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<h1>Readme for Stitcher 1.0</h1>

<h2>Compilation notes</h2>

<p>Stitcher was written in one day using Microsoft's Visual C++
compiler and the MFC libraries. Consequently, it probably isn't
bug-free and it sure won't compile with GCC (until someone
possessing more knowledge than myself about the Windows API
removes the dependency on MFC).</p>

<p>Stitcher uses Julian Smart's CImage class for reading PNG and
BMP files from disk, and for converting the image into a CBitmap
(so it can be handed off to a CAVIFile method). Thus, the first
thing to need to do is compile and install the CImage library
someplace the Visual C++ compiler can find it. Once you've done
that, you should be able to open up the Stitcher project file and
recompile/edit Stitcher to your hearts content.</p>

<p><strong>N.B. </strong>Stitcher began life as a simple utility
called &quot;bmp2avi&quot; which lacked the ability to read PNG
files. Thus, many of the files in the main Stitcher directory
still have the name &quot;bmp2avi&quot;. Don't worry about this.
There is no easy way to rename a Visual C project once it has
been given a name (and that name as been propagated to all of its
source files).</p>

<h2>Usage notes</h2>

<p>When started, Stitcher appears as follows:</p>

<p align="center"><img src="Stitcher.gif" width="426"
height="376"></p>

<p>Everything is fairly self-explanatory. Click on the &quot;Add
Bitmaps...&quot; button to specify what files you want to appear
in the animation. If you make a mistake, or want to create
multiple AVI files from several different slides, click on
&quot;Clear image list&quot; to remove files from the list box.</p>

<h3>Ordering of images</h3>

<p>Images are ordered lexicographically by name. Thus,
&quot;foo00.png&quot; comes before &quot;foo01.png&quot;.
However, &quot;foo2.png&quot; comes after &quot;foo11.png,&quot;
which might cause problems. The solution is to make sure that the
numeric index in the file name always has the same number of
digits, padded with 0's to the left, if need be. Thus, in a
series of 100 files, you should begin numbering as
&quot;foo000.png&quot;, &quot;foo001.png&quot;, etc.</p>

<h3>Where does the created AVI file go?</h3>

<p>By default, the AVI file is created in the last directory
visited by &quot;Add bitmaps...&quot; If you want the AVI file to
go elsewhere, be sure to specify the complete path name. Make
sure the path exists, though, or you will get an error.</p>

<h3>Creating the AVI file</h3>

<p>Once you have selected all of the images you want, click on
&quot;Make AVI File&quot; to get everything rolling. You will be
given a choice of various compression schemes. Depending on the
color depth of the bitmap, some of these will work better than
others. For example, I don't believe Microsoft RLE works with
24-bit bitmaps. Once you've selected the compression scheme,
Stitcher will chug away, notifying you when it's done.</p>

<h3>Questions?</h3>

<p>If you have any questions, contact me at <a
href="mailto:jalex@uci.edu">jalex@uci.edu</a>.</p>

<p>Jason Alexander<br>
Logic &amp; Philosophy of Science<br>
University of California, Irvine</p>
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