The following code is an adaption from my own implementation to accommodate the "into array" part.
The problem with gifs is: There are different disposal methods which have to be considered, if you want this to work with all of them. The code below tries to compensate for that. For example there is a special implementation for "doNotDispose" mode, which takes all frames from start to N and paints them on top of each other into a BufferedImage.
The advantage of this method over the one posted by chubbsondubs is that it does not have to wait for the gif animation delays, but can be done basically instantly.
BufferedImage[] array = null;
ImageInputStream imageInputStream = ImageIO.createImageInputStream(new ByteArrayInputStream(data)); // or any other source stream
Iterator<ImageReader> imageReaders = ImageIO.getImageReaders(imageInputStream);
while (imageReaders.hasNext())
{
ImageReader reader = (ImageReader) imageReaders.next();
try
{
reader.setInput(imageInputStream);
frames = reader.getNumImages(true);
array = new BufferedImage[frames];
for (int frameId : frames)
{
int w = reader.getWidth(0);
int h = reader.getHeight(0);
int fw = reader.getWidth(frameId);
int fh = reader.getHeight(frameId);
if (h != fh || w != fw)
{
GifMeta gm = getGifMeta(reader.getImageMetadata(frameId));
// disposalMethodNames: "none", "doNotDispose","restoreToBackgroundColor","restoreToPrevious",
if ("doNotDispose".equals(gm.disposalMethod))
{
image = new BufferedImage(w, h, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
Graphics2D g = (Graphics2D) image.getGraphics();
for (int f = 0; f <= frameId; f++)
{
gm = getGifMeta(reader.getImageMetadata(f));
if ("doNotDispose".equals(gm.disposalMethod))
{
g.drawImage(reader.read(f), null, gm.imageLeftPosition, gm.imageTopPosition);
}
else
{
// XXX "Unimplemented disposalMethod (" + getName() + "): " + gm.disposalMethod);
}
}
g.dispose();
}
else
{
image = reader.read(frameId);
// XXX "Unimplemented disposalMethod (" + getName() + "): " + gm.disposalMethod;
}
}
else
{
image = reader.read(frameId);
}
if (image == null)
{
throw new NullPointerException();
}
array[frame] = image;
}
}
finally
{
reader.dispose();
}
}
return array;
private final static class GifMeta
{
String disposalMethod = "none";
int imageLeftPosition = 0;
int imageTopPosition = 0;
int delayTime = 0;
}
private GifMeta getGifMeta(IIOMetadata meta)
{
GifMeta gm = new GifMeta();
final IIOMetadataNode gifMeta = (IIOMetadataNode) meta.getAsTree("javax_imageio_gif_image_1.0");
NodeList childNodes = gifMeta.getChildNodes();
for (int i = 0; i < childNodes.getLength(); ++i)
{
IIOMetadataNode subnode = (IIOMetadataNode) childNodes.item(i);
if (subnode.getNodeName().equals("GraphicControlExtension"))
{
gm.disposalMethod = subnode.getAttribute("disposalMethod");
gm.delayTime = Integer.parseInt(subnode.getAttribute("delayTime"));
}
else if (subnode.getNodeName().equals("ImageDescriptor"))
{
gm.imageLeftPosition = Integer.parseInt(subnode.getAttribute("imageLeftPosition"));
gm.imageTopPosition = Integer.parseInt(subnode.getAttribute("imageTopPosition"));
}
}
return gm;
}