Save drawing/TIFF or Save drawing/PNG from the main window menu
a series of TIFF or PNG files is written out, one for each frame of the animation
(currently 20 frames for normal modes which cannot be changed by the user).
These TIFF or PNG files can easily be converted to a video file (MPEG)
showing the animation using standard image manipulation tools from the Internet.
One possible MPEG encoder is mpeg_encode which is available from
mm-ftp.CS.Berkeley.EDU
via anonymous ftp. This encoder expects its input files
either in PPM, PNM, or YUV format. To convert the TIFF files written by
VIEWMOL you can use the PBMPLUS or NETPBM libraries which have a filter
tifftopnm (you also need pnmflip, since tifftopnm changes the orientation of
the picture). The following shell script will do the conversion (for sh and
ksh users) if the default files from VIEWMOL have been used:
for i in vm_image*.tiff do j=`basename $i tiff`pnm tifftopnm $i | pnmflip -topbottom > $j done
mpeg_encode to produce
a MPEG file which can, e. g., be included in a World Wide Web document.
Selecting Save drawing/Povray from the main window menu with an
animation running will write a series of input files for POVRAY.
These files can also be processed by POVRAY and used to generate
a movie of the animation. This process can, however, be very time consuming.