Morph software

[Todd Denniston]

Bill Davidsen wrote, On 02/07/2009 11:13 PM:
> Paul-Erik Törrönen wrote:
>> On Fri, 2009-02-06 at 16:02 -0500, Bill Davidsen wrote:
>>>  I'm looking for some morphing software, to take two images, and
>>> generate some  "intermediate" images to show the effect of a smooth
>>> transition from one to the other.
>>
>> One such program is the convert-command, which is part of the
>> ImageMagick-package.
>>
>> It can do primitive shape morphing, for more information go here:
>>
>> http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse-server/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11263
>>
>> I've used convert only to do fade-morph frames between images taken of
>> the same view, which then are fed to mencoder to produce a video.
>>
>> I can publish the shell-script which I created to accomplish this if
>> you're interested?
>>
> I Appreciate the offer, and you probably should publish for people 
> looking for a fade solution, but I'm really looking for a full shape and 
> color morph. I have an old program which I pulled off a Win98 machine 
> which did a pretty good job, but it uses gif format, won't run under 
> wine, and generally is pretty impractical other than as a proof of concept.
> 
> I'm surprised at the lack, I'll keep looking. Search turned up a number 
> of things which sounded hopeful but had serious issues between the 
> description and the performance.
> 
> Thanks for the pointer.
> 

with gimp
load image 1
on image 1's window select File->Open as Layer-> pick image 2
Open the Layers dialog
insert a Layer that is background color (call it Clean).
duplicate image 1's layer (Background).
Sort the layers such that you see
  image 2
  Background copy
  Clean
  Background
Delete Background.
on image 1's window select Script-Fu -> Animators -> Blend
set number of frames, blur and if you want it looped (no loop I think.).
hit OK.

There is probably a way that you don't have to play with the layers as I did 
above, and figuring out how to save each layer (frame) as a frame file is left 
as an exorcise for the reader (involves making successive layers invisible and 
saving a frame).

Also this was with gimp 2.2.12 so the names of the menus and scripts have 
probably been changed to protect the guilty. :)

-- 
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter