gif image in beamer presentation

Question

I wish to display some animations in my beamer presentation. The most trivial way that comes to my mind is to use a gif image. How can I put it in the presentation and what should I use to display it? Is there any other way of doing it?

You could have a look into the beameruserguide Chapter 14, which describes some different methods to do animated stuff. — Benedikt Bauer, Sep 25 '12 at 16:38
@garbagecollector: useful to mention the context, here -- when pdftex was being developed, gif format was encumbered with a software patent that applied to its compression method (lzw). there are several free software projects that avoided gif, in that context, and pdftex was one of them. it's a pity, since (as sthiadhi says) motion gif is one of the easiest motion formats to handle. — wasteofspace, Sep 25 '12 at 20:21
@wasteofspace: Even if gif were supported by pdfTeX, the viewer application would have to support it as well, in particular its animation feature. Only gif creation software using LZW was subject to licensing, not viewing software. Even though, Adobe abstained from supporting animated gif in Acrobat. Perhaps they considered it dispensable. — AlexG, Sep 26 '12 at 7:10

Who is crazy first · Answer 1 · 2013-04-25 11:35:55Z

In a single run you will get 4 separate files as follows,

a GIF animation
a PDF animation
a MP4 video
a slide that contains a PDF animation and imports a MP4 video as shown in the figure below

Requirements

ImageMagick must be installed and its path must be registered to PATH system variable.
FFMPEG must be installed and its path must be registered to PATH system variable.

How to compile

The following input file, named as main.tex, must be compiled with pdflatex -shell-escape main. WARNING: If your OS is not Windows, then please adapt the Windows shell command to your OS shell command.

% this filename is main.tex
% compile it with "pdflatex -shell-escape main" (without the quotes)

\documentclass[mathserif]{beamer}

\usepackage{filecontents}

% Create a PDF file that consist of some pages
\begin{filecontents*}{frames.tex}
\documentclass[pstricks,border=12pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{pst-plot}

\begin{document}
\multido{\i=5+5}{72}
{
    \begin{pspicture}[showgrid=false](-2,-2)(2,2)
        \psparametricplot[algebraic,plotpoints=1000,linecolor=red]{0}{\i}{2*sin(7*t*Pi/180)|2*cos(11*t*Pi/180)}
    \end{pspicture}
}
\end{document}
\end{filecontents*}

\immediate\write18{latex frames}
\immediate\write18{dvips frames}
\immediate\write18{ps2pdf frames.ps}
% sometimes you need to disable auto rotate in ps2pdf. Please follow up if you really need it!
% delete auxiliary files generated by the 3 commands above.
\makeatletter
\@for\x:={tex,dvi,ps,log,aux}\do{\immediate\write18{cmd /c del frames.\x}}
\makeatother

% convert to GIF animation
\immediate\write18{convert -delay 5 -loop 0 -density 75 -alpha remove frames.pdf Lissajous.gif}

% convert to MP4
\makeatletter
\immediate\write18{convert -density 600 -alpha remove frames.pdf frames-\@percentchar04d.png}
\immediate\write18{cmd /c if exist Lissajous.mp4 del Lissajous.mp4}
\immediate\write18{ffmpeg -r 5 -i frames-\@percentchar04d.png -vcodec libx264 Lissajous.mp4}
\immediate\write18{cmd /c if exist frames-*.png del frames-*.png}
\makeatother

% convert to a single PDF animation
\begin{filecontents*}{Lissajous.tex}
\documentclass[preview,border=12pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{animate}
\begin{document}
\animategraphics[controls,loop,autoplay,scale=1]{10}{frames}{}{}
\end{document}
\end{filecontents*}

\immediate\write18{pdflatex Lissajous}
% delete auxiliary files generated by the above command.
\makeatletter
\@for\x:={tex,log,aux}\do{\immediate\write18{cmd /c del Lissajous.\x}}
\makeatother


\usepackage{animate,media9}
\begin{document}

\begin{frame}[t]{Lissajous in action}
\begin{columns}[T]
%=============
\begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
\begin{block}{PDF Animation}
%\animategraphics[controls,autoplay,loop,scale=<integer>]{<frame rate>}{<PDF filename without extension>}{<left blank>}{<left blank>}
\animategraphics[controls,autoplay,loop,scale=1]{10}{frames}{}{}
\end{block}
\end{column}
%=============
\begin{column}{0.5\textwidth}
\begin{block}{MP4}
\includemedia[
    activate=onclick,
    width=\linewidth,height=\linewidth,
    addresource=Lissajous.mp4,
    flashvars={%
        source=Lissajous.mp4%same path as in addresource!
        &autoPlay=true%optional configuration
        &loop=true%variables
    }
]{}{VPlayer.swf}
\end{block}
\end{column}
%=============
\end{columns}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Notes:

The auxiliary file named frames.pdf must be removed manually because I cannot remove it from within main.tex. If you know how to do this, let me know!

