ffmpeg, convert (imagemagick) and MeshLab crib sheet

Assembled by Paul Bourke
Started June 2018, ongoing ...

See also: An Introduction to FFmpeg, Timelapse and Fulldome Video Production, Color Grading, Audio Processing and Panasonic LUMIX GH5S by Michael Koch


A small collection of helpful command lines for ffmpeg and convert (imagemagick). Certainly not trying to be comprehensive but a note to myself for things I seem to need to do regularly. Collated here to save myself digging around on-line and/or through the respective manuals. Hopefully others may find them useful also. If you think the following are incomplete, can be improved, or if you would like to add your own please drop me an email.


ffmpeg

Convert mp4 to mov.

   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -acodec copy -vcodec copy -f mov outputmoviename
Convert frames to movie using Apple animation codec 
   ffmpeg -framerate 30 -i inputframes%04d.png -vcodec qtrle outputmoviename
Convert from mov to mp4 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -vcodec copy -acodec copy outputmoviename
Convert from mov to mp4 using h265 compression, default preset is medium, default crf is 28 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -c:v libx265 -preset slow -crf 25 -acodec copy outputmoviename
Add audio to existing movie, transcoding the audio 
   ffmpeg -i inputvideo.mp4 -i inputaudio.wav -c:v copy -c:a aac output.mp4
Used for making mp4 for Gear VR, this was 2015, may have changed now. 
   ffmpeg -framerate 30 -i inputframename%04d.png -c:v libx264 -profile:v high 
      -crf 18 -pix_fmt yuv420p outputmoviename
Extract frames 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -q:v 1 directoryname/outputframename%04d.tga
Extract a single frame 
   ffmpeg -ss 00:01:00 -i inputmoviename -vframes 1 -q:v 1 outputimagename
Extract a time range from a movie 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -ss 00:03:00 -t 00:01:00 outputmoviename
Extract 16 bit from greater than 8 bit movies, eg: GH5 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -vf "format=pix_fmts=rgb48" directoryname/outputframename%04d.png
Extract frames and scale 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -vf scale=2048:1080 -q:v 1 directoryname/outputframename%04d.tga
Extract frames and rotate by multiples of 90 degrees (see transpose options) 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -vf transpose=2 -q:v 1 directoryname/outputframename%04d.tga
Build mp4 movie from frames 
   ffmpeg -r 30 -i scene%04d.tga -c:v libx265 -crf 20 outputmoviename
Build mp4 movie from frames for system that don't fully support yuv444p 
   ffmpeg -r 30 -i scene%04d.jpg -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -pix_fmt yuv420p outputmoviename
   ffmpeg -r 30 -i scene%04d.png -c:v libx265 -crf 26 -tag:v hvc1 -pix_fmt yuv420p outputmoviename
Build mp4 from frames and audio 
ffmpeg -r 30 -i dirname/frame_%d.jpg -i audio.mp4 -c:a copy -c:v libx265 outputmovie.mp4
ffmpeg -r 30 -i dirname/frame_%d.jpg -i audio.mp4 -c:a copy -c:v libx265 -crf 24 outputmovie.mp4
ffmpeg -r 30 -i dirname/frame_%d.jpg -i audio.mp4 -c:a copy -c:v libx264 -crf 18 outputmovie.mp4
Convert and apply remap filter 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -i 0001_x.pgm -i 0001_y.pgm -lavfi remap outputmoviename
For missing values the chroma key colour is used, to change from green to black 
    ffmpeg -i inputmovie -i x.pgm -i y.pgm -lavfi remap=fill=black outputmovie
Convert and apply cropping 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -filter:v "crop=out_w:out_h:x:y" outputmoviename
Movie encoding from frames, proposed for fulldome video using Watchout 
   ffmpeg -threads auto -r 30 -i "inputframedirectory/inputframename%04d.png" -f vob 
      -vcodec mpeg2video -b:v 30000k -minrate 30000k -maxrate 30000k -g 15 -bf 2 -an 
      -trellis 2 "outputmoviename.m2v"
Movie encoding from frames with HAP codec, proposed for Vioso Wings fulldome playback. Ensure ffmpeg is installed "with-snappy". 
   ffmpeg -r 30 -i "inputframedirectory/inputframename%04d.tga" -vcodec hap 
      -format hap -r 30 outputmoviename
Movie information. 
   ffmpeg -i moviename
Scale a movie. 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -filter:v scale=640:480 -c:a copy outputmoviename
Extract a time segment from a movie. 
   ffmpeg -i inputmoviename -ss 00:00:30 -t 00:00:50 -codec copy outputmoviename
QuickTime movie to animated gif. (Contributed by Jordi Vallverdú Alcover) 
   ffmpeg -ss 00:00:00.000 -i input.mov -pix_fmt rgb24 -r 10 
      -s 320x240 -t 00:00:10.000 output.gif
   convert -layers Optimize output.gif output_optimized.gif
Record from webcam (Mac OSX) 
   ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""
   ffmpeg -f avfoundation -framerate 30 -video_size 1280x720 
      -pixel_format rgb24 -i "0:0" out.mov
   ffmpeg -f avfoundation -framerate 30 -video_size 1280x720 -i "0:0" 
      -c:v libx264 -crf 22 out.mp4
Append two movies side by side 
   ffmpeg -i inputmovie1 -i inputmovie2 
      -filter_complex "[0:v:0]pad=iw*2:ih[bg]; [bg][1:v:0]overlay=w" 
      -c:v libx264 outputmoviename
Append two movies side by side or top and bottom 
   ffmpeg -i inputmovie1 -i inputmovie2 -filter_complex vstack outputmoviename
   ffmpeg -i inputmovie1 -i inputmovie2 -filter_complex hstack outputmoviename

