a4apphack

Seam carving is an image resizing algorithm developed by Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir. This algorithm alters the dimensions of an image not by scaling or cropping, but rather by intelligently removing pixels from (or adding pixels to) the image that carry little importance.

The importance of a pixel is generally measured by its contrast when compared with its neighbor pixels, but other measures may be used. Additionally, it’s possible to define (or autodetect) areas of high importance (faces, buildings, etc.) in which pixels may not be deleted, and conversely, areas of zero importance which should be removed first. From this information, the algorithm detects seams (continuous lines of pixels joining opposite edges of the image) which have the lowest importance, and deletes those. This shrinks the image by one horizontal or vertical line, depending on which direction the seam ran.

Seam carving can also be run in reverse by adding interpolated pixels along the lowest energy seam.

With this technique, it’s now possible to reduce or enlarge pictures by a wide range, while still retaining details. In normal image scaling, it’s often not possible to scale about factor greater than 2 or less than 0.5, without losing much of the images quality.

More Info : SeamCarving

Check out SeamCarving plugin for GIMP (Examples here)

Graphics, Images

Create and Publish 3D Movies Online for Free

Posted by rajivvishwa On March - 29 - 2009

Ideally, for creating 3d animated videos one would need an expensive 3d modelling tool and of course knowledge on writing scripts. This might be a laborius process which requires skill and practice which stops from a normal man to create one. But times change, and we have an online 3d animation creator which can be used to create and publish our movies in matter of seconds.

Xtranormal is an online application which turns your imagination to life. Creating animations with Xtranormal is very easy and can be accompolished in four simple steps.

Pick your scene (Backgrounds, Music, Actor Skin etc)
Type the script (Not the ‘scripts’ in programming terms, here we mean dialogues)
Add actions and sounds (Just drag-n-drop)
Publish & Share ( In video sharing sites like YouTube or in Xtranormal catalog)