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Computers |
1 Department of Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, WCC, Room 306, 330 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA.
Received May 14, 2007; accepted after revision July 16, 2007.
WEB This is a Web exclusive article.
OBJECTIVE. This article provides a freeware program created for converting image sequences to Flash movie loops.
CONCLUSION. Although Flash is a useful format for presenting dynamic data sets in PowerPoint compared with other movie clip formats (e.g., AVI), the associated cost of the required Flash application ($699) is a common concern for many academic radiologists. To address this issue, a freeware program for creating simple Flash movie loops from image sequences has been developed for this article.
Keywords: cine loop • freeware • movie clip • PowerPoint • Shockwave Flash
Shockwave Flash (Adobe) is currently one of the most commonly used multimedia formats for Web-based animations and applications. Because of its cross-platform compatibility and programmable interactivity, Flash is also a useful format for displaying dynamic data sets in radiology presentations. In particular, for PowerPoint presentations (Microsoft), the ability to embed movies makes Flash a more robust alternative compared with other movie clip formats such as AVI (Microsoft) and QuickTime (Apple) (i.e., as a solution to prevent the common issues of incompatible codecs and missing file links [1]).
To help academic radiologists understand this new technology, basic introductions of Flash, practical demonstrations in creating Flash movie loops from image sequences, and techniques for embedding Flash files into PowerPoint were provided in a recent series of tutorial articles [1-3].
Unfortunately, Flash is not a freeware program. To create Flash movie loops, the Pro version of Flash must be purchased at a cost of $699 ($199 upgrade) [1]. According to feedback from AJR readers and reviewers, this associated cost is a common concern for many academic radiologists. Fortunately, the file format of Flash is nonproprietary, and it is available for program developers as open source [4]. As such, many third-party Flash programming tools are available on the Internet. A freeware program for creating simple Flash movie loops was developed for this article using these resources.
This freeware program, "Flash Movie Loop Creator" (FML Creator, hereafter) is a stand-alone PC-based application that does not require any other third-party applications. It was developed, in part, from an open-source imaging utility, FreeImage, [5] using the Visual Basic (Visual Studio, Microsoft) language. Because this article focuses only on the use of FML Creator, details of Visual Basic programming will not be discussed. However, a list of the open-source utilities and components used for program development is described in Appendix 1. (Note: For advanced users, the Visual Basic source code can be requested from the corresponding author via e-mail.)
APPENDIX 1: Components and Utilities Used in Visual Basic (Microsoft)
Programming
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A step-by-step demonstration for creating a Flash movie loop from a sequence of images is provided later in this article. To begin, users must first download the supplemental data files (Fig. S1), containing the installation file, sample images, and PowerPoint template.
Downloading and Installing FML Creator
Download the installation file "setup.exe" for the FML Creator
from the supplemental folder (Fig. S1A). Double-click the file to start the
installation (Fig. 1A,
1B,
1C,
1D). Similar to installing
other desktop applications, the default destination folder (i.e., the
installation location) for FML Creator is the main folder: Program Files
(i.e., C:\Program Files\Supplemental Data\the FML Creator\). However, users
can change this location as needed (Fig.
1B). The FML Creator is launched from the Start menu (i.e., Start
Programs Supplemental Data FML Creator Launch
FMLCreator.exe), but first, an image sequence must be prepared.
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Demonstration
Image Preparation
Because the purpose of the FML Creator is to create Flash movie loops from
image sequences, users will need to prepare an image sequence for this
tutorial. Detailed information for preparing digital images for radiology
presentations has been discussed previously
[6]. For this demonstration, a
sample image sequence of a normal pancreatic CT study is provided as a
self-extracted zipped file, "50_images.exe," in the supplemental
folder (Fig. S1B). After downloading the file, double-click on it to
uncompress the images to a common location such as the desktop. Open the image
folder "50_images" and spot-check the images. There should be 50
JPEG images within this folder (i.e., CT01.jpg to CT50.jpg). Users can also
use their own image sequences for this tutorial. The FML Creator supports a
wide range of digital images including JPEG, bitmap, GIF, TIFF, PNG, etc. A
list of the supported image formats is shown in
Table 1. It is also important
to note that the images must be labeled sequentially in alphanumeric
order.
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Flash Movie Loop Creation
Launch the FML Creator from the desktop Start menu. A three-step operation
guide will first appear in the main window
(Fig. 2A). This window is a
simple drag-and-drop action of the source images.
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Select All" function from the file menu. Then, drag
the selected images into the FML Creator application window. Images will be
displayed as thumbnails on the windows. Use the scroll bar on the right to
view the images and ensure that all are loaded
(Fig. 2B).
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Step 3—Click on the "Create Movie" button. A dialog box will appear prompting for the destination and filename of the Flash movie (Fig. 2C). For this tutorial, a Flash movie file "CT_Panc.swf" (1.55 MB) is created on the desktop. The file extension for Flash movies must be ".swf" for use in PowerPoint.
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Limitations
This freeware is aimed at creating simple Flash movie loops for presenting dynamic data sets in PowerPoint as an alternative to other movie clip formats, such as AVI, Quick-Time (Apple), and MPEG. It is, however, not designed for developing other interactive applications that require the programming of Action-Script (Adobe) [7]. For developing interactive applications, the full version of Flash (or Flash Pro) must be purchased. For instance, creating Flash movies with image scrolling requires Flash Pro. Step-by-step instructions for creating scrollable Flash movies using a template were presented in a previous article [3].
It is important to note that this freeware does not support movie clip formats such as AVI and QuickTime as the input source. Movie clips must first be extracted as individual images using other desktop applications such as QuickTime Pro (Apple, $29) [8]. Also, DICOM images are not supported. A method for converting DICOM files into compatible formats (e.g., JPEG) has been discussed previously [9]. Alternatively, using DICOM images directly in PowerPoint has also been discussed [10].
Discussion
The cross-platform compatibility and file-embedding features of Flash make it a robust tool for presenting dynamic data sets in PowerPoint; however, Flash is a complex program requiring relatively high levels of operator skill and programming knowledge to access full functionality. The cost is also a major concern for academic radiologists who most likely will not use the more complex Flash functions. This article provides an easy-to-use freeware program for converting image sequences into Flash movie loops for PowerPoint presentations. The software installation is straightforward, and the user-interface is friendly (i.e., drag-and-drop of images). This program also provides an opportunity for academic radiologists to evaluate this new presentation technology without incurring the expense of purchasing the Flash application.
Although this freeware is capable of creating simple Flash movie loops for PowerPoint presentations, it does not provide the image-scrolling function, which is desirable for Web-based digital teaching file applications. In the next article, the final installment of this series, a robust solution using Flash to provide image scrolling for digital teaching files will be discussed.
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