Enhanced Photo, Video - PhotoShop, PhotoSynth

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About this Talk

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. "Perhaps the most amazing demo I've seen this year," wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.
About Blaise Aguera y Arcas

Blaise Aguera y Arcas is an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, architect of Seadragon, and the co-creator of Photosynth, a monumental piece of software capable of assembling static photos into a synergy of zoomable, navigatable spaces. Read full bio »

via : http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129

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Before Gizmodo, I worked in the bowels of the broadcast industry for a number of years. I was either shooting video or cutting video every day, all day. And while Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects were both tools I used with some proficiency on a daily basis, I've never seen a post production demo as incredible as this clip from the University of Washington.

Essentially, you shoot some crappy, low-rez video of a still scene. You then reshoot the same scene with a digital camera (with higher resolution). Software can automagically combine these images to upconvert the video AND fix problems in the image— all while compensating for 3D space. Make sense? The remarkable demo will clarify things a bit:

<a href="http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1513129&amp;server=www.vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=00ADEF&amp;fullscreen=1" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1513129&amp;server=www.vimeo.com&amp;show_title=1&amp;show_byline=1&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=00ADEF&amp;fullscreen=1</a>

What's especially notable is that the software can fill in the nasty bits of the scene despite the videographer/photographer rotating their view (you see this as they shoot around the tree) and despite any lens differences (the software can compensate for different lens sizes/distortions).

Also, note that many details from the source video are retained (the glass reflections in the statue shot may be the best example), which means that the photograph's information isn't the only information we see in the composite image.

I'm not quite convinced that the entire process is quite as automatic as the students would make it, but the technology is extremely promising all the same. And at this point, it should only be a matter of time before we see the idea work its way into our favorite post production products. [Project Page via bbGadgets]

http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/videoenhancement/videoEnhancement.htm
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/08/18/amazing-tech-enhance.html

via : http://gizmodo.com/5038183/photographs-enhance-video-in-absolutely-unbelievable-ways

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[tags] enhanced photograph video

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[tags] Photosynth Seadragon

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[youtube]sQegEro5Bfo[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQegEro5Bfo

via : http://www.popsci.com/gear-amp-gadgets/article/2009-09/building-virtual-cities-automatically-150000-flickr-photos

Dubrovnik in 3-D:  University of Washington
They came, they saw, they took pictures. And thanks to them -- about 150,000 Flickr users -- a team of computer scientists built Rome in a day.

Using nearly half a million Flickr photos of Rome, Venice, and the Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik, a team of computer scientists at the University of Washington's Graphics and Imaging Laboratory assembled digital models of the three cities in 3-D.

Their work builds on the algorithms used in Microsoft's Photosynth, which were invented at the same lab, but it's like Photosynth on steroids.
176 points on reddit

"The key difference is that Photosynth was aimed at doing a single monument or landmark, which meant that it was scaled to a couple hundred or a thousand photographs, after which it became too slow," said Sameer Agarwal, an assistant professor at UW who worked on the project. "We can now process truly huge data sets -- the big breakthrough here was being able to match the images fast."

A series of videos on the project Web site lets visitors fly through landmarks like St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum and Venice's San Marco Square. For much smaller Dubrovnik, you can see the whole city, including mountains in the distance.

Each video includes clusters of small diamond shapes, which represent each photographer and his or her vantage point.

The team built a new algorithm that proceeds in two steps -- first, by matching the photos by what they had in common, puzzle-style, and then by determining the scene and each photographer's pose. They also designed new software that can more quickly solve the type of large math problems that exist in 3-D reconstruction.

It took 500 computer processors 13 hours to match 150,000 photos for Rome's landmarks, and eight more hours to construct a 3-D image of them. Venice involved 250,000 images, which took 27 hours to match and 38 hours to reconstruct. By contrast, using the algorithms on which Photosynth is based, it would have taken 500 processors at least a year to match 250,000 photos.

Dubrovnik had fewer photos, so matching only took about five hours, but the reconstruction ate up almost 18 hours.

It stands to reason that more photos would take more time, but there were so many similarities among Rome's photos that it was simpler to put them all together into individual landmarks. The team found clumps of photos that went together, yielding fine detail of the front of the Trevi Fountain, for instance. The Colosseum had 2,000 images. For Dubrovnik, however, the team had just 4,600 photos corresponding to the entire "old city" portion, which comprises several narrow streets and tall buildings.

