Image sequence to video stream?

Question

Like many people already seem to have (there are several threads on this subject here) I am looking for ways to create video from a sequence of images.

I want to implement my functionality in C#!

Here is what I wan't to do:

/*Pseudo code*/
void CreateVideo(List<Image> imageSequence, long durationOfEachImageMs, string outputVideoFileName, string outputFormat)
{
    // Info: imageSequence.Count will be > 30 000 images
    // Info: durationOfEachImageMs will be < 300 ms

    if (outputFormat = "mpeg")
    {
    }
    else if (outputFormat = "avi")
    {      
    }
    else
    {
    }

    //Save video file do disk
}

I know there's a project called Splicer (http://splicer.codeplex.com/) but I can't find suitable documentation or clear examples that I can follow (these are the examples that I found).

The closest I want to do, which I find here on CodePlex is this: How can I create a video from a directory of images in C#?

I have also read a few threads about ffmpeg (for example this: C# and FFmpeg preferably without shell commands? and this: convert image sequence using ffmpeg) but I find no one to help me with my problem and I don't think ffmpeg-command-line-style is the best solution for me (because of the amount of images).

I believe that I can use the Splicer-project in some way (?).

In my case, it is about about > 30 000 images where each image should be displayed for about 200 ms (in the videostream that I want to create).

(What the video is about? Plants growing ...)

Can anyone help me complete my function?

Answer 1

Well, this answer comes a bit late, but since I have noticed some activity with my original question lately (and the fact that there was not provided a working solution) I would like to give you what finally worked for me.

I'll split my answer into three parts:

• Background
• Problem
• Solution

---

Background

(this section is not important for the solution)

My original problem was that I had a lot of images (i.e. a huge amount), images that were individually stored in a database as byte arrays. I wanted to make a video sequence with all these images.

My equipment setup was something like this general drawing:

The images depicted growing tomato plants in different states. All images were taken every 1 minute under daytime.

/*pseudo code for taking and storing images*/
while (true)
{
    if (daylight)
    {
        //get an image from the camera
        //store the image as byte array to db
    }
    //wait 1 min
}

I had a very simple db for storing images, there were only one table (the table ImageSet) in it:

---

Problem

I had read many articles about ffmpeg (please see my original question) but I couldn't find any on how to go from a collection of images to a video.

---

Solution

Finally, I got a working solution! The main part of it comes from the open source project AForge.NET. In short, you could say that AForge.NET is a computer vision and artificial intelligence library in C#. (If you want a copy of the framework, just grab it from http://www.aforgenet.com/)

In AForge.NET, there is this VideoFileWriter class (a class for writing videofiles with help of ffmpeg). This did almost all of the work. (There is also a very good example here)

This is the final class (reduced) which I used to fetch and convert image data into a video from my image database:

public class MovieMaker
{

    public void Start()
    {
        var startDate = DateTime.Parse("12 Mar 2012");
        var endDate = DateTime.Parse("13 Aug 2012");

        CreateMovie(startDate, endDate);
    }    
    

    /*THIS CODE BLOCK IS COPIED*/

    public Bitmap ToBitmap(byte[] byteArrayIn)
    {
        var ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream(byteArrayIn);
        var returnImage = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(ms);
        var bitmap = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(returnImage);

        return bitmap;
    }

    public Bitmap ReduceBitmap(Bitmap original, int reducedWidth, int reducedHeight)
    {
        var reduced = new Bitmap(reducedWidth, reducedHeight);
        using (var dc = Graphics.FromImage(reduced))
        {
            // you might want to change properties like
            dc.InterpolationMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode.HighQualityBicubic;
            dc.DrawImage(original, new Rectangle(0, 0, reducedWidth, reducedHeight), new Rectangle(0, 0, original.Width, original.Height), GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
        }

        return reduced;
    }

    /*END OF COPIED CODE BLOCK*/


    private void CreateMovie(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate)
    {
        int width = 320;
        int height = 240;
        var framRate = 200;

        using (var container = new ImageEntitiesContainer())
        {
            //a LINQ-query for getting the desired images
            var query = from d in container.ImageSet
                        where d.Date >= startDate && d.Date <= endDate
                        select d;

