How to composite hundreds of images in "real time?"

[Mark_C]

Hello there,

Let me set the stage for my question: My goal is to record the pattern created by a laser beam firing through a narrow slit, photon by photon. I'm hoping to get a pattern of "dots" that over time builds into a pattern of alternating bands of bright and dark. Students must be able to see the process as it happens.


I have a CCD that will integrate and output .tif files about once every 10 seconds. I want to be able to take image_1, display it, then have image_2 composite onto image_1 (call this image_1&2) and display *that* result, and then image_3 composites onto image_1&2, and so on, adding new images to the composite as the CCD outputs them.

Is it possible to do such a thing in IM?

By the way, I'm using Windows XP 32, the latest version of IM.

Thank you for your help.


Mark

[fmw42]

I don't know about the real time aspect, but IM can composite one image onto another and repeat that for each image. You would have to write a script to loop over each image as it is received. But I doubt you will be able to do that in real time. But I am not an expert on such timing issues. You can store the images and create an animation that shows what you want.

see

http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/layers/
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/layers/#convert

http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_basics/