Question

I want to open a GIF image from the python console in Linux. Normally when opening a .png or .jpg, I would do the following:

>>> from PIL import Image                                                                                
>>> img = Image.open('test.png')
>>> img.show()

But if I do this:

>>> from PIL import Image                                                                                
>>> img = Image.open('animation.gif')
>>> img.show()

Imagemagick will open but only show the first frame of the gif, not the animation.

Is there a way to show the animation of the GIF in a viewer in Linux?

Answer 1

Image.show dumps the image to a temporary file and then tries to display the file. It calls ImageShow.Viewer.show_image (see /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/PIL/ImageShow.py):

class Viewer:
    def save_image(self, image):
        # save to temporary file, and return filename
        return image._dump(format=self.get_format(image))
    def show_image(self, image, **options):
        # display given image
        return self.show_file(self.save_image(image), **options)
    def show_file(self, file, **options):
        # display given file
        os.system(self.get_command(file, **options))
        return 1

AFAIK, the standard PIL can not save animated GIfs¹.

The image._dump call in Viewer.save_image only saves the first frame. So no matter what viewer is subsequently called, you only see a static image.

If you have Imagemagick’s display program, then you should also have its animate program. So if you have the GIF as a file already, then you could use

animate /path/to/animated.gif

To do so from within Python, you could use the subprocess module (instead of img.show):

import subprocess

proc = subprocess.Popen(['animate', '/path/to/animated.gif'])
proc.communicate()

---

¹ According to kostmo, there is a script to save animated GIFS with PIL.

---

To show the animation without blocking the main process, use a separate thread to spawn the animate command:

import subprocess
import threading

def worker():
    proc = subprocess.Popen(['animate', '/path/to/animated.gif'])
    proc.communicate()

t = threading.Thread(target = worker)
t.daemon = True
t.start()
# do other stuff in main process
t.join()