Add them where? To rubin-env?

Yes, sorry, just clarified the main post.

From a quick look, new packages brought in for ffmpeg vs the rubin-env-4 dev environment would be:

ffmpeg

gnutls

lame

libidn2

libopus

libtasn1

libunistrin

libvpx

nettle

openh264

x264

New packages brought in for imagemagick vs the rubin-env-4 dev environment would be:

ghostscript

imagemagick

pkg-config

xorg-libice

xorg-libsm

xorg-libxext

xorg-libxrender

xorg-libxt

xorg-renderproto

xorg-xextproto

Why do science pipelines need to make movies and depend on X11 libraries and ghostscript?

Lots of things are best seen animated. Sadly, I do not define the dependencies of those packages.

Those are quite a few dependencies for both packages. Do we really need imagemagick, or can we just output the jpegs in exactly the way we want them via matplotlib (or whatever plotting library you're using)?

There was a recent question on community about making animations of cutouts, so there are probably other use cases than just RubinTV.

No, sadly, like I said, I need to change the stretch on some existing jpegs (the particular use case here is for pre-rendered jpegs from the all sky camera, but there are other situations where it's useful/necessary too).

Are those particularly big and onerous ones that people really have such a problem with adding them? I'd have asked for this ages ago but these tools were already installed manually on lsst-devl so I didn't realise they weren't already part of our distribution until I tried to use them elsewhere.

Merlin Fisher-Levine is this request related to this discussion and user request on communtity

No, it's totally independent of that, but it would serve them well, and shows that it's not just me that would find this useful!

We discussed this at DM-CCB.

Merlin Fisher-Levine can you please explain in a bit more detail what packages are going to need these packages? Is this SITCOM software? Will you need this to run in batch? Which k8s containers are you needing it to exist in? Nublado adds extra packages that are not in rubin-env.

Sure, let's split it out:

ffmpeg is, I think, useful to all users: from nublado users, to inside k8 pods to pipeline devs. Lots of things are really best viewed as an animated time series, and I think that CLO post shows just how much this would be useful functionality. So I think that would live well in the base env, given its utility to so many people.

imagemagick is, I must admit, perhaps somewhat less far-reaching (though I think it's still the go-to tool for making GIFs, which can be useful for the same use-case as above but when you don't want to have to embed an mp4). Given that I've already had it manually added to the k8s pods that I care about, I guess I can live without it, but it still seems like a bit of a shame given that nublado conda envs aren't writable, so nublado users (and anyone else unable to clone the env into a writale place and then install into it) will be unable to use it.

Regarding the where/what questions:

> Is this SITCOM software?
Yes, currently, though as I said above, I think it's of general use too.

> Will you need this to run in batch?
Potentially I'd like to, though I've not coded that up yet. If I do I can clone my env though, I'm used to it at this point.

> Which k8s containers are you needing it to exist in?
The RubinTV production ones (but I also need it on lsst-devl and available via the shared stack, though like I said, I can clone and install myself if I have to).

I'd argue that with the massive compression advantage and clear control over playback speed of mp4 vs. gif, we should discourage using imagemagick for any kind of video making.

I'd argue that if people want gifs for a reason, then they should make those gifs, and that we can't know or legistlate every usecase. Clearly mp4s have many advantages over gifs, but sometimes, some people might also need an actual gif.

But anyway, my particular usecase involves imagemagick as part of the moviemaking pipeline, but it doesn't itself make the movies.

Anyway, I have everything I want already - I know how to, and can and do just clone our conda envs and manually install things for myself, and have had what I needed installed into my k8s pods by hand. I just thought that my usecases were common enough (as evidenced by the CLO post, and knowing that I'm not alone in pipelines/commissioning as a movie-maker) that I'd try to spread the love a little and make things easier for others, but I'm happy to just withdraw this as it's clearly a very unpopular proposition with many people.

This will be added to Rubin-extras which will appear with Rubin-env 4.0.

Oops. Should have also added an implementation ticket for adding to shared-stack and RSP.