Overview

Contents

A VERY basic overview of older instructions on how to create movies using Amira.  Instructions on how to create movies from a .tif series is included.

Movie Making Instructions

  1. Loading the Data
    1. run amira (ver 4.0 is the latest one as of june 30th, 2006) in the terminal
    2. File->Open Data
    3. Load all tiff images that you need at once
      1. left click on the first tif image you want
      2. Shift+left_click on each subsequent image you want
      3. NOTE: images should be in sequential order, otherwise your slice-by-slice movie will not be set up correctly (i.e. tif01, tif02, tif03, etc. etc)
    4. Click OK whtn the "Image Read Parameters" window pops up
    5. Click on the loaded tif set in the amira window.  It should appear as a green button.
    6. click on the "Orthoslice" button near the top of the window (it should be orange)
    7. Your dataset should appear now.
  2. Preparing your Data for movie production
    1. Click on the "orthoslice" bubble button that appeared AFTER you clicked on the orthoslice button.  This new bubble button should be connected to your tif dataset with a thin black line.
    2. Near the bottom right portion of the amira window, the Orthoslice properties should now be listed.
    3. Change properties as needed
      1. check "bilinear view"
      2. click "binary"
      3. It may be prudent to move the "slice number" slider around to make sure that your tifs loaded properly.  The slider will let you move through each slice of the the data set.
    4. Change background color
      1. Click on the menu View->Background
      2. click the "uniform" radio button
      3. click the dark color button next to the text "color 1"
      4. When the "Color Dialog" window appears, drag the black color tile near the bottom of this window onto the "Current Color" field.  Your background should now be all black.
    5. (Optional)  Your tifs may have been loaded upside down.  If this happens and you want to fix it, do the following:
      1. Click on the green tif dataset button
      2. in the Properties window (lower right section of amira), near the top right corner is a Necker's cube with green dotted corners.  Click this (right most icon in a row of 4 icons).
      3. Once again, in the Properties window, click the "dialog..." buttonnext to the "Manipulator: Transformer" property
      4. In the Transform Editor Window that pops up, change the following settings IN THIS ORDER:
        1. under rotation, there is a field with the number "1".  change this to "0"
        2. Change the X field (the bottom leftmost field of the rotation section) to "1"
        3. change the degrees field (next to the word "degrees") to 180
        4. Your image should be flipped now
        5. Close the transform editor popup window
      5. Click on the Necker's Cube icon again to make the borders around your dataset disappear
      6. Using the Cross Icon (found near top of amira window, probably underneath the "Edit" and "Pool" menus), move the image to center of the window by holding the middle mouse button down and dragging the image into place.
    6. Make sure the perspective is set correctly.  Push the icon that looks like an eye looking to the side (found under the VR and Help menu, between the icon of the house with the arrow and the white shield) so that the lines radiating from the eye are now parallel instead of at an angle to each other.
    7. Using the Zoom-in icon button near the top of the Amira window (located under the "pool" menu, between the cross icon and the circular rotation icon), zoom in or out from the image SO THAT THE IMAGE IS PERFECTLY FRAMED IN THE WINDOW.
      1. Adjust the size of this window and the zoom so that the image is perfectly framed, with no visible background.  This is extremely important, otherwise your movie will show any black borders around your tif set
  3. Making the actual movie
    1. Click on Create->Animation/Demo->Demomaker
      1. A blue "demomaker" button should appear in the amira window
    2. Left click on the demomaker button
    3. In the properties window, click on "Update" found near the bottom. 
    4. Click on the pulldown menu beside "Update" and select "Orthoslice/Slice Number"
    5. Start/end values should encompass the range of tif #'s you'd like to include for your movie.  for example, if you want the full set of tif images, you would enter "0" for start and "X" for end, where "X" is equal to the last slice number. 
    6. (optional) If you want the movie to loop back and forth just once, do the following:
      1. change End Time to 0.5
      2. Click "Add"
      3. Reverse the Start/end values.  i.e. if your start / end values were 0 and 384, make 384 your start and 0 your end value
      4. change start time to 0.5
      5. change end time to 1
      6. Click "Add"
    7. Right Click on the DemoMaker button
    8. Select "MovieMaker" in the pull down menu that appears
    9. Left Click on the red MovieMaker button that appears.
    10. In the properties window of MovieMaker, change the parameters as needed
      1. Filename:  Click on "browse", select the directory you'd like to save to and choose a filename for this movie.  Remember to add the .mpg extension to the name.  Make sure Click "OK" when done.
      2. Change the # of Frames to alter speed.  More frames means the movie runs slower.  Fewer frames means the movie runs faster.  If you have no preference, keep at default (200).
      3. Frame rate should be 24
      4. Compression Quality should be changed from 0.8 to 1.0.  setting this to less than 1.0 introduces artifacts during the moviemaking process, but it does make the file size of your movie smaller...
      5. Type should be monoscopic
      6. Format should be RGB
      7. Tiles should be kept at X:1 and Y:1 (default)
      8. Size should be at "Current"
      9. When everything looks good, click on the green "Apply" button located in the bottom right hand corner of the Amira window. 
      10. IMPORTANT:  ONCE YOU CLICK ON APPLY, DO NOT TOUCH THE MOUSE, KEYBOARD OR MOVE ANY OTHER WINDOWS AROUND.  Amira renders what is seen on the monitor into the movie, NOT what the dataset is.  So, for example, you move your mouse across the monitor - THAT MOUSE MOVEMENT IS RENDERED INTO THE MOVIE!!!
      11. your movie should be made in the directory you specified. 

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