Related: how to create a GIF animation? and how to create a PDF animation?. — Who is crazy first, Sep 26 '12 at 7:59
There is yet another option. You could convert frames.pdf to animated SWF using swftools and embed this one using \includemedia from media9 package. This keeps the vectorial nature of the graphics (as opposed to MP4). — AlexG, Sep 26 '12 at 8:14
@AlexG: OK. Thanks. I will update this answer once I am finished trying it. — Who is crazy first, Sep 26 '12 at 8:15
@cmhughes: Yes it might be rewritten in an arara rule but learning arara will burden us to spend an extra time. — Who is crazy first, Jun 22 '13 at 19:27

Who is crazy first · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-07 04:42:35Z

Assume that you want to create an animation as follows.
enter image description here

Step 1:

Create a PDF file consists of at lease 2 pages. Compiling the following input file with either latex-dvips-ps2pdf or xelatex produces a PDF file with 30 pages. Each page represent one frame.

% input.tex
\documentclass[pstricks,border=0pt]{standalone}
\usepackage{pstricks-add,fp}

\FPeval{Size}{3.00}
\FPeval{N}{30}
\FPeval{Delta}{round(Size/N:2)}

\begin{document}
\multido{\r=\Size+-\Delta}{\N}
{
    \begin{pspicture}(-\Size,-\Size)(\Size,\Size)
        \psframe*[linecolor=yellow](-\Size,-\Size)(\Size,\Size)
        \pscircle*{\r}
    \end{pspicture}
}
\end{document}

Step 2:

Install ImageMagick.

Step 3:

Convert the PDF to GIF using the following command:

convert -delay <integer> -loop 0 -density <integer> -alpha <on,off,remove> input.pdf output.gif

Remarks:

-delay <integer> specifies the delay between 2 consecutive frames in 1/100 second.
-density <integer> specifies the resolution.
-alpha <on,off,remove> specifies whether or not you enable, disable or remove the alpha channel.

Another example:

\documentclass[border=0pt,pstricks]{standalone}
\usepackage{pst-coil,pstricks-add}
\usepackage[nomessages]{fp}
\newcommand\const[3][6]{%
    \expandafter\FPeval\csname#2\endcsname{round(#3:#1)}%
    \pstVerb{/#2 \csname#2\endcsname\space def}%
}
\newcommand\Const[3][7]{\begingroup\edef\temp{\endgroup\noexpand\const[#1]{#2}{#3}}\temp}

\Const{CoilArm}{0.250}
\Const{CoilWidth}{0.300}
\Const{CoilTurn}{50/3}
\Const{DeltaY}{0.5}
\Const{Amplitude}{1.5}
\Const{FPS}{25}% frame rate must be synced with the convert's delay!
\Const{Vx}{2}% propagation speed
\Const{Period}{1}% second

\def\Y#1{-\DeltaY-\Amplitude*cos(2*\psPi*#1/\Period)+2}

\psset
{
    coilarm=\CoilArm,
    coilwidth=\CoilWidth,
}


\newcommand\System[4][0]{% #1: box, #2: x, #3: y, #4: label
    \uput[90](#2,4.25){#4}
    \Const{CoilHeight}{(4-(#3)-2*CoilArm)/(CoilWidth*CoilTurn)}
    \pszigzag[coilheight=\CoilHeight,linejoin=2](#2,4)(#2,#3)
    \ifnum#1=1
    \bgroup
        \psset{origin={#2,#3}}
        \psframe[dimen=inner,fillstyle=solid,fillcolor=black](-0.5,0)(0.5,-1)
        \psdot[linecolor=yellow](0,-0.5)
    \egroup
    \fi
}

\Const{DeltaTime}{1/\FPS}
\Const[0]{TotalFrames}{\FPS*\Period}

\begin{document}
\multido{\n=0.000+\DeltaTime}{\TotalFrames}{%
\begin{pspicture*}[showgrid=false](-1.5,-2)(3.5,5)
    \psframe[fillstyle=vlines,hatchsep=2pt,hatchwidth=0.5\pslinewidth,hatchcolor=gray,hatchangle=45](0,4)(2,4.25)
    \Const{Yn}{\Y{\n}}%
    \System[1]{1}{\Yn}{}
    \psplot[algebraic,linecolor=red,plotpoints=1000]{-1.5}{3.5}{\Y{((-\Vx*\n+x-1)/\Vx)}-0.5}
\end{pspicture*}}

\end{document}

Use convert -delay 4 -loop 0 -density 200 -alpha remove shm.pdf shm.gif. The -delay 4 represents the rate of 25 frame per second. The formula is FPS = 100 / DELAY.

"use Image Magick" should be submitted as a comment rather than an answer that I actually want. — Who is crazy first, Sep 22 '12 at 15:49
@AdorableCreature,follow your steps, I can't get animated GIF. I only get the first page picture of the 30 pages pdf file in my GIF file. How to solve it? Thanks. — Pig Cry, Jan 7 '13 at 4:23
@PigCry: Make sure you had 30 pages in your PDF and you typied the convert command correctly. — Who is crazy first, Jan 7 '13 at 4:44
@AdorableCreature: yes, I have 30 pages. The convert command is convert -delay 100 -loop 0 -density 200 -alpha on input.pdf output.gif. — Pig Cry, Jan 7 '13 at 5:13

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