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Screen capture software needed. Recommendations?

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2016 4:16 pm
by Horace
I need a screen/window capture software for Windows in order to make some helpful scalar motion diagrams.

This software should be capable of:
- capturing the selected window (in contrast to the entire screen) after pressing a designated hotkey.
- making consecutive multiple captures into an animated GIF file (or APNG).
- the mouse pointer capture cannot be mandatory !

I am capable of writing a software like that myself but do not want to reinvent the wheel if such software already exists.

A requirement for an Internet connection for this software to function is unacceptable.
No .NET C# shit or mandatory Frameworks please!
No multiple MB bloatware or adware or crippleware !

Re: Screen capture software needed. Recommendations?

Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 5:58 pm
by bperet
Horace wrote:- capturing the selected window (in contrast to the entire screen) after pressing a designated hotkey.
On Windows 7 and higher, ALT+PrintScreen captures the current window to the paste buffer.
On Windows 8 and higher, WIN+PrintScreen captures to a file.
- making consecutive multiple captures into an animated GIF file (or APNG).
Use Imagemagick to convert captures to animation.

It is free, no adware/etc and will convert a series of images to an animated GIF. That's how I made most of the animations on the RS2 site.

I would also recommend POVray for generating graphics (will create animations) and ffmpeg for conversion to video.

These are my favorite tools; easy to use, free, and no hidden crap or ads.

Re: Screen capture software needed. Recommendations?

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 3:22 am
by Horace
bperet wrote:
Horace wrote:making consecutive multiple captures into an animated GIF file (or APNG).
Use Imagemagick to convert captures to animation.
Separately saving each capture to a file and joining these files in a separate program is exactly what I am trying to avoid!
Avoiding all these manual steps is possible by using a simple GIF capture programs such as GifCam or LICEcap, but they do not fulfill all of my listed requirements.
bperet wrote: I would also recommend POVray for generating graphics (will create animations) and ffmpeg for conversion to video.
Can POVray calculate a table of numbers and graph them on the fly like Excel ?
...including IF THEN statements which conditionally rotate line segments (units of motion), which happen not to increase along the horizontal axis, thus performing normalization along that axis?