Image generation

Anon

Is it possible to automatically create a thumbnail from a larger image?

Anon

As I interpret your question, you want to dynamically take an image, and shrink it.

Technically, it would be possible, but it would be more cpu-friendly to do it on a one time basis. If you're a unix buff, search freshmeat for thumbnail generators.

You could even script it to generate the thumbnail on submission of a photo, like an online photo album

Anon

You could even script it to generate the thumbnail on submission

that's practically what I'm wanting to do.

Do PHP functions exist to do this?

Anon

Check Out Image Magick (http://www.imagemagick.org/). It is available for almost all major platforms, and does a good job.

You can call this right from the script using a system() call. Just make sure you read up on this function, as it can be used to run any command if you don't take care.

Also check out the other functions in the same family: exec(), passthru(), popen(), escapeshellcmd(), escapeshellarg(), and virtual(). They might help you out.

Anon

cheers 🙂