Any Experience of ImageMagick ?

[*Kia*]

Any Experience of "ImageMagick"?

I am *trying* to program a cgi script using perl.
The purpose of which is to create a "birthday ticker" (often seen in sigs on forums)

I have been attempting to use image magick to composite the to images (the rule and slide), however, I am having issues with getting this to work.
I have tried the imagemagick site and documentation however this appears to be about as much use as a chocolate tea pot.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

[robphy]

Great examples at
http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~anthony/graphics/imagick6/
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-graf/?ca=dnt-428
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-graf2/?ca=dgr-lnxw15GraphicsLine
http://www.dylanbeattie.net/magick/

 

[*Kia*]

Cheers hon, but I am trying to use it from a script not from the ImageMagick program GUI nor from the command line interface.
I want to call it from a perl script.

 

[robphy]

I don't think anything I suggested concerns the GUI (which I never used).

I only know how to use ImageMagick from the command line... or from a bash/perl script. If you look at the first URL, the stuff in the grey boxes are IM commands to be written on the command line.

In a perl script, I construct a string containing what I would have typed on the command line. Then I'd use perl's system() to invoke that command in the shell. (Note: Listing 1 in the second URL is a bash script.)

If you want to do fancier things, you'll need something like PerlMagick, which is now supposedly bundled with the Windows binaries. Here's a PerlMagick example (off the last URL) http://www.dylanbeattie.net/magick/composite/

 

[*Kia*]

Yup I've gone through those scripts on dylanbeattie and quite a bit from ron savage.
the one with the alpha transparency overlay just gives me an image not defined error OR (joy of joys) a blank white page.
I do have perl magick along with image magick and active perl.

I guess I'm probably missing something really simple and obvious.

thanks much appreciated

 

[robphy]

Maybe it's a version issue.
What versions are your perlmagick, imagemagick, and active perl?
Did you install from a binary? or from source? (I couldn't find a current complete Windows binary distribution.)

I've hesitated with perlmagick because I'm not sure if it really needs active perl... and if it does, if it interferes with perl on cygwin. I don't have anything compelling me to change my currently working setup... but I'd be interested in getting it to work when I have the time.

Is what you are doing so fancy that you couldn't just use perl to construct command lines passed via system()?