MPlay Viewers and Viewports


The Image Viewer not only displays images, but also allows for two other modes for viewing sequences of images - the Timeline View which shows the sequences in a time graph for timing analysis; and the Graph View which displays a variety of different graph and histograms for data analysis of images (examination of quantization, dynamic range, errors, etc).

Common Viewport Controls

RMB drag Pan
MMB drag or Mouse Wheel Zoom
Ctrl+MMB drag Box zoom on area
LMB drag Select a sub-region of the image (Image View only)
Shift+RMB Deselect region - show full image (Image View only)
Shift+LMB Select a tile of the image (Image View only)
Ctrl+RMB
Popup Context menu
x Make the viewport current (current viewport is outlined in green)
t Toggle viewport to occupy all Viewing Area.
Main Bar > Mode Select Toggles between: Image, TimeLine or Graph (Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3)

Contextual Menu  (Ctrl +RMB)

The viewport context menu can be popped up by using Ctrl+RMB while in a viewport. The functions of this menu are:

Save Frame Saves the current image.
Save Sequence Saves the current sequence.
Add Frame If a frame was not initially loaded or was removed, this adds it back into the sequence.
Remove Frame Removes the current frame from the sequence. For rendered sequences and sequences loaded via Stdin, the frame is gone forever. For loaded files, it can be reloaded again using "Add Frame".
Remove Sequence Removes the current sequence from MPlay.
Reload Sequence Loads the sequence into MPlay again.
(custom UI) User Defined buttons are added here, read from the $HH/MPmenu file. Each button runs a user defined .cmd script.
Toggle Extra UI Toggles everything in the UI on/off except for the Viewports.
Menubar Toggles the Menubar UI
Main Bar Toggles the Main Bar UI
View Controls Toggles the View Controls UI
Display Options Toggles the Display Options UI
Image Controls Toggles the Image Controls UI
Playbar Toggles the Playbar
Diff Toggles the Diff Bar UI
Inspect Toggles the Inspect Bar UI
Image Switch to Image View mode.
TimeLine Switch to TimeLine mode.
Histogram Switch to Image Histogram mode.
(Sequences) All loaded sequences are listed here. The sequence of the current viewport is selected. More than one viewport can view the same sequence.

Image View (Ctrl+1)

The Image viewer is capable of displaying a wide variety of images, including 8, 16 and 32 bit integer images, floating point images, and deep rasters. In addition, multiple sequences can be viewed simultaneously and compared.

The Image View is the most common viewing mode, as it displays the image as a picture.

Image Viewer

To pan the image, RMB drag in the viewport in the direction to pan. To zoom the image, MMB drag in the viewport (or use the mouse wheel).

More than 1 viewport can be displayed inside the viewer, if you have more than 1 sequence loaded. The viewport layout menu at the top of the viewer normally shows a layout of 1x1, but this can be changed to any configuration up to 4x4. Each viewport may be manipulated independently, though by default they are linked together. This means that if you were to view the alpha plane, both viewports would switch to alpha. To unlink the viewports, press 'v' (pressing 'v' again links them). Now all the controls around the edges show you the configuration of the current viewport - that is the viewport with the label printed and the viewport outlined in green. To switch the current viewport, move the mouse into a viewport and press 'x'.

With two or more viewports, the viewing area can also be linked. This works best on images of the same size. Press 's' to link the scrolling of all views. Now when you zoom one viewport, all the other viewports follow.

Finally, you can quickly maximize a viewport by pressing 't'. It will temporarily cause the viewport to occupy the full viewing area. Pressing 't' again will restore the split view.

The components displayed or the colors in the image can be adjusted using the color control bar at the bottom of the viewer (see Control Bar).

TimeLine View (Ctrl+2)

The TimeLine viewer shows the animation sequence on a dopesheet-like time graph.

TimeLine Viewer

This viewer can be used to quickly spot missing frames (the blue frame box will appear empty) and to get a good, instantaneous idea of the animation. To toggle the previews on or off, press Ctrl+p. The frequency of the previews can be changed from 1 every 30 frames by editting the 'Preview every N Frames' field at the bottom of the timeline view.

Panning and zooming is done in the same manner as in the Image viewer, by MMB and RMB dragging.

Graph View (Ctrl+3)

The Graph view shows various histograms of the image data.

Graph View

It is useful for analyzing problems with images, such as bad quantization, clipping, poor contrast and overexposure. The graphing modes available are:
The 'Color Curves' mode is not available in mplay (it is used in Halo for color corrections).

If you diff 2 images together in the graph viewer, you will see two graphs overlayed. The blue graph is the original image's graph, and the red graph is the graph of the comparison image.