Question

I’ve got 30+ single bitmaps (320×240 pixels) that I would like to display one after another in full screen on Android devices resulting in an animation. Currently I implemented the animation using an ImageView and a Timer that sets the next frame and then sends a message that will apply the next frame. The resulting frame rate is very low: < 2 fps.

The timer:

animationTimer.scheduleAtFixedRate(new TimerTask() {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        Drawable frame = getNextFrame();
            if (frame != null) {
                Message message = animationFrameHandler.obtainMessage(1, frame);
                animationFrameHandler.sendMessage(message);
            }
        }
    }, 0, (int) (1000.0d / fps));

The handler:

final Handler animationFrameHandler = new Handler() {
    @Override
    public void handleMessage(Message message) {
        setImageDrawable((Drawable) message.obj);
    }
};

Since I want to achieve frame rates up to 30 fps I have to make use of another mechanism and heard of Canvas.drawBitmapMesh() and OpenGL.

If possible I would like to avoid using OpenGL.

Thank you very sharing your experiences!

Answer 1

My now working approach is the following:

Before starting the animation, load every frame into a List<Bitmap>. Important: Call System.gc() if you’re getting OutOfMemoryErrors – that really helps loading more bitmaps into the memory. Then have a thread running that posts the next frame to a View instance that then update it’s canvas.

Loading the frames and starting the animation

// Loading the frames before starting the animation
List<Bitmap> frames = new ArrayList<Bitmap>();
for (int i = 0; i < 30; i++) {
    // Load next frame (e. g. from drawable or assets folder)
    frames.add(...);
    // Do garbage collection every 3rd frame; really helps loading all frames into memory
    if (i %% 3 == 0) {
        System.gc();
    }
}

// Start animation
frameIndex = 0;
animationThread.start();

Thread that applies the next frame

private final class AnimationThread extends Thread {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        while (!isInterrupted()) {
            // Post next frame to be displayed
            animationView.postFrame(frames.get(frameIndex));

            // Apply next frame (restart if last frame has reached)
            frameIndex++;
            if (frameIndex >= frames.size()) {
                frameIndex = 0;
            }

            try {
                sleep(33); // delay between frames in msec (33 msec mean 30 fps)
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                break;
            }
        }
    }
}

The animation view

class AnimationView extends View {
    Bitmap frame = null;

    public void postFrame(Bitmap frame) {
        Message message = frameHandler.obtainMessage(0, frame);
        frameHandler.sendMessage(message);
    }

    protected final Handler frameHandler = new Handler() {
        @Override
        public void handleMessage(Message message) {
            if (message.obj != null) {
                frame = (Bitmap) message.obj;
            } else {
                frame = null;
            }
            invalidate();
        }
    }

    @Override
    protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
        if (frame == null) return;
        canvas.drawARGB(0, 0, 0, 0);
        canvas.drawBitmap(frame, null, null, null);
    }
}