Combining GIF images

[two3rdswater]

Hi,

I'm just getting into creating and manipulating images on the server side, and was hoping the community could point me in the direction of a function that would allow me to stack 3 GIF images (created using @ImageCreate etc) on top of one another whilst maintaining their transparencies.

When i say on top of one another, i dont mean in the z-index sence, so that the image remains the same size, but is a merge of the 3. Rather i want to have 3 images (for example 50pixels high and 100px wide, to be stacked together into a single resulting image that is 150px high, by 100px wide.

The best function i can find is imagecopymerge i think, but i cannot figure out how to use that in the manor i desire.

Thanks in advance of your help.

Tom

[HuggieBear]

Use the image size functions to get the dimensions of each image, then create a canvas that size and merge them in.

Regards
Huggie

[two3rdswater]

Thanks, I'm getting closer!

I've created 3 images, and saved them to the server. I now want to combine these images into one. I've written the following function to do this, but at the moment all i am ending up with is a black box.

I think my problem might be one of the following, but i don't know how to solve any of them.

1) I'm not openning the files in the correct way to turn them into a resource again.
2) I'm not setting the background of my new image to be transparent
3) Something else.

Any further advice much appreciated.

T

[code]
function create_combined_images($file_name, $target_folder, $image1, $image2, $image3)
{
$mime_type = 'image/gif' ;
$extension = '.gif' ;
$send_buffer_size = 4096 ;

// create image
$size = getimagesize($image1);
$image = @ImageCreate($size[0], 150) ;
if(!$image || !$size)
{
fatal_error('Error: The server could not create this heading image.');
}

$file1 = @fopen($image1,'rb');
imagecopymerge ($image, $file1, 0, 0, 0, 0, $size[0], $size[1], 100);

$file2 = @fopen($image2,'rb');
$size = getimagesize($image2);
imagecopymerge ($image, $file2, 0, 50, 0, 0, $size[0], $size[1], 100);

$file3 = @fopen($image3,'rb');
$size = getimagesize($image3);
imagecopymerge ($image, $file3, 0, 100, 0, 0, $size[0], $size[1], 100);

// save copy of image
$save_filename = $target_folder . '/' . $file_name . $extension ;
echo "<br/>save file name: " . $save_filename;
@ImageGIF($image,$save_filename);

ImageDestroy($image);
}
[/code]

[i]A side question to this is what difference does adding a "@" to the front of the image function make? It seems to work the same with or without?[/i]

[two3rdswater]

Update::

I'm pretty sure that i am just not reading in the image file correctly in order for it to be an image "resource". Please could someone advise me how i can read a file and convert it into a php image resource.

Thanks!

Tom

My updated function is below.

[code]function create_combined_images($file_name, $target_folder, $image1, $image2, $image3, $background_color, $transparent_background)
{
$mime_type = 'image/gif' ;
$extension = '.gif' ;
$send_buffer_size = 4096 ;

// create image
$size = getimagesize($image1);
$image = @ImageCreate($size[0], 150) ;
if(!$image || !$size)
{
fatal_error('Error: The server could not create this heading image.');
}

$file1 = @fopen($image1,'rb');
imagecopymerge ($image, $file1, 0, 0, 0, 0, $size[0], $size[1], 100);

$file2 = @fopen($image2,'rb');
$size = getimagesize($image2);
imagecopymerge ($image, $file2, 0, 50, 0, 0, $size[0], $size[1], 100);

$file3 = @fopen($image3,'rb');
$size = getimagesize($image3);
imagecopymerge ($image, $file3, 0, 100, 0, 0, $size[0], $size[1], 100);

$background_rgb = hex_to_rgb($background_color) ;
$background_color = @ImageColorAllocate($image,$background_rgb['red'],
$background_rgb['green'],$background_rgb['blue']) ;
// set transparency
if($transparent_background)
ImageColorTransparent($image,$background_color) ;

// save copy of image
$save_filename = $target_folder . '/' . $file_name . $extension ;
echo "<br/>save file name: " . $save_filename;
@ImageGIF($image,$save_filename);

ImageDestroy($image);
}[/code]

Please help!