Hudzilla.org - the homepage of Paul Hudson
Contents > Multimedia > Images Wish List | Report Bug | About Me ]

11.2.27     Interlacing an image: imageinterlace()

This is NOT the latest copy of this book; click here for the latest version.

int imageinterlace ( bool interlace)

Interlacing an image allows users to see parts of it as it loads, and takes different forms depending on the image type. For example, interlaced JPEGs (called "progressive"), GIFs, and PNG files show low-quality versions of the file as they load. In comparison, non-interlaced JPEGs appear line-by-line. To enable interlacing on your picture, simply call this function with the second parameter set to 1, or set to 0 if you want to disable it.

Interlacing is likely to effect your filesize: JPEGs often get smaller when interlaced because progressive JPEGs use a more complicated mathematical formula to compress the picture, whereas PNG files often get larger. Progressive JPEGs are a mixed blessing, however: Internet Explorer doesn't handle them properly, and rather than showing low-quality versions of the JPEG as it loads simply downloads the entire picture and shows it all at once. As a result, non-progressive JPEGs (line-by-line) appear to load faster on Internet Explorer. Other browsers don't display this problem.

This example shows interlacing in action for PNG files. It's not likely to be very noticeable if you run this on a local web server and/or use small files, because it will be decompressed too fast.

<?php
  $image
= imagecreatefrompng("space.png");
  
imagefilter($image, IMG_FILTER_MEAN_REMOVAL);
  
imageinterlace($image, 1);
  
header("content-type: image/png");
  
imagepng($image);
  
imagedestroy($image);
?>




<< 11.2.26 Special FX, Other special effects   11.2.28 Getting an image's MIME type: image_type_to_mime_type() >>
Table of Contents
Want to see this stuff in print? PHP in a Nutshell takes the core topics covered here, adds in thousands of edits from the editorial team and myself, and combines them to make an unbeatable reference for PHP programmers at all levels.



My latest book has hundreds more tips on how to use PHP, Apache, and MySQL, plus Perl, Python, shell scripts, performance tuning, and more!



Top-right shadow
 
Bottom-left shadow Bottom shadow

Comments from other readers
Be the first to add a comment to this chapter!



Add comment
Please note that by posting a comment here you are committing it to the public domain. This is important so that others can make use of your code themselves, and also so that I can incorporate helpful notes directly into the main text. Comments are limited to 2000 characters in length.

If you are reporting an error in the content, please tell me directly.

Your name/email address:
Your comment:
 
Now, in order to verify that you're a real person, please answer this simple question: what is two plus eight?
The answer is:
(please write in
numbers, eg 19)


Top-right shadow
 
Bottom-left shadow Bottom shadow