http://picsimilar.sourceforge.net
Copyright (c) Dennis Damico, dennis508@yahoo.com
GNU General Public License
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.php
Installation Requirements (Windows):
o Java Runtime Environment Version 7 or later.Installation Requirements (Linux):
o ImageMagick (optional)
o FFMPEG (optional)
o VLC (optional)
o ExifTool
o dcraw (optional)
o ImageMagick (optional)
o FFMPEG (optional)
o VLC (optional)
1. To install Picsimilar open the distribution file, move all files to a location of your choice.
To run in portable mode on removable drives: Create a writable folder named Picsimilar.db in the folder containing Picsimilar or Picsimilar.exe. (This folder will hold all program data.)
Windows install and run:
2. Picsimilar requires the Java Runtime Environment Version 7 or later. You may obtain it from: https://www.java.com. Install 64-bit Java.
3. Install optional programs as needed. See below.
4. Run Picsimilar by double-clicking Picsimilar.exe.
5. Read the known problem below relating to Unicode pathnames. If you are not using the Unicode workaround you may delete Picsimilar_temp.txt.
Windows optional programs:
6. To enable viewing of HEIC, TIFF, WEBP and AVIF images, you need the ImageMagick executable:
Download the ImageMagick program from http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php.
You may install the program anywhere on your system.
Then, in the folder containing exiftool.exe, create a symbolic link (not a shortcut) named "convert.exe" to ImageMagick's magick.exe program. Example from the command prompt:
mklink convert.exe "C:\Program Files\ImageMagick\magick.exe". (You may need to do this as an administrator.)
7. To enable viewing of video and audio thumbnails, you need the FFMPEG executable:
Download the FFMPEG program from https://ffmpeg.org/.
You may install the program anywhere on your system.
Then, in the folder containing exiftool.exe, create a symbolic link (not a shortcut) named "ffmpeg.exe" to the FFMPEG program of the same name. Example from the command prompt:
mklink ffmpeg.exe "C:\Program Files\ffmpeg-4.0.2-win64-static\bin\ffmpeg.exe". (You may need to do this as an administrator.)
8. To enable viewing of videos and playing of audio, you need the VLC executable:
Download the VLC program from https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html.
You may install the program anywhere on your system.
Then, in the folder containing exiftool.exe, create a symbolic link (not a shortcut) named "vlc.exe" to the VLC program of the same name. Example from the command prompt:
mklink vlc.exe "C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\vlc.exe". (You may need to do this as an administrator.)
Linux install and run:
This distribution contains an appimage that was built on Kubuntu 22.04. It should run on many Linux systems but I just don't have access to other systems to test. Please let me know whether this appimage runs on your system. dennis508@yahoo.com.
9. Picsimilar requires that ExifTool is installed on your system. Install ExifTool from https://exiftool.org/.
Be sure ExifTool is installed in a location such that the "which" command can find it. Example:
$ which exiftool
/usr/bin/exiftool
10. Install optional programs as needed. See below.
11. Run Picsimilar by double-clicking Picsimilar.
Linux optional programs:
12. To enable viewing of RAW and DNG files, you need the dcraw executable:
Install the dcraw program using your system's package manager. Be sure it is installed in a location such that the "which" command can find it. Example:
$ which dcraw
/usr/bin/dcraw
13. To enable viewing of HEIC, TIFF, WEBP, JXL, and AVIF images, you need the ImageMagick executable:
Install the imageMagick program using your system's package manager or download the portable Linux "magick" program.
If your version contains the "convert" program, be sure it is installed in a location such that the "which" command can find it. Example:
$ which convert
/usr/bin/convert
If your version contains the "magick" program but not the "convert" program, create a link named "convert" to it. The "which convert" command must be able to find it.
14. To enable viewing of video and audio thumbnails, you need the FFMPEG executable:
Install the FFMPEG program using your system's package manager. Be sure it is installed in a location such that the "which" command can find the ffmpeg executable. Example:
$ which ffmpeg
/usr/bin/ffmpeg
15. To enable viewing of videos and playing of audio, you need the VLC executable:
Install the VLC program using your system's package manager. Be sure it is installed in a location such that the "which" command can find the vlc executable. Example:
$ which vlc
/usr/bin/vlc
Translation Note:
Some of the non-English text was produced by an automated translation service. Please send corrections/improvements to dennis508@yahoo.com.
Bitte verbessern Sie die automatische Übersetzung.
Merci d'améliorer la traduction automatique.
Limitations, warnings, and known problems:
-Your RAW file may not be recognized by Picsimilar. There are hundreds of RAW formats. It may be a simple matter for Picsimilar to recognize your format. Send email to the author.
-Your TIFF file may not be viewable; Picsimilar is limited by 3rd party software capability. See user guide. Some versions of ImageMagick do not correctly apply the Exif Orientation tag.
-Your HEIC file may not be viewable.
--ImageMagick versions for Windows have heic support; versions for other systems may not. From the command line, look for "heic" in the output of "convert --version".
-Your WEBP file may not be viewable.
--ImageMagick versions for Windows have webp support; versions for other systems may not. From the command line, look for "webp" in the output of "convert --version".
-Images with transparency, such as PNG, TIFF, WEBP, are displayed with different colored backgrounds depending on the function being performed.
-Unicode in pathnames: On Windows, ExifTool will not process files with non-ASCII Unicode characters in the filename or pathname. (This includes accented characters such as ä, é, è, ö, ü, and other non-English characters.) This is due to an underlying lack of support for Unicode filenames in the Windows standard C I/O libraries. (This problem does not exist on Linux.) ExifTool 9.79 addresses this problem but Picsimilar does not support the ExifTool solution.
Picsimilar provides a "workaround" to avoid this problem, but with a performance cost. The workaround causes Picsimilar to copy files containing non-ASCII pathname characters to a simple ASCII temporary path, perform the ExifTool operation there, then copy the file back to its original location. To use this workaround, follow these steps.
1. If you created a Picsimilar.db folder in step #1, copy the file picsimilar_temp.txt from the distribution file to there. If you did not create a Picsimilar.db folder then copy picsimilar_temp.txt to your home folder. Your home folder will be something like "C:\Users\Dennis".
2. Edit picsimilar_temp.txt to contain a simple ASCII path to a folder for which you have read and write access. For example, "C:\temp".
-Windows Security Alert: On some Windows systems you may encounter a firewall warning ("Windows Firewall has blocked some features of this app") when opening the Search window. This warning is benign. Picsimilar does not use network connections of any kind; you may deny access to private and public networks. The author believes this warning stems from hyper vigilance on the part of Microsoft and not from any threat in Picsimilar or Java.
This version of Picsimilar was tested with:
- Windows 10
- Java version "1.8.0_431"
- ExifTool 13.00
- Kubuntu 22.04
- Java version "1.8.0_321"
- ExifTool 13.00