how to create an animated gif in .net
Does anyone know how to create an animated gif using c#? Ideally I would have some control over the color reduction used.
Is using imagemagick (as an external started process) the best choice?
This Gif Animation Creater code from https://github.com/DataDink/Bumpkit can set Delay foreach Frame:
Uses .Net standard Gif Encoding and adds Animation headers.
EDIT: Made the code similar to a typical file writer.
using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
/// <summary>
/// Creates a GIF using .Net GIF encoding and additional animation headers.
/// </summary>
public class GifWriter : IDisposable
{
#region Fields
const long SourceGlobalColorInfoPosition = 10,
SourceImageBlockPosition = 789;
readonly BinaryWriter _writer;
bool _firstFrame = true;
readonly object _syncLock = new object();
#endregion
/// <summary>
/// Creates a new instance of GifWriter.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="OutStream">The <see cref="Stream"/> to output the Gif to.</param>
/// <param name="DefaultFrameDelay">Default Delay between consecutive frames... FrameRate = 1000 / DefaultFrameDelay.</param>
/// <param name="Repeat">No of times the Gif should repeat... -1 not to repeat, 0 to repeat indefinitely.</param>
public GifWriter(Stream OutStream, int DefaultFrameDelay = 500, int Repeat = -1)
{
if (OutStream == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(OutStream));
if (DefaultFrameDelay <= 0)
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(nameof(DefaultFrameDelay));
if (Repeat < -1)
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(nameof(Repeat));
_writer = new BinaryWriter(OutStream);
this.DefaultFrameDelay = DefaultFrameDelay;
this.Repeat = Repeat;
}
/// <summary>
/// Creates a new instance of GifWriter.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="FileName">The path to the file to output the Gif to.</param>
/// <param name="DefaultFrameDelay">Default Delay between consecutive frames... FrameRate = 1000 / DefaultFrameDelay.</param>
/// <param name="Repeat">No of times the Gif should repeat... -1 not to repeat, 0 to repeat indefinitely.</param>
public GifWriter(string FileName, int DefaultFrameDelay = 500, int Repeat = -1)
: this(new FileStream(FileName, FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.Read), DefaultFrameDelay, Repeat) { }
#region Properties
/// <summary>
/// Gets or Sets the Default Width of a Frame. Used when unspecified.
/// </summary>
public int DefaultWidth { get; set; }
/// <summary>
/// Gets or Sets the Default Height of a Frame. Used when unspecified.
/// </summary>
public int DefaultHeight { get; set; }
/// <summary>
/// Gets or Sets the Default Delay in Milliseconds.
/// </summary>
public int DefaultFrameDelay { get; set; }
/// <summary>
/// The Number of Times the Animation must repeat.
/// -1 indicates no repeat. 0 indicates repeat indefinitely
/// </summary>
public int Repeat { get; }
#endregion
/// <summary>
/// Adds a frame to this animation.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="Image">The image to add</param>
/// <param name="Delay">Delay in Milliseconds between this and last frame... 0 = <see cref="DefaultFrameDelay"/></param>
public void WriteFrame(Image Image, int Delay = 0)
{
lock (_syncLock)
using (var gifStream = new MemoryStream())
{
Image.Save(gifStream, ImageFormat.Gif);
// Steal the global color table info
if (_firstFrame)
InitHeader(gifStream, _writer, Image.Width, Image.Height);
WriteGraphicControlBlock(gifStream, _writer, Delay == 0 ? DefaultFrameDelay : Delay);
WriteImageBlock(gifStream, _writer, !_firstFrame, 0, 0, Image.Width, Image.Height);
}
if (_firstFrame)
_firstFrame = false;
}
#region Write
void InitHeader(Stream SourceGif, BinaryWriter Writer, int Width, int Height)
{
// File Header
Writer.Write("GIF".ToCharArray()); // File type
Writer.Write("89a".ToCharArray()); // File Version
Writer.Write((short)(DefaultWidth == 0 ? Width : DefaultWidth)); // Initial Logical Width
Writer.Write((short)(DefaultHeight == 0 ? Height : DefaultHeight)); // Initial Logical Height
SourceGif.Position = SourceGlobalColorInfoPosition;
Writer.Write((byte)SourceGif.ReadByte()); // Global Color Table Info
Writer.Write((byte)0); // Background Color Index
Writer.Write((byte)0); // Pixel aspect ratio
WriteColorTable(SourceGif, Writer);
// App Extension Header for Repeating
if (Repeat == -1)
return;
Writer.Write(unchecked((short)0xff21)); // Application Extension Block Identifier
Writer.Write((byte)0x0b); // Application Block Size
Writer.Write("NETSCAPE2.0".ToCharArray()); // Application Identifier
Writer.Write((byte)3); // Application block length
Writer.Write((byte)1);
Writer.Write((short)Repeat); // Repeat count for images.
