Be able to expand the O&A's play-line.

[goddi]

Igor,

My suggestion is to be able to expand the O&A's play-line as we can do in the Timeline with the shift/mousewheel. This is especially helpful when you have a very long slide duration and you have to deal with keyframe placement or adjustments.

When you enter keyframes in a slide with a very long duration, they can be sitting on top of each other because the entire length of the slide is compressed into a space that normally would have a duration of only a few seconds.

Being able to expand the O&A's play-line will make it visually easier to deal with multiple keyframes.

Gary

[Ghulya]

Yes, more than once same problem

Da Campos

[uuderzo]

Agree.

I had some difficulties with a slide that contained a 3 minutes video and needed to fine tuning some pictures on it.

P.S. After that i discovered the "Main video" flag

[fh1805]

+1

There is a potential workaround to some instances of this problem. You can move from keyframe to keyframe using the left and right arrow buttons above the Play button. By watching the contents of the "Key frame time" field on the Animation tab, you can ensure that you are on the correct keyframe before changing any of the other field values in the Animation or 3D Parameter fields. Not ideal, but sometimes helpful.

Peter

[xahu34]

I would like to see a kind of expandable timeline in the O&A window including the audio tracks for synchronizing the keypoints.

Regards,

Xaver

[Jean-Claude]

I agree.

I think the best solution to expand the timeline to easily reach keypoints very close together and also to be able to perfectly synchronize objects between them is to implement a zoom tool. In this example, four zoom steps seem to be sufficient. Two possibilities, buttons or trackbar.

It is important that the zooming position of the cursor remains in the middle of the timeline.

In the same time, the accuracy of time ticks line needs to evolve

[Ken Cox]

WOULD IT HELP if you installed this

http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/#

ken

[uuderzo]

WOULD IT HELP if you installed this

http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/#

ken

I fear that this will not fullfill the requirement.

Bitmap wise zooming on a two pixel adjacent time points doesn't let you fine tune them just because you don't see finer grain information but the original "big pixel" thing.

Greetings! Umberto

[Ken Cox]

did you try it?

ken

[uuderzo]

did you try it?

ken

Yes Ken,

As you can see from the attached screenshot, the zoomed track doesn't provide a better information about the time points. it's only a zoomed bitmap. Moreover, while zooming i cannot interact with the track.

Greetings! Umberto

[Ken Cox]

Umberto

how about trying a good hand magnifying glass?

ken

[uuderzo]

Umberto

how about trying a good hand magnifying glass?

ken

Ahaheheh Ken! You must be right... my eyes are getting older

Umberto

[fh1805]

Ken,

You are missing the point totally. The problem is one that occurs when there are several keyframes within a handful of milliseconds of each other. The resolution of the monitor is not good enough to see the individual "red spots" that denote each keyframe. We need not just to see them but must be able to select the precise one that we want to alter. Therefore we need each dot to comprise more than just 4-5 pixels in width. We need a zoom feature that will expand the time line so that each spot is perhaps 20 or more pixels in width. (The pixel counts are not meant to be exact but the magnification factor is probably about right. We need at least a 4x zoom, possibly more)

Imagine you are trying to change just one pixel in an image file. You need to see each individual pixel clearly and be able to select just that one pixel accurately. To do that you zoom into the image until you are seeing every single pixel distinctly. That's what we're talking about here.

regards,

Peter

[Ken Cox]

Peter

i'm not missing the point -- until Igor resolves the issue i am looking for alternatives -- when my dentist inspects what few teeth i have left he/she wears these

http://www.loupedirect.com/?gclid=CKaL5_z3hLUCFelFMgod7Q4A2w

to find minute cavities

that is why i suggested a hand magnifier

ken

[davegee]

Peter,

Try coming at it from a different direction?

In order to achieve what you want - to be able to see each red dot distinctly and be able to see the difference between Key Frames spaced 1ms apart - then on a 1920 wide monitor (mine is a 24") you need to be able to see 1/4 second (0.25 seconds) along the O&A window. That is allowing for the Objects Panel etc.

Let's take a 30 second Slide? Then you need to zoom in to a factor of 120 to achieve your goal.

A 4 second slide would only need a "zoom" of a factor of 16.

Try it - add a 0.25 second slide (no transition) to a project and then add Key Frames at 1ms intervals - I can easily distinguish between Key Frames at that sort of "resolution", for want of a better/different word.

The "effect" that you want Igor to be able to produce is to "Set Timeline Width to xxx ms" at the point indicated by the little blue triangle. If X=250 then you have what you want.

