Limitations

Dynamic Mosaic - Help

Limitations

The following limitations apply:

Maximum of 7500 pictures in the (tile) library
Cell size from 24 to 96 pixels
Amount of tiles on the horizontal from 8 to 96
Maximum amount of tiles in the final mosaic: 7500
Working folders across a network (not recommended, could slow down file transfer)
Timer ranges:
- Blending: 0 - 10 seconds, 30 ms interval
- Showing: 0 - 30 seconds, 5x per second
- Flying: 0.5 - 10 seconds, 30 ms interval
- Pausing: 0 - 30 seconds, 5x per second
- Pausing (tethered): 0 - 30 seconds, 5x per second
- Showing (tethered): 0 - 30 seconds, 5x per second
- Commercial (video or photo): 30 seconds - 60 minutes (and 'no interlude'), 2x per second
Video files: only files that have a codec which is installed on the Windows OS is recognized. In some cases a codec will not be recognized, or is not played well. The application is tested with DivX and its derivatives and mpeg2 files (the DVD standard). BluRay files are not recognised. All files should have the extension 'avi'.
Picture files: only 'jpg', 'bmp', 'png' and 'jpeg' are recognized. Files of size 0x0 pixels are recognized but will generate an error. Make sure all the picture files are valid. PNG with an active alpha channel are recognized and its transparency is used.
All files should have a lowercase file extension (so: not 'JPG' nor 'AVI' files)

No limitations on:

Amount of video files
Amount of source files
Working folder choices within the same PC system (excl. network drives)

Memory usage (increase of RAM):

The application keeps track of the history of snapshots added and special events that occur. Because of this housekeeping function the RAM usage will gradually increase because more information in stored in the interface (the image list and the event logger). This is what you can expect to happen>

on average the initial RAM is 20 MB
after mosaic initiation an extra RAM of 10-15 MB is required
after inspecting the sources list and the colour filters another 20 MB is required (picture thumbnails added and other application files)
an animation adds another 5 MB or similar
inital application content data to fill different transition bitmaps and others: 30-40 MB (masks, transitions, blend, colorize etc)
when case 70 snapshots per hour are added appr. 3 MB per hour is added of growing internal data storage
an endurance test of 11 hour showed that the stable application added 3 MB per hour, requiring 125 MB after 11 hours continuous operation on an i3 laptop (HP Probook 4320s, a mid-end laptop with modest capabilities), continuously running at 32 frames per second at about 20% cpu load (one core used, 2 available)
the data provided above is based on a mosaic size of 1080 x 814 pixels

Time plot of the RAM usage of an i3 laptop running continuously for 11 hours at 70 snapshots/hr

Files and file extensions

Pictures: the application will only search for valid 'jpg', 'bmp', 'png' and 'jpeg' files.
Video: the application will only search for 'avi' and 'mpg' files (not 'm2v', 'mov', 'mp4' etc files). Only codec which are installed in the system can be used for playback. In case VLC is installed for playing video the application may not recognize the movie, since VLC does not share the codecs with the windows system. The Dynamic Mosaic application uses DirectShow technology to playback video.