[Gambas-user] Please test LILi

[neil lewis]

Hi All,

LILi is a program which uses a GUI created with Gambas and ImageMagick 
functions to create interlaced images for lenticulars.

Lenticulars are the 3D/animated images you might have seen which are 
printed onto thin plastic sheets.
Most people have seen only the very cheap and nasty lenticulars given 
away with products such as breakfast cereals, but the
technology is very advanced and very high quality images can be produced 
with amazing effects.

The Interlacing module is now functional and I would be most grateful if 
anyone could take the time to run a copy,
report any (all?) faults they find and offer any suggestions for 
additional features or changes.
Reports can go straight to me at gibsonsphoto at ...247... if that's 
preferable, or here if others would like to see what's going on
and it doesn't clog things up too much.

LILi is available for download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/lili-01/
The source tarball contains all the project files. The file simply 
called "LILi-013" is just the executable.

More info and some basic instructions follow. The tarball also includes 
some basic documentation, though this is in need of an update!

About LILi

LILi will eventually comprise three main modules:

    A Capture & Preview module. This will allow easy connection to a 
range of digital input devices and generate animated views of the
    expected result. You'll be able to "jog" images one pixel at a time 
in any direction and scale them in variable increments to help line them up.
    You'll also be able to make changes to colour balance and add text 
and logos.

    An Interlacing module. This does the work of combining the prepared 
image layers into one composite ready for printing.
    This is the first part of the project to be in a working state.

    An Output module. This will generate PS or PDF files for output to 
commercial printing systems and allow the imposition of several
    composites onto standard sized sheets of lenticular plastic in the 
most efficient manner.

Thanks to Phantomgraph for help and suggestions for the interlacing module.

Instructions

Point LILi at a collection of images (for example video frames or 
different still views of an object) and you can create
either a 3D image or an animation which can be printed (using a very 
high resolution printer) either directly onto lenticular
plastic or onto glossy paper which is then laminated to the back of 
lenticular plastic.

If you can get hold of some lenticular plastic with between 10 and 30 
lenses per inch, then you will be able to view the output
from LILi on an inkjet print. For lenticulars with between 30 and 200 
lenses per inch (the maximum presently available) you would
need very high resolution hardware.

For reasonably quick results, I'd suggest up to about six layers on 10 - 
20 lpi plastic at about 4 - 6 inches wide.
Real world images might be 6 - 10 layers on 120 lpi plastic at 10 - 24 
inches wide, but this will be a huge composite
and probably shouldn't be attempted on anything less than a Athlon64 
with 1GB RAM and a fast harddrive.

Set the lens spacing of your plastic, the image (printing) resolution in 
lines per inch and the output image width and the layers
are automatically scaled to the necessary size. Plain English error 
messages are generated if you try to use inappropriate values.

Have fun!

Neil Lewis.