            // create instance of video writer
            using (var vFWriter = new VideoFileWriter())
            {
                // create new video file
                vFWriter.Open("nameOfMyVideoFile.avi", width, height, framRate, VideoCodec.Raw);

                var imageEntities = query.ToList();

                //loop throught all images in the collection
                foreach (var imageEntity in imageEntities)
                {
                    //what's the current image data?
                    var imageByteArray = imageEntity.Data;
                    var bmp = ToBitmap(imageByteArray);
                    var bmpReduced = ReduceBitmap(bmp, width, height);

                    vFWriter.WriteVideoFrame(bmpReduced);
                }
                vFWriter.Close();
            }
        }

    }
}

Update 2013-11-29 (how to) (Hope this is what you asked for @Kiquenet?)

1. Download AForge.NET Framework from the downloads page (Download full ZIP archive and you will find many interesting Visual Studio solutions with projects, like Video, in the AForge.NET Framework-2.2.5\Samples folder...)
2. Namespace: AForge.Video.FFMPEG (from the documentation)
3. Assembly: AForge.Video.FFMPEG (in AForge.Video.FFMPEG.dll) (from the documentation) (you can find this AForge.Video.FFMPEG.dll in the AForge.NET Framework-2.2.5\Release folder)

If you want to create your own solution, make sure you have a reference to AForge.Video.FFMPEG.dll in your project. Then it should be easy to use the VideoFileWriter class. If you follow the link to the class you will find a very good (and simple example). In the code, they are feeding the VideoFileWriter with Bitmap image in a for-loop

---

Answer 2

I found this code in the slicer samples, looks pretty close to to what you want:

string outputFile = "FadeBetweenImages.wmv";
using (ITimeline timeline = new DefaultTimeline())
{
    IGroup group = timeline.AddVideoGroup(32, 160, 100);
    ITrack videoTrack = group.AddTrack();
    IClip clip1 = videoTrack.AddImage("image1.jpg", 0, 2); // play first image for a little while
    IClip clip2 = videoTrack.AddImage("image2.jpg", 0, 2); // and the next
    IClip clip3 = videoTrack.AddImage("image3.jpg", 0, 2); // and finally the last
    IClip clip4 = videoTrack.AddImage("image4.jpg", 0, 2); // and finally the last
}

  double halfDuration = 0.5;

  // fade out and back in
  group.AddTransition(clip2.Offset - halfDuration, halfDuration, StandardTransitions.CreateFade(), true);
  group.AddTransition(clip2.Offset, halfDuration, StandardTransitions.CreateFade(), false);

  // again
  group.AddTransition(clip3.Offset - halfDuration, halfDuration, StandardTransitions.CreateFade(), true);
  group.AddTransition(clip3.Offset, halfDuration, StandardTransitions.CreateFade(), false);

  // and again
  group.AddTransition(clip4.Offset - halfDuration, halfDuration, StandardTransitions.CreateFade(), true);
  group.AddTransition(clip4.Offset, halfDuration, StandardTransitions.CreateFade(), false);

  // add some audio
  ITrack audioTrack = timeline.AddAudioGroup().AddTrack();

  IClip audio =
     audioTrack.AddAudio("testinput.wav", 0, videoTrack.Duration);

  // create an audio envelope effect, this will:
  // fade the audio from 0% to 100% in 1 second.
  // play at full volume until 1 second before the end of the track
  // fade back out to 0% volume
  audioTrack.AddEffect(0, audio.Duration,
                 StandardEffects.CreateAudioEnvelope(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, audio.Duration));

  // render our slideshow out to a windows media file
  using (
     IRenderer renderer =
        new WindowsMediaRenderer(timeline, outputFile, WindowsMediaProfiles.HighQualityVideo))
  {
     renderer.Render();
  }
}