Animating Weather Radar Stumped but I know it can be done.

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

Help I am stumped and I know it can be done.

I use a weather radar program called GRLevel-3 which operated on my PC and then can upload via ftp to my host server.
Right now I have the Radar image going onto another file and then have that file embedded as a Iframe on the index page so that it will refresh itself every 5 mins. Site Visit My Website

What I would love to do is to have this so that I it can animate> I am sure this can be done somehow. I have seached the net and found a few ajax and php files but there really hard to understand and to configure. I am not that bright when it comes to that.

If someone here in the world of Xisto knows how or ever where I could find a way to have this done. Please Let me know asap. Really have been working hard on this, for weeks and can not find what I need or how to do it.

Thanks
John

Edited October 21, 2009 by Echo_of_thunder (see edit history)

[rvalkass 5]

How do you want it to animate? Are you looking for an effect to get rid of the old image and replace it with the new image (like the two sliding in and out of the frame) or to transition between the two (make the old image morph into the new one)? Replacing the image, but with a little effect, would be quite easy to achieve. Morphing between the two would be almost impossible to do.

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

How do you want it to animate? Are you looking for an effect to get rid of the old image and replace it with the new image (like the two sliding in and out of the frame) or to transition between the two (make the old image morph into the new one)? Replacing the image, but with a little effect, would be quite easy to achieve. Morphing between the two would be almost impossible to do.

that's the thing I am not sure of. When GRLevel-3 uploads it's images it only uses 1 file now. ???_br1.jpg I can set it to upload in sequences but doing this would add space and the dreaded bandwidth. Image sizes range from 67 to 73K which really is not that much but it is the bandwidth I am worried about.

[anwiii 17]

no help here. but you might want to change your url to point visitors to the correct site. it's echoofthunder.com not echofthunder.com might want to edit your link now

that's the thing I am not sure of. When GRLevel-3 uploads it's images it only uses 1 file now. ???_br1.jpg I can set it to upload in sequences but doing this would add space and the dreaded bandwidth. Image sizes range from 67 to 73K which really is not that much but it is the bandwidth I am worried about.

[rob86 2]

Hey Echo, there is a linux command line application that can put together .jpg files into one animated .gif but since GRLevel3 is a windows app, I'm assuming you're on Windows. I'm not sure if this app works on windows or if there is a windows alternative. I can't remember the name, but it's easy to find by googling for "command line image animation" or something like that. I actually used the opposite of this function with my radar images, making an already animated .gif into frames, so I could display them animated on my desktop (my desktop monitor wouldn't support animated images, but it supports changing single frame images on a loop)I bet you could make a simple script on linux to convert ___ images to animated gif, and upload via ftp to your server on a scheduled timer. I'm not sure what a Windows alternative would be. This is one reason i'm loving linux after my recent conversion, making things automated like this is easy.One for linux is called Gifsicle (i used this)One for all OS is called ImageMagick, it looks impressive and full featured, more importantly, can animate images. It seems to work from a Command line on both Win and Linux.Then, you could make a shell script (.bat in windows or .sh in linux) that uploads via ftp!

Edited October 19, 2009 by rob86 (see edit history)

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

Hey Echo, there is a linux command line application that can put together .jpg files into one animated .gif but since GRLevel3 is a windows app, I'm assuming you're on Windows. I'm not sure if this app works on windows or if there is a windows alternative. I can't remember the name, but it's easy to find by googling for "command line image animation" or something like that.
I actually used the opposite of this function with my radar images, making an already animated .gif into frames, so I could display them animated on my desktop (my desktop monitor wouldn't support animated images, but it supports changing single frame images on a loop)

I bet you could make a simple script on linux to convert ___ images to animated gif, and upload via ftp to your server on a scheduled timer. I'm not sure what a Windows alternative would be. This is one reason i'm loving linux after my recent conversion, making things automated like this is easy.

