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'''Multiple-image Network Graphics''' ('''MNG''') is a [[graphics file format]], published in 2001, for [[computer animation|animated]] images. Its specification is publicly documented and there are [[free software]] reference implementations available.
'''Multiple-image Network Graphics''' ('''MNG''') is a [[graphics file format]] published in 2001 for [[computer animation|animated]] images. Its specification is publicly documented and there are [[free software]] reference implementations available.


MNG is closely related to the [[Portable Network Graphics|PNG]] image format. When PNG development started in early 1995, developers decided not to incorporate support for [[animation]], because the majority of the PNG developers felt that overloading a single file type with both still and animation features is a bad design, both for users (who have no simple way of determining to which class a given image file belongs) and for web servers (which should use a MIME type starting with image/ for stills and video/ for animations—GIF notwithstanding).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngfaq.html#animation|title=PNG Frequently Asked Questions|website=libpng.org}}</ref> However, work soon started on MNG as an animation-supporting version of PNG. Version 1.0 of the MNG specification was released on 31 January 2001.
MNG is closely related to the [[Portable Network Graphics|PNG]] image format. When PNG development started in early 1995, developers decided not to incorporate support for [[animation]], because the majority of the PNG developers felt that overloading a single file type with both still and animation features is a bad design, both for users (who have no simple way of determining to which class a given image file belongs) and for web servers (which should use a MIME type starting with image/ for stills and video/ for animations—GIF notwithstanding),<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngfaq.html#animation|title=PNG Frequently Asked Questions|website=libpng.org}}</ref> but work soon started on MNG as an animation-supporting version of PNG. Version 1.0 of the MNG specification was released on 31 January 2001.


==File support==
==File support==
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! Support status
! Support status
|-
|-
| rowspan="10" | [[Image processing]]
| rowspan="11" | [[Image processing]]
⚫
|-
| [[Chasys Draw IES]]
⚫
| {{yes}}
|-
|-
| [[GIMP]]
| [[GIMP]]
| {{partial}}
| {{partial}}
⚫
|-
| [[Gnome MPlayer]]
⚫
| {{yes}}
|-
|-
| [[Gwenview]]
| [[Gwenview]]
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==Alternatives==
==Alternatives==
Most modern web browsers support animations in [[Animated Portable Network Graphics|APNG]], [[SVG animation|SVG]], [[WebP]], and [[WebM]]. {{As of|2024|02}} only [[Apple Safari]] supports [[HEIF]] and [[JPEG XL]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Deveria |first=Alexis |title=Can I use... Browser support tables for modern web technologies |website=Can I use... Browser support tables for modern web technologies |date=2024-02-17 |url=http://caniuse.com |access-date=2024-02-21}} See: [http://caniuse.com/mng MNG],
The most common alternatives are [[Animated GIF]] and – up until its deprecation in 2017<ref>{{cite web|title=Flash & The Future of Interactive Content|publisher=[[Adobe Inc.]]|date=July 25, 2017|url=https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171202123704/https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/|archive-date=December 2, 2017}}</ref> – [[Adobe Flash]], with the relative newcomer [[video alternative to GIF]] recently gaining momentum. Animated GIF images are restricted to 256 colors and are used in simple scenarios but are supported in all major web browsers.
[http://caniuse.com/apng Animated PNG], [http://caniuse.com/svg-smil SVG SMIL animation], [http://caniuse.com/webp WebP], [http://caniuse.com/webm WebM], [https://caniuse.com/avif AVIF], [https://caniuse.com/jpegxl JPEG XL], [https://caniuse.com/heif HEIF/HEIC], [https://caniuse.com/css-animation CSS Animation], [https://caniuse.com/web-animation Web Animations API], [https://caniuse.com/sr_flash Adobe Flash].</ref> The most common alternatives have been [[Animated GIF]] and – up until its deprecation in 2017<ref>{{cite web|title=Flash & The Future of Interactive Content|publisher=[[Adobe Inc.]]|date=July 25, 2017|url=https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171202123704/https://theblog.adobe.com/adobe-flash-update/|archive-date=December 2, 2017}}</ref> – [[Adobe Flash]]. GIF images are restricted to 256 colors with limited compression, but the format is supported in all graphical web browsers and is still widely used.

In web pages, it is possible to create pseudo-animations by writing [[JavaScript]] code that loads still PNG or JPEG images of each frame and displays them one by one for a specified time interval. Apart from requiring the user to have JavaScript support and choose not to disable it, this method can be CPU- and bandwidth-intensive for pages with more than one image, large images, or high framerates, and does not allow the animation to be saved in one image file or posted on image-based sites such as [[flickr]] or [[imageboards]].


Animations can be generated ad hoc in a browser with the [[Cascading Style Sheets#CSS 3|CSS 3]] features [[CSS animations|animations]], transitions, and [[Sprite (computer graphics)#Sprites by CSS|sprites]], or also the [[JavaScript]] [[web animations API]], by specifying frames or motions of still images or rendered shapes. This can be resource-intensive, and the animation generally cannot be saved in a portable image file or posted on [[imageboards]].
Most web browsers support [[Animated Portable Network Graphics|APNG]], a non-standard extension to [[Portable Network Graphics|PNG]] for simple GIF-like animations. Another alternative is [[Scalable Vector Graphics|SVG]] images with embedded [[Portable Network Graphics|PNG]] or [[JPEG]] graphics, using [[SVG animation]] (if supported) or [[JavaScript]] to flip between images.
<!--As of 2013-->
[[Internet Explorer]] supports neither APNG nor SVG animation.<ref>
[http://caniuse.com/apng Can I use Animated PNG?] and [http://caniuse.com/svg-smil Can I use SVG SMIL animation?], Alexis Deveria, CanIUse.com. Accessed 5 February 2013</ref>


[[Internet Explorer]] only supported GIF, CSS, and Flash animations.
Another approach uses [[Cascading Style Sheets#CSS 3|CSS 3]] features, notably [[CSS Animation]], which now has some level of support in most major web browsers. [[Sprite (computer graphics)#Sprites by CSS|CSS Sprites]] (providing several images as tiles in a single large image file) can be used as animations by varying which part of the large image is visible using CSS Animation or JavaScript.