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Tags
Gear & Gadgets, Feature, Rebecca Boyle, 3-D, 3-d modelling, flickr, images, models, photography, Photos, photosynth, virtual reality
"For Rome, since most of what we got were landmarks, the geometry is quite simple. Even through the building geometry is quite complicated, the overall is quite simple," Agarwal said. "For Dubrovnik, it's not just a matter of having twice as many images -- the (3-D) geometry is more complex."

Steve Seitz, another member of the team, said the next goal is to stitch together a million photos, ultimately creating a photo-realistic 3-D tour of an entire city.

"This is one of the main intellectual challenges here. We want to see how much of the city can be reconstructed from people's tourist photos," he said.

Agarwal said the technology could be used for everything from video games, to next-generation GPS, to preservation for the sake of posterity.

Venice is slowly sinking into the lagoon that surrounds it, for instance, and a 3-D tour could digitally preserve the city for future generations. Earthquake-prone cities could be catalogued, both for history and for municipal planning efforts.

"If you have a digital representation of something, then you can study it. Maps only offer you a limited view," Agarwal said. "There are a number of very different kinds of uses for something like this. And there's just the pure science aspect of it, which is advancing how you can do large scale 3-D construction."

[tags] : Photosynth Algorithm

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About this Talk

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. "Perhaps the most amazing demo I've seen this year," wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.
About Blaise Aguera y Arcas

Blaise Aguera y Arcas is an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, architect of Seadragon, and the co-creator of Photosynth, a monumental piece of software capable of assembling static photos into a synergy of zoomable, navigatable spaces. Read full bio »

via : http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129

http://www.celicasg.org/index.php?topic=1514.0

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something related.

==========

[youtube]sQegEro5Bfo[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQegEro5Bfo

via : http://www.popsci.com/gear-amp-gadgets/article/2009-09/building-virtual-cities-automatically-150000-flickr-photos

Dubrovnik in 3-D:  University of Washington
They came, they saw, they took pictures. And thanks to them -- about 150,000 Flickr users -- a team of computer scientists built Rome in a day.

Using nearly half a million Flickr photos of Rome, Venice, and the Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik, a team of computer scientists at the University of Washington's Graphics and Imaging Laboratory assembled digital models of the three cities in 3-D.

Their work builds on the algorithms used in Microsoft's Photosynth, which were invented at the same lab, but it's like Photosynth on steroids.
176 points on reddit

"The key difference is that Photosynth was aimed at doing a single monument or landmark, which meant that it was scaled to a couple hundred or a thousand photographs, after which it became too slow," said Sameer Agarwal, an assistant professor at UW who worked on the project. "We can now process truly huge data sets -- the big breakthrough here was being able to match the images fast."

A series of videos on the project Web site lets visitors fly through landmarks like St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum and Venice's San Marco Square. For much smaller Dubrovnik, you can see the whole city, including mountains in the distance.

Each video includes clusters of small diamond shapes, which represent each photographer and his or her vantage point.

The team built a new algorithm that proceeds in two steps -- first, by matching the photos by what they had in common, puzzle-style, and then by determining the scene and each photographer's pose. They also designed new software that can more quickly solve the type of large math problems that exist in 3-D reconstruction.

It took 500 computer processors 13 hours to match 150,000 photos for Rome's landmarks, and eight more hours to construct a 3-D image of them. Venice involved 250,000 images, which took 27 hours to match and 38 hours to reconstruct. By contrast, using the algorithms on which Photosynth is based, it would have taken 500 processors at least a year to match 250,000 photos.

Dubrovnik had fewer photos, so matching only took about five hours, but the reconstruction ate up almost 18 hours.

It stands to reason that more photos would take more time, but there were so many similarities among Rome's photos that it was simpler to put them all together into individual landmarks. The team found clumps of photos that went together, yielding fine detail of the front of the Trevi Fountain, for instance. The Colosseum had 2,000 images. For Dubrovnik, however, the team had just 4,600 photos corresponding to the entire "old city" portion, which comprises several narrow streets and tall buildings.

Related Articles
   Doc, I Can't See 3-D!
   Ortovox S1
   Stress Relief: The Masseuse You Sit On
Tags
Gear & Gadgets, Feature, Rebecca Boyle, 3-D, 3-d modelling, flickr, images, models, photography, Photos, photosynth, virtual reality
"For Rome, since most of what we got were landmarks, the geometry is quite simple. Even through the building geometry is quite complicated, the overall is quite simple," Agarwal said. "For Dubrovnik, it's not just a matter of having twice as many images -- the (3-D) geometry is more complex."

Steve Seitz, another member of the team, said the next goal is to stitch together a million photos, ultimately creating a photo-realistic 3-D tour of an entire city.

"This is one of the main intellectual challenges here. We want to see how much of the city can be reconstructed from people's tourist photos," he said.