Writer.Write((byte)0); // terminator
}
static void WriteColorTable(Stream SourceGif, BinaryWriter Writer)
{
SourceGif.Position = 13; // Locating the image color table
var colorTable = new byte[768];
SourceGif.Read(colorTable, 0, colorTable.Length);
Writer.Write(colorTable, 0, colorTable.Length);
}
static void WriteGraphicControlBlock(Stream SourceGif, BinaryWriter Writer, int FrameDelay)
{
SourceGif.Position = 781; // Locating the source GCE
var blockhead = new byte[8];
SourceGif.Read(blockhead, 0, blockhead.Length); // Reading source GCE
Writer.Write(unchecked((short)0xf921)); // Identifier
Writer.Write((byte)0x04); // Block Size
Writer.Write((byte)(blockhead[3] & 0xf7 | 0x08)); // Setting disposal flag
Writer.Write((short)(FrameDelay / 10)); // Setting frame delay
Writer.Write(blockhead[6]); // Transparent color index
Writer.Write((byte)0); // Terminator
}
static void WriteImageBlock(Stream SourceGif, BinaryWriter Writer, bool IncludeColorTable, int X, int Y, int Width, int Height)
{
SourceGif.Position = SourceImageBlockPosition; // Locating the image block
var header = new byte[11];
SourceGif.Read(header, 0, header.Length);
Writer.Write(header[0]); // Separator
Writer.Write((short)X); // Position X
Writer.Write((short)Y); // Position Y
Writer.Write((short)Width); // Width
Writer.Write((short)Height); // Height
if (IncludeColorTable) // If first frame, use global color table - else use local
{
SourceGif.Position = SourceGlobalColorInfoPosition;
Writer.Write((byte)(SourceGif.ReadByte() & 0x3f | 0x80)); // Enabling local color table
WriteColorTable(SourceGif, Writer);
}
else Writer.Write((byte)(header[9] & 0x07 | 0x07)); // Disabling local color table
Writer.Write(header[10]); // LZW Min Code Size
// Read/Write image data
SourceGif.Position = SourceImageBlockPosition + header.Length;
var dataLength = SourceGif.ReadByte();
while (dataLength > 0)
{
var imgData = new byte[dataLength];
SourceGif.Read(imgData, 0, dataLength);
Writer.Write((byte)dataLength);
Writer.Write(imgData, 0, dataLength);
dataLength = SourceGif.ReadByte();
}
Writer.Write((byte)0); // Terminator
}
#endregion
/// <summary>
/// Frees all resources used by this object.
/// </summary>
public void Dispose()
{
// Complete File
_writer.Write((byte)0x3b); // File Trailer
_writer.BaseStream.Dispose();
_writer.Dispose();
}
}
There is a built in .NET class which will encode GIF files. GifBitmapEncode MSDN
System.Windows.Media.Imaging.GifBitmapEncoder gEnc = new GifBitmapEncoder();
foreach (System.Drawing.Bitmap bmpImage in images)
{
var bmp = bmpImage.GetHbitmap();
var src = System.Windows.Interop.Imaging.CreateBitmapSourceFromHBitmap(
bmp,
IntPtr.Zero,
Int32Rect.Empty,
BitmapSizeOptions.FromEmptyOptions());
gEnc.Frames.Add(BitmapFrame.Create(src));
DeleteObject(bmp); // recommended, handle memory leak
}
using(FileStream fs = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Create))
{
gEnc.Save(fs);
}
You might also consider using the ImageMagick library.
There are two .net wrappers for the library listed at http://www.imagemagick.org/script/api.php
Here is an example on how to do it using the Magick.net wrapper:
using (MagickImageCollection collection = new MagickImageCollection())
{
// Add first image and set the animation delay to 100ms
collection.Add("Snakeware.png");
collection[0].AnimationDelay = 100;
// Add second image, set the animation delay to 100ms and flip the image
collection.Add("Snakeware.png");
collection[1].AnimationDelay = 100;
collection[1].Flip();
// Optionally reduce colors
QuantizeSettings settings = new QuantizeSettings();
settings.Colors = 256;
collection.Quantize(settings);
// Optionally optimize the images (images should have the same size).
collection.Optimize();
// Save gif
collection.Write("Snakeware.Animated.gif");
}
Whether or not calling imagemagick is the best choice is kind of hard to awnser without knowing the quality parameters that are important. Some other options would be:
-
Rick van den Bosch's codearchive.org mirror - NGif article on codeplex
these have the advantage that you don't have a dependency on a third partly library which might or might not be available on all systems executing your code.
This article at MS Support explains how to save a gif with a custom color table (this does require full trust). A animated gif is just a set of gifs for each image with some additional information in the header. So combining these two articles should get you what you need.
To use the sample from a Windows Forms app, add references to these assemblies:
C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETFramework\v4.0\PresentationCore.dll C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETFramework\v4.0\System.Xaml.dll C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework.NETFramework\v4.0\WindowsBase.dll
Then
Int32Rect is in the System.Windows namespace
BitmapSizeOptions is in the System.Windows.Media.Imaging namespace
BitmapFrame is in the System.Windows.Media.Imaging namespace
Also, don't forget to close the file stream (something like this):
using(FileStream targetFile = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Create))
{
gEnc.Save(targetFile);
}