One for linux is called Gifsicle (i used this)
One for all OS is called ImageMagick, it looks impressive and full featured, more importantly, can animate images. It seems to work from a Command line on both Win and Linux.

Then, you could make a shell script (.bat in windows or .sh in linux) that uploads via ftp!

Yea rob I thought of all that, but being it is a windows app and all that. well you know how it is.
I did a major search on all this and found this http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/anis/ But this kind of coding is NOT my strong point. If you want, take a look and see what you think. I know your interested in all of this too so maybe it will help both of us. ttyl
Here is the Folder with the files that I need to use. JPG Files as you see they end with br1_0 through 9 also as Grlevel updates each file will be over written but will use the same name.

What I am needing will have to be easy to edit as well being that each radar site will have another call letter. this is out of Tulsa Oka. "kinx" So when a weather event comes up I will change that to another city. That's why it needs to be a fast and easy edit.
John
Edited October 21, 2009 by Echo_of_thunder (see edit history)

[rob86 2]

I don't know anything about Java sorry.

Here's what I made in a linux bash script, I know you're using windows, but I think MS DOS command line on Windows has similar commands to reproduce this script. I know I've uploaded something to an ftp server with a dos batch file before. The commands might not be exactly the same on windows, but this is just an example of what I would do.

What's converting this into an animated image is a program called ImageMagick, which according to the website, runs in Windows.

It works pretty good, it converts and uploads, but there is one problem I couldn't figure out. The final animated gif is about 2mb in size -- much too huge for web use. I couldn't figure out how to make the file size smaller, but judging but the huge amount of commands on ImageMagick's website, I'm certain there must be a way.

Put it on some kind of a timer, and it will upload the updated gif automatically and you can use it on your webpage.

That's about the only suggestion I have, I'm not much of a coder in any language. If it's possible to do something similar in php or something, I wouldn't know.

#!/bin/bash#Animate the imageGR3DIR='/home/myusername/echoofthunder.com/GR3'convert -delay 50 kinx_br1_* -loop 0 kinx_br1_animated.gifHOST='echoofthunder.com;USER='YOURUSERNAME'PASSWD='YOURFTPPASSWORD'ftp -n -v $HOST << EOTasciiuser $USER $PASSWDpromptmkdir GR3GIFScd GR3GIFSput kinx_br1_animated.gif byeEOT

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

I don't know anything about Java sorry.
Here's what I made in a linux bash script, I know you're using windows, but I think MS DOS command line on Windows has similar commands to reproduce this script. I know I've uploaded something to an ftp server with a dos batch file before. The commands might not be exactly the same on windows, but this is just an example of what I would do.

What's converting this into an animated image is a program called ImageMagick, which according to the website, runs in Windows.

It works pretty good, it converts and uploads, but there is one problem I couldn't figure out. The final animated gif is about 2mb in size -- much too huge for web use. I couldn't figure out how to make the file size smaller, but judging but the huge amount of commands on ImageMagick's website, I'm certain there must be a way.

Put it on some kind of a timer, and it will upload the updated gif automatically and you can use it on your webpage.

That's about the only suggestion I have, I'm not much of a coder in any language. If it's possible to do something similar in php or something, I wouldn't know.

#!/bin/bash#Animate the imageGR3DIR='/home/myusername/echoofthunder.com/GR3'convert -delay 50 kinx_br1_* -loop 0 kinx_br1_animated.gifHOST='echoofthunder.com;USER='YOURUSERNAME'PASSWD='YOURFTPPASSWORD'ftp -n -v $HOST << EOTasciiuser $USER $PASSWDpromptmkdir GR3GIFScd GR3GIFSput kinx_br1_animated.gif byeEOT

ty rob but they are jpg's not gif files. Also I found this late last night sarasota wx Thing is a little hard to really understand for me anyways.

[rob86 2]

I realize they are jpg files, and I've tried it on the jpg's i downloaded from your site and it works though I'm not sure if * wild cards * work in dos. It takes the jpegs, animates them, and converts them into a GIF for viewing on a webpage.