Generate smooth animations?

Questions
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1

I love using Graphics[] in Mathematica. For the most part, it does a great job, and is easy to use. However, when creating animations, its images tend to be “jittery” on playback. For example, a single vertical line moving to the right:

frames = ParallelTable[Rasterize[Graphics[
     Line[{{a, 0}, {a, 1}}],
     PlotRange -> {{0, 0.1}, {0, 1}}
     ]], {a, 0, 0.1, 0.001}];
ListAnimate[frames]

6385frames.gif

When viewed in-notebook or exported, the animation tends to “throb” or “blink”, at any magnification. Does anyone else experience this issue and have insight on how to deal with it?

2

I do not know the reason but will note that some options to Rasterize have Automatic settings. Possibly giving explicit values to e.g. ImageSize might help.

3

The problem seems to persist regardless of the choice of raster size, image size, or without calling Rasterize[] at all.

4

Hi Sam,

I guess you see this effect because your vertical line runs parallel to the pixel columns of your screen, and this can be problematic. (E.g. in digital radiology this is a known pitfall - one always makes sure that field borders are somewhat rotated against pixel rows/columns.) And in fact when you do the same using a non-vertical line the effect is basically gone:

frames = ParallelTable[
   Graphics[Line[{{a, 0}, {a + .1, 1}}], 
    PlotRange -> {{0, 0.21}, {0, 1}}], {a, 0, 0.1, 0.001}];
ListAnimate[frames]