Making mpeg movies.


; specify the size of the window in pixels
nxwin=512    ; nxwin and nywin should be multiples of 16 for mpeg
nywin=nxwin  ; nywin does not need to be the same as nxwin

DEVICE,DECOMPOSED=0
LOADCT,33
WINDOW,1,XSIZE=nxwin,YSIZE=nywin,RETAIN=2  ; RETAIN=2 will avoid problems with mpeg

mpeg_id=MPEG_OPEN([nxwin,nywin],FILENAME='movie.mpg')
count=0

FOR n=1,nsteps DO BEGIN

;  .....  here you update the 2d array t  (for example)

   IF (n MOD 50 EQ 0) THEN BEGIN
      count=count+1
      SHADE_SURF,t,ZRANGE=[0.,tmax],SHADES=BYTSCL(t)  ; for example
      MPEG_PUT,mpeg_id,WINDOW=1,FRAME=count,/ORDER
   endif

ENDFOR

MPEG_SAVE, mpeg_id
MPEG_CLOSE, mpeg_id

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; or if you do not want to display the movie on the screen as the mpeg
file is being made, add /PIXMAP to the WINDOW procedure:

WINDOW,1,XSIZE=nxwin,YSIZE=nywin,RETAIN=2,/PIXMAP

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; then the file movie.mpg can be played with an mpeg movie player,
for example, vlc on the workstations in BE 105.