questions about image manipulation

[amateurcanada]

I've been noticing some people using images that will have the local geographicaly area with a photo as part of the text that changes depending on the user. I'd love to have a few photos like this with a model holding up a sign saying "meet me in (local area) in some text. how are people doing this, i head imagemagic -thanks BUT how LOL

[scrm]

use GeoIP

[duckduckgoose]

GeoIP is correct. You would need image manipulation tools on your webhost (PHP works great for this, using GD), as well as having them install mod_geoip on Apache. They also need the free GeoIP city database (not as accurate as the pay version, but hey, it's free) in order to resolve cities/regions instead of just countries. Then, you whip it together and dynamically generate an image displaying the user's supposed city or region.

[CyberHustler]

sounds crazy, but im gonna try it

[amateurcanada]

ok i get and instally geoip, how do i dynamically generate such an image? what prog i need for that

btw, thanks for help! :D

[duckduckgoose]

using the PHP language (with the GD graphics creation extension installed), you can create images (gif, jpeg, etc) on the fly. You can also load in existing ones and manipulate them.

So in this case, you'd load in a jpeg with a girl holding a large white sign, and then on the coordinates of the photo where the white sign was, you'd add text saying the name of the viewer's city or whatever exactly on that whitespace.

I can build one custom for you if you like - hit me up if you want. Otherwise, there are some simple examples on the web, but they aren't all the way what we're describing here.

[amateurcanada]

Hehe, sure I would love to see an example of how its done - is it relatively easy? 30146166 is my icq :D lets talk

using the PHP language (with the GD graphics creation extension installed), you can create images (gif, jpeg, etc) on the fly. You can also load in existing ones and manipulate them.

So in this case, you'd load in a jpeg with a girl holding a large white sign, and then on the coordinates of the photo where the white sign was, you'd add text saying the name of the viewer's city or whatever exactly on that whitespace.

I can build one custom for you if you like - hit me up if you want. Otherwise, there are some simple examples on the web, but they aren't all the way what we're describing here.

[BigBen]

Pretty simple in php...

To get geo data to display for the text, they have a geo ip database that makes the 'text' argument a variable with the location of the surfer...

$text = getLocationFromGeoDatabase($_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"]);
ImageString(image, font, x, y, $text, color); 

That's how it's done in its simplest form. There are other functions to use true type fonts which look much better. Pick up a copy of "Programming PHP" by O'Reilly. Great book if you're just starting out with PHP (or even if you're not starting out, it's still a good reference book).

Most people use the geo db's from www.maxmind.com. They offer a complete API to their database that makes it incredibly easy to use. This will overlay an image with a true type font using the maxmind db:

include("geoip.inc");
header("Content-Type: image/jpeg");

$gi = geoip_open("GeoIP.dat",GEOIP_STANDARD);
$location = geoip_country_code_by_addr($gi, $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
geoip_close($gi);

$im = ImageCreateFromJPEG("image.jpg");
Imagettftext($im, 14, 0, 10, 10, $textColor, 'verdana.ttf', $location);

ImageJPEG($im);
ImageDestroy($im); 

[Miguel T]

Thanks for the help out

[sfera]

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