[Clipart] More discussion about Delineate/Autotrace images

[Jon Phillips]

In adobe streamline (the equivalent), it seems that it interpolates the 
number of colors and reduces them to a user-defined number, such as 64, 32, 
8, etc. So, to limit the colors, or threshold (I'm not sure what it is 
called in GdkPixBux).

The general idea is to simplify the image prior to vectorizing.

Jon



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bryce Harrington" <bryce at bryceharrington.com>
To: "Nathan Eady" <eady at galion.lib.oh.us>
Cc: <clipart at freedesktop.org>
Sent: Monday, September 27, 2004 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Clipart] More discussion about Delineate/Autotrace images


> 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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