R/ani.options.R

In yihui/animation: A Gallery of Animations in Statistics and Utilities to Create Animations

#' Set or query animation options
#'
#' There are various parameters that control the behaviour of the animation,
#' such as time interval, maximum number of animation frames, height and width,
#' etc.
#'
#' @section Animation options: The supported animation parameters: \describe{
#'
#'   \item{interval}{ a positive number to set the time interval of the
#'   animation (unit in seconds); default to be 1. }
#'
#'   \item{nmax}{ maximum number of steps in a loop (e.g. iterations) to create
#'   animation frames. Note: the actual number of frames can be less than this
#'   number, depending on specific animations. Default to be 50.}
#'
#'   \item{ani.width, ani.height}{ width and height of image frames (unit in
#'   px); see graphics devices like \code{\link{png}}, \code{\link{jpeg}}, ...;
#'   default to be 480. NB: for different graphics devices, the units of these
#'   values might be different, e.g. PDF devices usually use inches, whereas
#'   bitmap devices often use pixels.}
#'
#'   \item{ani.res}{ The nominal resolution in ppi which will be recorded in the bitmap file,
#'   if a positive integer. Also used for units other than the default,
#'   and to convert points to pixels.;
#'   see graphics devices like \code{\link{png}}, \code{\link{jpeg}}.}
#'
#'   \item{imgnfmt}{ Customizing image number format in \code{\link{saveHTML}},
#'   \code{\link{saveGIF}}, \code{\link{saveLatex}} and \code{\link{saveVideo}},
#'   \code{\link{saveSWF}} is not included,
#'   it allows user to define the C-style string format for output image.
#'   }
#'
#'   \item{imgdir}{character: the name of the directory (a relative path) for
#'   images when creating HTML animation pages; default to be \code{'images'}.}
#'
#'   \item{htmlfile}{character: name of the target HTML main file (without path
#'   name; basename only; default to be \code{'index.html'})}
#'
#'   \item{ani.dev}{a function or a function name: the graphics device; e.g.
#'   (\code{\link{png}}, \code{\link{pdf}}, ...); default to be \code{'png'}}
#'
#'   \item{ani.type}{character: image format for animation frames, e.g.
#'   \code{png}, \code{jpeg}, ...; default to be \code{'png'}; this will be used
#'   as the file extension of images, so don't forget to change this option as
#'   well when you changed the option \code{ani.dev}}
#'
#'   \item{title, description}{character: the title and description of the
#'   animation in the HTML page created by \code{\link{saveHTML}}}
#'
#'   \item{verbose}{logical: if \code{TRUE}, write a footer part
#'   in the HTML page containing detailed technical information else
#'   the footer of the page will be blank.}
#'
#'   \item{loop}{logical or numeric: Number of times the GIF animation is to
#'    cycle through the image sequence before stopping. By default, this is
#'    set to zero or boolean value TRUE (infinite loop).}
#'
#'   \item{autobrowse}{logical: whether auto-browse the animation page
#'   immediately after it is created? (default to be \code{interactive()})}
#'
#'   \item{autoplay}{logical: whether to autoplay the animation when the HTML
#'   page is loaded (default to be \code{TRUE}); only applicable to
#'   \code{\link{saveHTML}}}
#'
#'   \item{use.dev}{ whether to use the graphics device specified in
#'   \code{ani.options('ani.dev')} (default to be \code{TRUE}); if \code{FALSE},
#'   we need to generate image files by our own approaches in the expression
#'   \code{expr} (see functions \code{\link{saveHTML}}, \code{\link{saveGIF}},
#'   \code{\link{saveLatex}} and \code{\link{saveSWF}}); this can be useful when
#'   the output cannot be captured by standard R graphics devices -- a typical
#'   example is the \pkg{rgl} graphics (we can use \code{rgl.snapshot} to
#'   capture \pkg{rgl} graphics to png files, or \code{rgl.postscript} to save
#'   plots as postscript/pdf; see \code{demo('rgl_animation')} or
#'   \code{demo('use_Cairo')} for examples or the last example below). Note,
#'   however, we do not really have to create the images using R graphics
#'   devices -- see \code{demo('flowers')} on how to download images from the
#'   Internet and create an HTML animation page!}
#'
#'   }
#'
#' @section Hidden options: There are a couple of ``hidden'' options which are
#'   designed to facilitate the usage of some functions but are not initialized
#'   like the above options when the package is loaded, including:
#'
#'   \describe{
#'
#'   \item{convert}{this option will be checked first when calling
#'   \code{\link{im.convert}} (or \code{\link{saveGIF}}) to see if it contains
#'   the path to \file{convert.exe}; we can specify it beforehand to save the
#'   efforts in searching for \file{convert.exe} in ImageMagick under Windows.
#'   For example, \code{ani.options(convert = 'c:/program
#'   files/imagemagick/convert.exe')}; note this option also works for Mac and
#'   Linux (see \code{help(im.convert)})}
#'
#'   \item{swftools}{this can help \code{\link{saveSWF}} save the efforts of
#'   searching for the software package ``SWF Tools'' under Windows; e.g. we can
#'   specify \code{ani.options(swftools = 'c:/program files/swftools')} in
#'   advance}
#'
#'   \item{img.fmt}{the value of this option can be used to determine the image
