command save plot as picture, or surface plot movie.

thorthebrave · Post by **thorthebrave** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 4:52 pm

Hello

I have a bunch of time step files that contain data for surface plots.
Is there a way to make this into a movie in dplot directly, and is there a way to send commands to dplot to save each surface plot as a jpg or bitmap, such that I can use a movie maker later if a need.

best regards

Tom

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Mon Dec 14, 2009 5:26 pm

Within DPlot the only way to do this is with a macro, which would be very tedious. Since your question is in the C, C++, C# group, a much better way is demonstrated in the ctest demo program. (If you don't have that, download DPlot Jr). Option 15 in that demo will spin an existing surface plot around through one full rotation at whatever increment in azimuth you want. Elevation is left alone, but you could easily modify the code to change that angle as well. A BMP is saved for every view. You can then use Windows Movie Maker or similar program to build a movie from those frames.

The demo is fairly foolproof, but one thing might require a bit of explanation: The scale factor of the plot that is in use when you start looping will be used for all frames, so that the suface doesn't shrink/grow as it spins around. Before starting the demo you'll want to pick an azimuth that results in the largest amount of the screen width (usually) or height (sometimes) being used. For most surfaces that will be at an azimuth that is near a multiple of 45 degrees. If you don't do this, you can end up with portions of the plot being clipped.

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Tue Dec 15, 2009 10:50 pm

Example, Mt St Helens with axes and legend turned off, 1 degree per frame:

~7.6 Mb. The lossless version is about 16 Mb. You can probably find better combinations of file size/quality than that provided with Windows Movie Maker. That has never been much of a consideration for me, as all of the movies I've made have been stored locally.