VTK/Examples/Cxx/Video/FFMPEG

You must set VTK_USE_FFMPEG_ENCODER ON in your VTK build.

CMake won't find FFMPEG headers?

FFMPEG.cxx

#include <vtkSmartPointer.h>
#include <vtkImageCanvasSource2D.h>
#include <vtkFFMPEGWriter.h>

int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
  vtkSmartPointer<vtkImageCanvasSource2D> source =
      vtkSmartPointer<vtkImageCanvasSource2D>::New();
  source->SetScalarTypeToUnsignedChar();
  source->SetNumberOfScalarComponents(3);
  source->SetExtent(0, 100, 0, 100, 0, 0);
  
  vtkSmartPointer<vtkFFMPEGWriter> writer = 
      vtkSmartPointer<vtkFFMPEGWriter>::New();
    
  writer->SetInputConnection(source->GetOutputPort());
  writer->SetFileName("test.avi");
  writer->Start();
  
  for(unsigned int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
    {
    source->SetDrawColor(0,0,0,1); //black
    source->FillBox(0, 100, 0, 100); //clear image
    source->SetDrawColor(255,0,0,1); //red
    source->FillBox(i, 20, 10, 20);
    source->Update();
  
    writer->Write();
    }
  writer->End();
  
  return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Please try the new VTKExamples website.

CMakeLists.txt

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)

PROJECT(FFMPEG)

find_package(VTK REQUIRED)
include(${VTK_USE_FILE})

add_executable(FFMPEG MACOSX_BUNDLE FFMPEG.cxx)

if(VTK_LIBRARIES)
  target_link_libraries(FFMPEG ${VTK_LIBRARIES})
else()
  target_link_libraries(FFMPEG vtkHybrid vtkWidgets)
endif()

Download and Build FFMPEG

Click here to download FFMPEG. and its CMakeLists.txt file.

Once the tarball FFMPEG.tar has been downloaded and extracted,

cd FFMPEG/build 

• If VTK is installed:

cmake ..

• If VTK is not installed but compiled on your system, you will need to specify the path to your VTK build:

cmake -DVTK_DIR:PATH=/home/me/vtk_build ..

Build the project:

make

and run it:

./FFMPEG

WINDOWS USERS PLEASE NOTE: Be sure to add the VTK bin directory to your path. This will resolve the VTK dll's at run time.