Categories
Python Web Site Technologies

Superimpose crosshairs plus grid marks on an image

Intro
My previous effort showed how to superimpose just a crosshairs on an image. That I was able to do within CSS. When it came time to add tick marks to those crosshairs I felt that CSS was getting too complicated. I had only a short time and I honestly couldn’t figure it out.

So I decided on an alternate appraoch of superimposing two images, one of which has transparency. Then it would come down to creating a suitable image that has the crosshairs and tick marks.

The details
I felt this was doable in python and it was, but I needed to add the Python Imaging Library (PIL). On CentOS I simply did a

$ sudo yum install python-imaging

The python program
Here is my python program.

# from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8376359/how-to-create-a-transparent-gif-or-png-with-pil-python-imaging
# drJ 3/2016
# install PIL: yum install python-imaging
#
from PIL import Image, ImageDraw
width = 640
height = 480
halfwidth=width/2
halfheight=height/2
 
ticklength=10
starttickx=halfwidth - ticklength/2
endtickx=halfwidth + ticklength/2
startticky=halfheight - ticklength/2
endticky=halfheight + ticklength/2
 
img = Image.new('RGBA',(width, height))
 
draw = ImageDraw.Draw(img)
# crosshairs
draw.line((halfwidth, 0, halfwidth, height), fill=252, width=2)
draw.line((0, halfheight, width, halfheight), fill=252, width=2)
# tick marks
 
def my_range(start, end, step):
    while start <= end:
        yield start
        start += step
 
# top to bottom ticks
for y in my_range(0, 480, 30):
    draw.line((starttickx, y, endtickx, y), fill=252, width=2)
# left to right ticks
for x in my_range(20, 640, 30):
    draw.line((x, startticky, x, endticky), fill=252, width=2)
 
img.save('crosshairs.gif', 'GIF', transparency=0)

The web page
We actually have two iamges side-by-side becuase we have two cameras.

<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
<!-- DrJ 1/2016
Note that Firefox's implementation of linear-gradient is broken and requires us to
use repeat linear gradient 
Some fairly lousy documentation on repeat linear gradient is here:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/repeating-linear-gradient
 
-->
 
#jpg1 {
 
    position:absolute;
 
    top:0;
 
    left:0;
 
    z-index:1;
 
}
 
#gif2 {
 
    position:absolute;
 
    top:10;
 
    left:11;
 
 
    /*
 
    set top and left here
 
    */
 
    z-index:1;
}
 
#gif3 {
 
    position:absolute;
 
    top:10;
 
    left:655;
 
 
    /*
 
    set top and left here
 
    */
 
    z-index:1;
}
 
</style></head>
<body>
<table><tr><td>
<div>
  <img id="jpg1" src="http://dcs-931l-ball/mjpeg.cgi" width="640" height="480" />
  <img id="gif2" src="crosshairs.gif" />
</div>
<td>
  <img src="http://dcs-931l-target/mjpeg.cgi" width="640" height="480" />
  <img id="gif3" src="crosshairs.gif" />
</tr></table>
</body></html>

To be continued…

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