PHP - Create simple animated GIF from two JPEG images?

Question

Does anyone know if it's possible to generate an animated GIF from two different JPEG files, displaying one image for x seconds then the other, and so on..?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

For a nice, quick and more recent solution, see this SO answer.

For an even more recent solution, here is my fork of it, with a number of small fixes & improvements. An example of it from an actual application:

$anim = new GifCreator\AnimGif();

$gif = $anim->create($image_files);
//file_put_contents("test.gif", $gif);

header("Content-type: image/gif");
echo $gif;

(Requires PHP5.3 with GD2.)

Example that works with PHP 5.6 and GD 2.4.11:

require_once "AnimGif.php";

/*
 * Create an array containing file paths, resource var (initialized with imagecreatefromXXX), 
 * image URLs or even binary code from image files.
 * All sorted in order to appear.
 */
$image_files = array(
    //imagecreatefrompng("/../images/pic1.png"), // Resource var
    //"/../images/pic2.png", // Image file path
    //file_get_contents("/../images/pic3.jpg"), // Binary source code
    'https://yt3.ggpht.com/-KxeE9Hu93eE/AAAAAAAAAAI/AAAAAAAAAAA/D-DB1Umuimk/s100-c-k-no-mo-rj-c0xffffff/photo.jpg', // URL
    'https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_100_100/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAloAAAAJDRkZGY2MWZmLTM1NDYtNDBhOS04MjYwLWNkM2UzYjdiZGZmMA.png', // URL
    'http://is5.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Purple128/v4/e4/63/e7/e463e779-e6d0-0c3d-3ec1-97fdbaae230a/source/100x100bb.jpg' // URL
);

/*
 * Create an array containing the duration (in millisecond) of each frame.
 */
$durations_millis = array(
    1000,
    2000,
    3000
);

/*
 * Fix durations.
 */
$durations = array();
for ($i = 0; $i < count($durations_millis); $i++) {
    $durations[$i] = $durations_millis[$i] / 10;
}

/*
 * Specify number of loops. (0 = infinite looping.)
 */
$num_loops = 0;

/*
 * Create gif object.
 */
$anim_gif = new GifCreator\AnimGif();
$gif_object = $anim_gif->create($image_files, $durations, $num_loops);

/*
 * Get the animated GIF binary.
 */
$gif_binary = $gif_object->get();

/*
 * Set the file name of the saved/returned animated GIF.
 */
$file_name = "animated.gif";

/*
 *  Optionally, save animated GIF in a folder as a GIF:
 */
//file_put_contents($file_name, $gif_binary);

/*
 * Optionally, return the animated GIF to client.
 */
header("Content-type: image/gif");
header('Content-Disposition: filename="' . $file_name . '"'); // Optional
echo $gif_binary;

/*
 * All done.
 */
exit;

Answer 2

It's not possible using the standard GD functions that come pre-packed with PHP.

There is a class on phpclasses.org for this. I have never used it myself, but it's used by a lot of other packages.

Alternatively, if you have access to ImageMagick from PHP, using either the MagickWand library or the command line, use it. With ImageMagick, it's no problem.

• ImageMagick v6 Animation basics (from the IM manual)

• Creating an Animated GIF image