infiltration lab flyby

What is this?

This page was originally created in about 2001. Animated GIFs were still pretty new to the web, and there were few tools and even fewer great tools for making gifs. There was almost no video on the web, or at least few noncommercial DIY self publish options. A lot has changed since then, but at the time, it was pretty exciting to DIY short frenetic clip using free/cheap tools.

The above clip was created to show the ilab in its constant state of disarray. It shows the workbench with (at least) one project in progress, the stacks of music and computer CDs, main computer, lava lamp, oscope, the refurbished ilab rack(tm), the main ilab server machine, atari 2600 and assorted cartridges, modified and unmodified keyboards and toys, disassembled computer chassis and parts. If you look really carefully, you can see the LED sign, the original soul of the blubber box, the completed lab rat sitting on the floor, a really old Macintosh, and the server controller circuit (before I dismantled it).

How was it done?

The clip was recorded as a set of single frames using my Olympus digital camera. The camera actually takes much better pictures, but I wasn't aiming at quality. I used the mode that takes up to 10 or so pictures back to back while moving the camera. Surprisingly, the images turned out pretty well and there wasn't too much blurring. The sequence was converted to grayscale and the color depth was reduced. The series was then put together to create the above looped animation. Imagemagick was used to get most of the real work done, but I think I also used some Paint Shop Pro animation studio crap to do some final compression/optimization.

(Note: Here in the future, this doesn't do what it used to do, which used to open a new full-screen browser window. But it went like this:)

If you're feeling really daring, I guess you could click here