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Write a keyframe animation to a file

Source: R/animate.R
anim_save.Rd

anim_save() renders a vellum_animation (from animate()) to an animated image, tweening the frames between keyframes and encoding them in one parallel, streaming pass in vellum's Rust backend. The format follows the file extension:

Usage

anim_save(filename, animation)

Arguments

filename

Output path; .gif, .png, or .svg.

animation

A vellum_animation (from animate()).

Value

filename, invisibly.

Details

  • .gif — a looping GIF (universal compatibility).

  • .png — an animated PNG (APNG; lossless, alpha).

  • .svg — a single animated SVG: every frame is emitted as vector markup and shown in turn by a CSS step animation. It is resolution-independent (crisp at any size, in print and on retina) and honours prefers-reduced-motion (a reader who has asked their system not to animate gets the first frame, held).

Choosing a format

Pick by scene complexity, not preference. An animated SVG emits every frame in full, so its size grows with the number of marks times the number of frames; a raster format (GIF/APNG) does not. So SVG wins clearly on line art — a few moving marks, the common explanatory case — and loses on a dense scatter, where a raster format is the right answer. anim_save() says so when a .svg scene is dense enough that a raster format would likely be smaller.

See also

animate()

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
a <- vplot(mtcars) |>
  mark_point(x = wt, y = mpg) |>
  transition_states(cyl) |>
  animate()
anim_save("cyl.gif", a)
anim_save("cyl.svg", a) # resolution-independent
} # }