Creates one fucked up gif. Requires imagemagick with liblqr enabled.

distortpulse.js

#!/usr/bin/env node

var im = require('imagemagick');
var async = require('async');
var temp = require('temp').track();
var ProgressBar = require('progress');


// Constants:
var FRAMES = 100;
var MIN_DISTORT = 90;      // 1-100 amount of distortion for "least distorted". Higher numbers distort less.
var MAX_DISTORT = 20;      // 1-100 amount of distortion for "most distorted". Lower numbers distort more.
var RESULT_SCALE = "x400"; // Size to scale the result picture to. (x400 == 400 pixels high)
var DELAY = "15";          // Time (in 1/100ths of a sec) between frames
var FUZZ_FACTOR = "1%";    // The greater this number, the more close colors distort in the result.


// Calculated from the above:
FRAMES = Math.floor(FRAMES / 2);
var DISTORT_DIFF = MAX_DISTORT - MIN_DISTORT;
var FRAMES_2 = FRAMES / 2;


var args = process.argv;
if (args.length !== 4) {
	console.error("Usage: distortpulse <source> <dest>");
	process.exit(1);
}
var infile = args[2];
var outfile = args[3];

console.log("IN ", infile);
console.log("OUT", outfile);


var scales = [];
for (var i=0; i<FRAMES; i++) {
	var scaled = _cubicEasing(i);
	scales.push(scaled.toFixed(3) + "%");
}

var bar = new ProgressBar('Generating [:bar] :percent :etas', {
	complete: '=',
	incomplete: ' ',
	width: 50,
	total: FRAMES
});

var paths = [];
async.eachSeries(
	scales,
	function forEachFrame(scale, next) {
		temp.open({prefix: 'distortpulse', suffix: '.png'}, function (err, temp_file) {
			if (err) { throw err; }

			im.convert([infile, "-liquid-rescale", scale, '-resize', RESULT_SCALE, temp_file.path], function (err) {
				if (err) { throw err; }
				bar.tick();
				paths.push(temp_file.path);
				next();
			});
		});
	},
	function allDone(err) {
		if (err) { throw err; }

		var final_args = ['-delay', DELAY, '-loop', 0]
			.concat(paths)
			.concat(paths.slice().reverse())
			.concat(['-fuzz', '1%', '-layers', 'remove-dups', '-layers', 'optimize'])
			.concat([outfile]);

		im.convert(final_args, function (err) {
			if (err) { throw err; }

			console.log("\n\nDone:", outfile);
		});
	}
);

function _cubicEasing(t) {
	if ((t/=FRAMES_2) < 1) return DISTORT_DIFF/2*t*t*t + MIN_DISTORT;
	return DISTORT_DIFF/2*((t-=2)*t*t + 2) + MIN_DISTORT;
}

package.json

{
  "name": "distortpulse",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "WTF",
  "main": "distortpulse.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "Ray Myers",
  "license": "MIT",
  "dependencies": {
    "async": "1.5.0",
    "imagemagick": "0.1.3",
    "progress": "1.1.8",
    "temp": "0.8.3"
  }
}