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Image Processing By Example
Aaron Hertzmann writes: "My collaborators and I will present a paper called
Image Analogies at
SIGGRAPH 2001 this summer, where we describe a machine learning method for 'learning' image filters for example.
For example, given a Van Gogh painting, the algorithm can process other images to look somewhat as if they were painted by Van Gogh."
"It can also 'texturize' images based on a sample textured image, e.g. to create landscape photos. It can do many other types of filters, as long as you give appropriate 'before' and 'after' examples to learn from." I especially like the idea of inferring a high-resolution image from a low-res one. The software is available for Windows and Unix, and "the source code is freely distributed for educational, research and non-profit purposes."
So, you're going to find all the pr0n and remove the ears? Whatever floats your boat.
It's not just using the filter; it is creating the filter.
--- witty signature
. In the case of Van Gogh, you just need to fuzz up the image a little. But there's a lot more to Van Gogh than fuzziness!
Wow, THEY DID Did you even read the site? or just look at the example? Here's one of some guy named Lucian Freud
And keep in mind they didn't 'just tell the computer to 'fuzz up' the image' they just gave the computer a copy of Starry night, and a blurry copy of Starry night and said 'figure out how to go from the blurry one to the original'. After that, the computer did all the work
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You can use PPM compression for this.
Say you have samples of the works of N authors and a text T that has to be identified. Compress the text N times, each time the system is initialized with the samples from another author. T will usually compress best when the system was initialized with the samples from its own author.
See Bill Teahan's PhD thesis.
What I've started to wonder is where else it's underlying principles could be used, or where this sort of technology could lead in the future.
Could it be used to analyze text from certain authors (hey, text and art are no different to a computer - treat words as "pixels" and sentences and structures flow like colors) and mimic their style? Could this one day be used to turn my dull crud into something Fitzgerald or Hemingway or even Asimov or Heinlein might have written?
I also have the following few questions:
I think that sums up my feelings. This stuff is really impressive guys, I hope the conference goes well.
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"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
There are a few companies (iterated.com, lizardtech.com, some others) that have been doing fractal and wavelet scaling for a while now. Pretty impressive stuff. I don't know all the theroretical details, just the practical uses. Scaling up to about 1600% is possible with no noticable artifacts (to the human eye). We've been using some of this stuff in the prepress/graphic arts industry for a while.
Jason
Sometimes, when I look at a Van Gogh, it breaks my heart,it is so beautiful. When I look at these pictures, I get the same nausea-induced feeling that any cheap knock-off imitation gives to me. It's not even interesting technology.
This is interesting and all well and good, but ultimately where it fails is that the produced image is entirely dependent on the original photograph's perception of the world. A reproduction of an image through halide crystal activation, which is enough for human memory and recognizance, but it lacks the true meaning of the artist. Van Gogh never used contrast or flat lighting as exhibited in the source pictures, and he often burst highlights with striking colors that may not have been actually present to his eye. It's what seperates him from a Turner - not just his brush stroke or how thick he worked in paint but how he saw the world. It's pretty churlish to adopt the first real expressionist painter (who deliberately attempted to paint their perception of the world rather than reproduce it) as an example of this algorithim, as the resultant images show that without an interpretation or perception this is pretty useless stuff. All I see here is a souped up photoshop filter.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
This learning algorithm looks similar to a neural net. My CS professor told us a story about the US government making a neural net that would be used to recognize tanks in satellite photographs.
They spent many hours loading photos for training data. Some photos had tanks and others did not. Once they thought it was working, they tried it on some non-training data --it didn't work.
Instead of recognizing tanks, it learned to distinguish cloudy days from ones with sunshine. All of the pictures with tanks were taken on a cloudy day & all other pictures were taken on days that had sunshine.
He didn't know if they ever actually got it working or not...
Terrific...a computer that behaves like Van Gogh.
Next thing you know I'll come home from work to find that my PC has severed its own mouse cord in a fit of psychosis.
You're correct that it's impossible to increase *actual* resolution, but in the cases of art and music it's often quite desirable to *simulate* increased resolution. Much is done with lo-fi music to enhance the perceived high frequencies to make it more pleasing to the ear, though this doesn't restore actual high frequency information lost from the original performance. I would assume similar principles are applied to visual art in this case.
-- -Keith