2D still images; 3D volumes may also be animated (as series of 2D slices) via the 'anim' option; images specified via Array_Type[N] and List_Type[N] are automatically animated. By default image windows are chained to each other, and the control window, so that all may be moved onscreen, at once, simply by moving the master. imdisplay may be used as either a self-contained executable script or as a S-Lang function. When invoked as function (e.g. from the slsh prompt or a S-Lang script) the input images may be specified as either filenames, raw S-Lang arrays of varying dimensionality, or GdkPixbufs. When invoked from the operating system command line the input images must be filenames. If any input image in a composite contains an alpha channel (transparency) then the rendered result will as well.

imdisplay supports a wide variety of input file formats, including JPEG, PNG, GIF, XPM, TIFF, animations, and (optionally) the FITS file format popular in astronomy. The rendered result may also be saved to a variety of formats, including JPEG, PNG, and FITS. The range of supported formats depends upon how Gtk and SLgtk were compiled.

Comma-delimited options to imdisplay may be specified either as strings within the argument list or via qualifiers separated from the argument list by a semicolon. Most options affect the composite image just prior to display, and include:

anim[=delay] Animate input images into a movie. The optional

frame refresh delay should be a single
scalar value in milliseconds, and defaults
to 500 (0.5 sec) if omitted.

fill=<rule> How to fill new space created in image display

window when it is enlarged; may be one of

none no fill; keep original image
tile fill with consecutive image copies
scale fill by enlarging image to fit

flip Mirror the image vertically
flop Mirror the image horizontally

panes=<layout> How to display multiple images; layout may be one of

one | single composite all images into

one window (the default)

horiz[ontal] tile images horizontally
vert[ical] tile images vertically

No compositing is performed for horizontal or
or vertical tiling.

horiz[ontal] Shorthand for panes=horiz[ontal]
vert[ical] Shorthand for panes=vert[ical]

save=<name>[/type] Instead of rendering image(s) onscreen, save to

the named file; a file type may be specified
via a /gif, /png, etc. optional qualifier
[see _gdk_pixbuf_get_formats()] or inferred
from the file extension; if no file type can
be determined then still images will be saved
in PNG format; animations are always saved
in GIF format.

size=<geometry> Resize the image; geometry may be either

be a scaling percentage or an absolute
pixel size, such as 150x200% or 100x300;
when only one value is provided it will
be applied to both axes of the image.

scale=<geometry> Synonym for size= option.

At launch all of the windows created by imdisplay will be chained: e.g. the control window will be chained to the window of the last image loaded, meaning that the controller will follow the image window around onscreen when the latter is moved; when the controller is moved its new gravity (i.e. placement relative to the image) will be remembered. An entire vertical (or horizontal) tiling of windows may be moved simply by moving its top- (or left-) most window. To disable chaining, ensure that the slave window you wish to unchain has focus, then hold down the SHIFT key while moving the slave. This will disconnect the slave from its own master, but leave intact any chains in which the slave is itself a master.

AUTHOR

The author of SLgtk and imdisplay is Michael S. Noble <mnoble@space.mit.edu>. Rafael Laboissiere <rafael@debian.org> created the SLgtk package for Debian and helped author this man page.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL

SEE ALSO

On Debian systems the reference manual for SLgtk can be found at /usr/share/doc/slang-gtk/slgtk.txt.gz. It is also available in HTML, PDF, and text formats on the SLgtk website.

10 February 2010 IMDISPLAY(1)