convert (imagemagick)

Resize proportionately 
   convert inputfilename -resize 4096x2048 outputfilename.jpg
Resize forced 
   convert inputfilename -resize 4096x2048\! outputfilename.jpg
Crop, supply size and origin 
   convert -crop 256x256+1024+0 inputfilename.exr outputfilename.jpg
Concatenate N images horizontally 
   convert inputfilename1.jpg inputfilename2.jpg ... inputfilenameN.jpg +append outputfilename.jpg
Concatenate N images vertically 
   convert inputfilename1.jpg inputfilename2.jpg ... inputfilenameN.jpg -append outputfilename.jpg
Specify jpeg compression quality 
    convert -quality 90 -verbose inputfilename.tga outputfilename.jpg
Create pyramidal tiff 
   convert inputimagename.tif -define tiff:tile-geometry=256x256 -compress jpeg 'ptif:outputfilename.ptif'
Create an animated gif. 
   convert -delay 120 -loop 0 inputframesequence*.png outputfilename.gif
Convert a raw RGB file to tiff. 
   convert -size WIDTHxHEIGHT -depth 16 inputfilename.rgb outputfilename.tiff

MeshLab

While most people engage with MashLab through the graphical interface, it is possible to script operations on the command line. This is accomplished through the meshlabserver. Details on different platforms may differ, for example in the location of the server, but on the Mac it might be invoked as follows: 

/Applications/meshlab.app/Contents/MacOS/meshlabserver -i $1.obj -o $1_cleaned.obj -m wt -s clean.mlx

The .mlx file describes the operations to be performed, in this case clean.mlx might be 

<!DOCTYPE FilterScript>
<FilterScript>
 <filter name="Remove Unreferenced Vertices"/>
 <filter name="Remove Zero Area Faces"/>
 <filter name="Remove Duplicate Vertices"/>
 <filter name="Remove Duplicate Faces"/>
 <filter name="Merge Close Vertices">
 <Param type="RichAbsPerc" description="Merging distance" 
   min="0" max="0.012423" tooltip="All the vertices that closer 
   than this threshold are merged together. Use very small values, 
   default values is 1/10000 of bounding box diagonal. " 
   name="Threshold" value="0.00012423" isxmlparam="0"/>
 </filter>
</FilterScript>
Remove unreferenced vertices
<!DOCTYPE FilterScript >
<FilterScript>
 <filter name="Remove Unreferenced Vertices"/>
</FilterScript>
Decimate a mesh
CTYPE FilterScript>
<FilterScript>
 <filter name="Simplification: Quadric Edge Collapse Decimation (with texture)">
  <Param value="1000000" name="TargetFaceNum" description="Target number of faces" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichInt"/>
  <Param value="0" name="TargetPerc" description="Percentage reduction (0..1)" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichFloat"/>
  <Param value="0.3" name="QualityThr" description="Quality threshold" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichFloat"/>
  <Param value="1" name="Extratcoordw" description="Texture Weight" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichFloat"/>
  <Param value="false" name="PreserveBoundary" description="Preserve Boundary of the mesh" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichBool"/>
  <Param value="1" name="BoundaryWeight" description="Boundary Preserving Weight" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichFloat"/>
  <Param value="true" name="OptimalPlacement" description="Optimal position of simplified vertices" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichBool"/v
  <Param value="true" name="PreserveNormal" description="Preserve Normal" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichBool"/>
  <Param value="true" name="PlanarQuadric" description="Planar Simplification" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichBool"/>
  <Param value="false" name="Selected" description="Simplify only selected faces" 
     isxmlparam="0" tooltip="" type="RichBool"/>
 </filter>
</FilterScript>
Remove zero area faces
<!DOCTYPE FilterScript>
<FilterScript>
 <filter name="Remove Zero Area Faces"/>
</FilterScript>