== See also ==
== See also ==

Latest revision as of 10:03, 19 April 2024

Multiple-image Network Graphics
Filename extension
.mng
Internet media type
video/x-mng (unofficial)
Developed byPNG Development Group (donated to W3C)
Type of formatcomputer animation
Container forPNG, JNG
Extended fromPNG

Multiple-image Network Graphics (MNG) is a graphics file format published in 2001 for animated images. Its specification is publicly documented and there are free software reference implementations available.

MNG is closely related to the PNG image format. When PNG development started in early 1995, developers decided not to incorporate support for animation, because the majority of the PNG developers felt that overloading a single file type with both still and animation features is a bad design, both for users (who have no simple way of determining to which class a given image file belongs) and for web servers (which should use a MIME type starting with image/ for stills and video/ for animations—GIF notwithstanding),[1] but work soon started on MNG as an animation-supporting version of PNG. Version 1.0 of the MNG specification was released on 31 January 2001.

File support

[edit]

Support

[edit]

Gwenview has native MNG support. GIMP can export images as MNG files. Imagemagick can create a MNG file from a series of PNG files. With the MNG plugin, Irfanview can read a MNG file.[2] If MPlayer is linked against libmng, it and all its graphical front-ends like Gnome MPlayer can display MNG files.

Mozilla browsers and Netscape 6.0, 6.01 and 7.0 included native support for MNG until the code was removed in 2003 due to code size and little actual usage,[3] causing complaints on the Mozilla development site.[4] Mozilla later added support for APNG as a simpler alternative.[5] Similarly, early versions of the Konqueror browser included MNG support but it was later dropped. MNG support was never included in Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, or Safari.

Product Support status
Image processing
Chasys Draw IES Yes
GIMP Partial
Gwenview Yes
ImageMagick Yes
Irfanview Partial, via plugin
KMPlayer Yes
Konvertor Yes
MPlayer Yes
XnView Yes

Server support

[edit]

Web servers generally don't come pre-configured to support MNG files.[6][7]

The MNG developers had hoped that MNG would replace GIF for animated images on the World Wide Web, just as PNG had done for still images.[8] However, with the expiration of LZW patents and existence of alternative file formats such as APNG, Flash and SVG, combined with lack of MNG-supporting viewers and services, web usage was far less than expected.

Technical details

[edit]

The structure of MNG files is essentially the same as that of PNG files, differing only in the slightly different signature (8A 4D 4E 47 0D 0A 1A 0A in hexadecimal, where 4D 4E 47 is ASCII for "MNG" – see Portable Network Graphics: File header) and the use of a much greater variety of chunks to support all the animation features that it provides. Images to be used in the animation are stored in the MNG file as encapsulated PNG or JNG images.

Two versions of MNG of reduced complexity are also defined: MNG-LC (low complexity) and MNG-VLC (very low complexity). These allow applications to include some level of MNG support without having to implement the entire MNG specification, just as the SVG standard offers the "SVG Basic" and "SVG Tiny" subsets.

MNG does not have a registered MIME media type, but video/x-mng or image/x-mng can be used. MNG animations may be included in HTML pages using the <embed> or <object> tag.

MNG can either be lossy or lossless, depending whether the frames are encoded in PNG (lossless) or JNG (lossy).

Alternatives

[edit]

Most modern web browsers support animations in APNG, SVG, WebP, and WebM. As of February 2024 only Apple Safari supports HEIF and JPEG XL.[9] The most common alternatives have been Animated GIF and – up until its deprecation in 2017[10] – Adobe Flash. GIF images are restricted to 256 colors with limited compression, but the format is supported in all graphical web browsers and is still widely used.

Animations can be generated ad hoc in a browser with the CSS 3 features animations, transitions, and sprites, or also the JavaScript web animations API, by specifying frames or motions of still images or rendered shapes. This can be resource-intensive, and the animation generally cannot be saved in a portable image file or posted on imageboards.

Internet Explorer only supported GIF, CSS, and Flash animations.

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "PNG Frequently Asked Questions". libpng.org.
  2. ^ skiljan, irfan. "IrfanView PlugIns". Irfanview.com. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  3. ^ "195280 - Removal of MNG/JNG support". bugzilla.mozilla.org.
  4. ^ "18574 - (mng) restore support for MNG animation format and JNG image format". bugzilla.mozilla.org.
  5. ^ "Animated PNG graphics - MDC Doc Center". 4 July 2008. Retrieved 6 December 2010.
  6. ^ "Help:Images and other uploaded files". Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. Wikimedia Foundation. 2 October 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
  7. ^ "Database Error". help.lycos.com. Archived from the original on 12 August 2014.
  8. ^ "MNG (Multiple-image Network Graphics) Home Page". libpng.org.
  9. ^ Deveria, Alexis (17 February 2024). "Can I use... Browser support tables for modern web technologies". Can I use... Browser support tables for modern web technologies. Retrieved 21 February 2024. See: MNG, Animated PNG, SVG SMIL animation, WebP, WebM, AVIF, JPEG XL, HEIF/HEIC, CSS Animation, Web Animations API, Adobe Flash.
  10. ^ "Flash & The Future of Interactive Content". Adobe Inc. 25 July 2017. Archived from the original on 2 December 2017.
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