Create an animated gif image from still images on the cli using imagemagick

Written by Claudio Kuenzler - 0 comments

Published on May 2nd 2019 - last updated on October 31st 2019 - Listed in Linux Multimedia Surveillance

My surveillance system (Zoneminder) "records" movements by capturing screenshots. Putting these screenshots together in order and running through them gives the same effect as watching a recorded video.

When a Zoneminder event is exported, you basically get a folder with these screenshots:

For archiving purposes this is OK, but not if you want to send this to someone. So I needed to find a way to create a video file or an animated image/gif from these images.

Luckily there's ImageMagick's convert command:

$ convert --help|grep delay
  -delay value         display the next image after pausing

I agree, the description "display the next image" does not immediately make you think of an animated gif, yet that's exactly what an animated image is.

I can now tell convert to create an animated image using the delay parameter:

$ convert -delay 0.2 *.jpg recording.gif

Additional parameters also allow an infinite loop (0 = infinite) and resizing of the animated image:

$ convert -delay 0.2 -loop 0 -resize 800x600 *.jpg recording.gif

The animated gif is slow

With the -delay 0.2 setting the resulting animated gif will appear "slow". This is because of the delay. Even if you set a delay of 0.0 you will see a slower movement than in the reality. To come to a speed closer to real time, you need to adjust the delay format a bit. For example -delay 33,1000 will give you faster results.

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