Your O&A screen would also need to show the events of that 0.25 second window.

DG

[fh1805]

Ken,

The problem with the approach that you are suggesting is that the mouse pointer also gets magnified by the same amount. It would be like using a Sequoia Redwood tree trunk to point to an acorn. The need is to magnify the subject matter but not the pointer. Only in that way can the pointer be positioned with precision on the desired keyframe.

regards,

Peter

[fh1805]

Dave,

Your post #15 contains some interesting maths but I didn't say the keyframes were 1 milliseconds apart. I said "a handful of milliseconds". I was making a generalised statement to try and convey the scale of operation that is under discussion. My previous post (#16) hopefully describes the problem in a way that everyone will be able to understand.

regards,

Peter

[davegee]

Peter,

You must consider the highest resolution that anyone might require.

It is not MATHS it is visualization.

If you try it you will see what I mean.

DG

[Jean-Claude]

The strictly and basic mathematical point of view is interesting and clearly enlightens the problem.

It seems that the width of a keypoint is 7 px.

Everyone does not have a 24" screen with a width of 1920 px. A standard screen today has a width of 1280px, but on PTE window we have only 820 px to place the keypoints.

To easily manipulate the keypoints with the mouse, if you want to construct your slideshow with a precision of

1 ms -> the maximum slide duration is 0.117 sec.

10 ms -> 1.17 sec.

100 ms -> (this is the limit) 11,7 sec.

[davegee]

Jean-Claude,

PIXELS are distraction - they have absolutely NOTHING to do with ths problem.

PLEASE try my method on your 1280 screen and see what time interval is required to CLEARLY see the difference between the "red dots"??

I would be happy with my monitor at a "resolution" of 0.25 Seconds (250ms).

On a smaller screen it might need a smaller interval or a bigger interval.

My 1920x1080 24" was purely an example - your input with regard to smaller monitors would be invaluable.

DG

[davegee]

Jean-Claude,

From the illustration below you can clearly see that a "resolution" of 150ms is required in the O&A Timeline for a 1280X800 SCREEN (15.4").

My suggestion is / was that Igor be asked / persuaded to supply us with a slider which would allow us to view something like 75ms either side of the cursor (little blue arrow) to clearly differentiate between Key Frames on a 1280x800 monitor. Less slider movement would be required for a 1920x1080 monitor.

Now, if anyone is still using a monitor which is smaller than 1280x800 I would invite him / her to please supply us with the required information for that monitor?

My point is that it is not about pixels - it is about the time interval that we see on the O&A Timeline.

DG

P.S. There is a direct parallel here between this "problem" and the magnification of the Timeline in Audition etc - you don't alter the pixels, you alter the time interval visible in your available window.

[Jean-Claude]

Dave,

I agree with you. The question is how to handle with the mouse two keypoints very close but also to know that they are separated. This is a question of visibility and consequently a question of pixels.

I think the best solution to solve naturally the problem is a zoom tool. All software in this field use it(eg Adobe Premiere)

Regards,

Jean-Claude

[davegee]

Jean-Claude,

PLEASE, it has NOTHING to do with PIXELS!

I will give you one more example - PLEASE look carefully.

If the O&A Timeline Duration (A to B ) is reduced from the Slide Duration down to 100ms then it is EASY to differentiate between two Key Frames a SINGLE millisecond apart.

How that reduction is achieved (or whether it can be achieved) is a matter for Igor whether it is done via a Magnifying Glass Tool or a Slider (as with Opacity in O&A) it does not matter to me. But it seems so obvious that the problem is in reducing the Time between A and B and NOTHING to do with pixels.

Here's my next example (100ms) on a 1280x800 screen:

DG

[fh1805]

How that reduction is achieved (or whether it can be achieved) is a matter for Igor whether it is done via a Magnifying Glass Tool or a Slider (as with Opacity in O&A) it does not matter to me. But it seems so obvious that the problem is in reducing the Time between A and B and NOTHING to do with pixels.

But when you zoom in to the O&A timeline a smaller length of it gets drawn using more pixels than before. It IS a matter of pixels as much as it is a matter of anything else. Still don't believe me? Do a screengrab of the unzoomed timeline and a screengrab of the zoomed in timeline. Take both images into Photoshop. In Photoshop, zoom in on both images until you can see one of the red spots displayed at the individual pixel level. Now count the pixels for that subject item in each image.

regards,

Peter

[davegee]

Hi Peter,

I have given three examples which clearly show how, as in Audition etc, this problem can be addressed for KFs 1ms apart. I can do no more in this thread.

Best wishes,

DG