[Clipart] More discussion about Delineate/Autotrace images

[Bryce Harrington]

Wow, that's really cool, I didn't realize delineate/autotrace could
handle photographs.  I like how the vectorized library turned out; looks
very artistic.  

I wonder if there's a way to simplify it down further, so that the svg
end result is smaller.  Maybe greyscale the original? 

Wow, you've inspired me to try vectorizing some of my photos.  :-)

Bryce

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, Nathan Eady wrote:

> A while ago someone pointed out some submissions that were created with
> delineate and autotrace, and was asking about the style of the images
> and the suitability of the technique.
> 
> So I downloaded delineate and autotrace and got to messing around with
> them and, working from a photograph I took a few weeks ago, managed to
> create something that could be considered useful clipart, if a little
> on the complex side.
> 
> The original from the camera:
> http://cgi.galion.lib.oh.us/img/gpl-2004-landscaping-Aug-30.jpg
> 
> The lighting on that leaves something to be desired (I'm not a real
> photographer, and our digital camera is a bit old, and the time of
> day I'm usually in the sun is in the wrong place), and the vehicle
> in the foreground is in a mildly annoying spot (though at least it's
> not right in front of the building).  Also there's that electrical
> wire:  every shot I take of the library, my coworkers ask me if I
> can get rid of that wire.  I tell them I'm a network administrator,
> not a graphics artist, but to them it's all the same ("computer guy").
> 
> So I took the image and processed it a little with the Gimp:
> http://cgi.galion.lib.oh.us/img/gpl-front-2004-Aug-30-008-cropped-and-lightened.png
> 
> I cranked up the levels a bit, which helps with the lighting but
> creates its own problem:  now some parts look unnatural, almost
> fuzzy or fakey, perhaps because of the loss of color range inherent
> in such transformations.  A real graphics artist could probably do
> a bit better, but there are limits.
> 
> So rather than try to retouch it further as photorealistic, as
> I have done with other shots of the library in the past, this
> time I tried vectorizing it with Delineate/Autotrace:
> http://cgi.galion.lib.oh.us/img/gpl-front-2004-Aug-30-008-cropped-and-lightened.svg
> 
> Now it looks like an abstract or impressionistic image, and in addition
> will be in some ways easier to edit -- which is what I did next, using
> Inkscape:
> http://openclipart.org/incoming/carnegie_library_building_01.svg
> 
> I got rid of the unnecessary background matter, plus the vehicle in
> the foreground (and fudged the bush back into place, which I never
> could have done convincingly on the photo version), and softened up
> the places where the white background shows through by putting in
> a small handful of more-appropriately-colored background polygons.
> Oh, and I got rid of that yellow caution sawhorse by the flowerbed.
> 
> So now it pretty much just looks like a nice public building, very
> typical for a library, but without all the photorealistic detail.
> I'm especially pleased with how nicely the dome came out.
> 
> Ideally I'd like to remove the foreground foliage on the left, but
> now we're back to my not being a graphics artist.  Still, this is
> in some ways much nicer than what we had before.  If you compare
> it back to the original photograph, there's quite a difference.
> 
> I also submitted it (the final version only, not the others on
> the galion.lib.oh.us server; those are just there for illustration
> purposes for this discussion) to kick off the "buildings" (other
> than houses) category.
> 
> Other thoughts?
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