Agarwal said the technology could be used for everything from video games, to next-generation GPS, to preservation for the sake of posterity.

Venice is slowly sinking into the lagoon that surrounds it, for instance, and a 3-D tour could digitally preserve the city for future generations. Earthquake-prone cities could be catalogued, both for history and for municipal planning efforts.

"If you have a digital representation of something, then you can study it. Maps only offer you a limited view," Agarwal said. "There are a number of very different kinds of uses for something like this. And there's just the pure science aspect of it, which is advancing how you can do large scale 3-D construction."

[tags] : Photosynth Algorithm

via : http://www.celicasg.org/index.php?topic=6856.0

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<a href="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6496886&amp;amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;amp;show_title=1&amp;amp;show_byline=1&amp;amp;show_portrait=0&amp;amp;color=&amp;amp;fullscreen=1&quot;" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6496886&amp;amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;amp;show_title=1&amp;amp;show_byline=1&amp;amp;show_portrait=0&amp;amp;color=&amp;amp;fullscreen=1&quot;</a>

PhotoSketch is an internet-based program that can take the rough, labeled sketch on the left and automagically turn it into the naff montage on the right. Seems unbelievable but—as the video shows—it works:

According to authors, their software can take any rough sketch, with the shape of each element labeled with its name, find images corresponding to each drawn element, judge which are a better match to the shapes, and then seamlessly merge it all into one single image.

PhotoSketch's blending algorithm analyzes each of these images, compares them with each other, and decides which are better for the blending process. It automatically traces and places them into a single photograph, matching the scene, and adding shadows. Of course, the results are less than perfect, but they are good enough:

http://gizmodo.com/5374890/this-is-a-photoshop-and-it-blew-my-mind

Unbelievable~! :eek::eek:

via : http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=2523665

The authors of the program—Tao Chen, Ming-Ming Cheng, Ping Tan, Ariel Shamir, and Shi-Min Hu at the Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, and the National University of Singapure—presented it at Siggraph Asia 2009. An event that will be remembered forever in the History of Humanity as the day in which a million of dorks were finally able to put themselves in X-rated positions with Megan Fox. [PhotoSketch—http://cg.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn:8080/cmm/?page_id=155]

[tags] PhotoSketch, SigGraph 2009, SigGraphAsia2009

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the recent CS5 about fuzzy logic photo editing brings this to mind.

among the automated CCTV tracking.

combine them together, raw data becomes info, becomes intel.

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and here's photoshop 2011.

Photoshop Will End Blurry Pics Forever

[youtube]xxjiQoTp864[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxjiQoTp864&feature=player_embedded
A blurred image is the worst. And no matter how steady you think your hand is, it can be easy to ruin a shot. Luckily, Adobe's cooking up a Photoshop feature that'll automatically eliminate blur. You won't believe your eyes.

The motion blur-killer, demoed at the recent Adobe MAX 2011 conference, is experimental at this point. The Photoshop rep on stage won't say when it'll be implemented—only that they're working on it for some feature version. But it's absolutely incredible. With only a few clicks, a blurry image is quickly analyzed, allowed Photoshop to discern exactly how the image was messed up. That is to say, if you accidentally moved your hand slightly to the right and down while the shutter snapped, it'll pick that up. And then it reverses it—and that's the totally magical part.

It doesn't seem possible, but as if it's completely altering reality, the Photoshop deblurring compensates for the extraneous motion and gives you a completely crisp picture. It works on text too. Keep in mind that this won't fix your out of focus images—ones where you just have your lens set incorrectly—but works against motion blur. The potential for this is incredibly huge: no more ruined personal photos, and, hey, maybe we'll see the death of stupid blurry "leaked" gadget shots. [PetaPixel]

via : http://gizmodo.com/5848371/photoshop-will-end-blurry-pics-forever

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and this.

New Software System for Realistically Adding Objects Into Photos

http://laughingsquid.com/new-software-system-for-realistically-adding-objects-into-photos/

Researcher Kevin Karsch and his team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are developing a software system that lets users easily insert objects into photographs, complete with convincing lighting and perspective. The system is astonishingly effective–to see it in action, watch their demo video.

    We propose a method to realistically insert synthetic objects into existing photographs without requiring access to the scene or any additional scene measurements. With a single image and a small amount of annotation, our method creates a physical model of the scene that is suitable for realistically rendering synthetic objects with diffuse, specular, and even glowing materials while accounting for lighting interactions between the objects and the scene. We demonstrate in a user study that synthetic images produced by our method are confusable with real scenes, even for people who believe they are good at telling the difference.