#'   filename format when we want to use custom graphics devices to record
#'   images, e.g. in \code{\link{saveLatex}}, if \code{ani.options('use.dev') ==
#'   FALSE}, then \code{ani.options('img.fmt')} will be a string like
#'   \code{'path/to/output/img.name\%d.png'}, so we can use it to generate file
#'   names in the argument \code{expr}; see \code{demo('rgl_animation')} for
#'   example or the last example below}
#'
#'   \item{qpdf}{the path of the program \command{qpdf}, e.g.
#'   \code{ani.options(qpdf = 'C:/Software/qpdf/bin/qpdf.exe')}; \command{qpdf}
#'   is mainly used to compress PDF files in this package, and it is a smaller
#'   tool than \command{pdftk}. It is recommended over \command{pdftk}
#'   especially under Linux, because tests show that \command{pdftk} does not
#'   work well under Linux in compressing PDF files, while \command{qpdf} is
#'   much better.}
#'
#'   \item{pdftk}{the path of the program \command{Pdftk}, e.g.
#'   \code{ani.options(pdftk = 'C:/Software/pdftk.exe')} or
#'   \code{ani.options(pdftk = '/home/john/bin/pdftk')}; \command{pdftk} will be
#'   used to compress the PDF graphics output in the function
#'   \code{\link{pdftk}}; compression will not be tried if this options is
#'   \code{NULL}. This option will only affect \code{\link{saveGIF}},
#'   \code{\link{saveLatex}} and \code{\link{saveSWF}} when
#'   \code{ani.options('ani.type')} is \code{'pdf'}.}
#'
#'   \item{ffmpeg}{the path of the progam \command{ffmpeg}, e.g.
#'   \code{ani.options(ffmpeg = 'C:/Software/ffmpeg/bin/ffmpeg.exe')}; FFmpeg is
#'   used to convert a sequence of images to a video. See
#'   \code{\link{saveVideo}}.}
#'
#'   }
#' @param ... arguments in \code{tag = value} form, or a list of tagged values.
#'   The tags usually come from the animation parameters described below, but
#'   they are not restricted to these tags (any tag can be used; this is similar
#'   to \code{\link{options}}).
#' @return \code{ani.options()} returns a list containing the options: when
#'   parameters are set, their former values are returned in an invisible named
#'   list.  Such a list can be passed as an argument to
#'   \code{\link{ani.options}} to restore the parameter values.
#'
#'   \code{ani.options('tag')} returns the value of the option \code{'tag'}.
#'
#'   \code{ani.options(c('tag1', 'tag2'))} or \code{ani.options('tag1', 'tag2')}
#'   returns a list containing the corresponding options.
#' @note Please note that \code{nmax} is not always equal to the number of
#'   animation frames. Sometimes there is more than one frame recorded in a
#'   single step of a loop, for instance, there are 2 frames generated in each
#'   step of \code{\link{kmeans.ani}}, and 4 frames in \code{\link{knn.ani}},
#'   etc; whereas for \code{\link{newton.method}}, the number of animation
#'   frames is not definite, because there are other criteria to break the loop.
#'
#'   This function can be used for almost all the animation functions such as
#'   \code{\link{brownian.motion}}, \code{\link{boot.iid}},
#'   \code{\link{buffon.needle}}, \code{\link{cv.ani}}, \code{\link{flip.coin}},
#'   \code{\link{kmeans.ani}}, \code{\link{knn.ani}}, etc. Most of the options
#'   here will affect the behaviour of animations of the formats HTML, GIF, SWF
#'   and PDF; on-screen animations are only affected by \code{interval} and
#'   \code{nmax}.
#'
#' @author Yihui Xie
#' @references Examples at \url{https://yihui.org/animation/example/ani-options/}
#' @seealso \code{\link{options}}, \code{\link{dev.interactive}},
#'   \code{\link{saveHTML}}, \code{\link{saveGIF}}, \code{\link{saveLatex}},
#'   \code{\link{saveSWF}}, \code{\link{pdftk}}
#'
#'   \url{http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/}
#'
#'   \url{http://www.pdflabs.com/docs/pdftk-man-page/}
#' @export
ani.options = function(...) {
  lst = list(...)
  .ani.opts = .ani.env$.ani.opts
  if (length(lst)) {
    if (is.null(names(lst)) && !is.list(lst[[1]])) {
      lst = unlist(lst)
      if (length(lst) == 1) .ani.opts[[lst]] else .ani.opts[lst]
    } else {
      omf = .ani.opts
      if (is.list(lst[[1]]))
        lst = lst[[1]]
      if (length(lst) > 0) {
        .ani.opts[names(lst)] = lst
        .ani.env$.ani.opts = .ani.opts
        if (!identical(omf$nmax, .ani.opts$nmax) && interactive()) {
          message("animation option 'nmax' changed: ", omf$nmax, ' --> ', .ani.opts$nmax)
        }
        .check.opts(.ani.opts)
      }
      invisible(omf)
    }
  } else {
    .ani.opts
  }
}

## create an environment to store animation options
.ani.env = new.env()

## check validity of options
.check.opts = function(opts) {
  dev = opts$ani.dev
  type = opts$ani.type
  if (opts$use.dev && is.character(dev)) {
    switch(dev, png = {
      if (type != 'png')
        warning("the graphics device is png() but the file extension is not 'png'!")
    }, jpeg = {
      if (!(type %in% c('jpg', 'jpeg')))
        warning("the graphics device is jpeg() but the file extension is not 'jpeg' or 'jpg'!")
    }, pdf = {
      if (type != 'pdf')
        warning("the graphics device is pdf() but the file extension is not 'pdf'!")
    })
  }
  if (type == 'pdf' && (opts$ani.width >= 100 || opts$ani.height >= 100)) {
    warning('you are using a pdf device but the width and height are greater than 100 inches; are you sure this is correct?')
  }
}