PDF viewer for flip book animation

Question

I have 100 PDF slides (created with Beamer) which when flipped through yield a small animation. I'm now looking for a PDF viewer which displays such an animation nicely. A bad example (in this respect) is evince which when you keep the right-key pressed freezes and only updates once you let the key go. Okular is more or less fine, but I wonder whether there is any viewer which allows me to set the frame-rate and would be a bit more reliable when it comes to buffering (Okular sometimes lags a bit).

I have both Linux (preferred) and Windows available. The PDF viewer has to be freely downloadable.

Answer 1

How about, instead of relying on a PDF viewer to page through your animation, you compile your animation into a different format that is fairly universal - animated GIF.

Here's an example:

1. Consider the following animation - 20 pages - taken from How can we display fireworks?:

   \documentclass[tikz]{standalone}
   \usepackage{tikz}
   \usetikzlibrary{decorations.pathmorphing,decorations.shapes}
   
   \begin{document}
   
   \foreach \radius in {1,2,...,20}
   {
   \begin{tikzpicture}
     % background rectangle
     \filldraw[black] (-3,-3) rectangle (5,3);
     % skyline
     \filldraw[black!80!blue](-3,-3)--(-3,-2)--(-2.5,-2)--(-2.5,-1)--(-2.25,-1)--(-2.25,-2)--(-2,-2)
                               --(-2,-1)--(-1.75,-0.75)--(-1.5,-1)
                               --(-1.5,-2)--(-1.1,-2)--(-1.1,0)--(-0.5,0)--(-0.5,-2)
                               --(0,-2)--(0,-1.5)--(1,-1.5)--(1.25,-0.5)--(1.5,-1.5)--(1.5,-2)
                               --(2,-2)--(2,0)--(2.5,0)--(2.5,-2)
                               --(3,-2)--(3,-1)--(4,-1)--(4,-2)--(5,-2)--(5,-3)--cycle;
     % moon- what a hack!
     \filldraw[white] (4,2.5) arc (90:-90:20pt);
     \filldraw[black] (3.8,2.5) arc (90:-90:20pt);
     % fireworks
     \pgfmathparse{100-(\radius-1)*10};
     % red firework
     \ifnum\radius<11
         \draw[decorate,decoration={crosses},red!\pgfmathresult!black] (0,0) circle (\radius ex);
     \fi
     % orange firework
     \pgfmathparse{100-(\radius-6)*10};
     \ifnum\radius>5
         \ifnum\radius<16
             \draw[decorate,decoration={crosses},orange!\pgfmathresult!black] (1,1) circle ( \radius ex-5ex);
         \fi
     \fi
     % yellow firework
     \pgfmathparse{100-(\radius-11)*10};
     \ifnum\radius>10
         \draw[decorate,decoration={crosses},yellow!\pgfmathresult!black] (2.5,1) circle (\radius ex-10ex);
     \fi
   \end{tikzpicture}
   }
   \end{document}
   

2. Compile this code to produce fireworks.pdf.

3. Convert fireworks.pdf to an animated GIF via ImageMagick using

   convert -delay 20 -loop 0 -density 300 fireworks.pdf fireworks.gif
   

   Of course, adjust the delay (which is the frame rate in miliseconds), loop and density to suit your needs. There are other parameters you may also require. See How to convert pstricks animation to GIF file?

4. Display it using your regular browser or image viewer...