New way to resize images automatically

At the SIGGRAPH 2007 conference, in the session named Image Slicing and Stretching there has been a notable technology presented by two researchers from Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL).

Called Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing, it's described as

Seam carving is a method for content-aware resizing that changes the size of an image according to its content. This paper shows applications to aspect-ratio change, image retargeting, and object removal.

Resizing images to make them fit in the required internet form factor without distorting its contents has always been a bit of a challenge. The demonstration of this tool, seems to make the work involved a lot easier and automated. The ability of a page to resize with the browser window is called liquidity. Here the images in the page also support that concept.

It also demonstrates the capability of locating areas of that are least important or have the 'least energy' and removing them without any noticeable distortions. However, there are limitations, especially where there are large composition elements such as faces and people that cannot be skewed without obvious effects.

To see these very interesting image transformation capabilities see the following video.



The two researchers, Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir have been promptly recruited by Adobe Systems Incorporated, who in-fact chaired the conference session. I fear this tool may also just get incorporated into Adobe's proprietary image manipulation software, instead of becoming available in the open source arena.

Meanwhile, traditionalists moan the manipulations possible in digital images and note that it undermines the integrity of photographs and the art of photography.

Family Net

The New York Times featured a very amusing story illustrating how the Internet is rapidly becoming a basic essential of life. It tells the story of the effect on the dynamics of a family gathering.

That was my first inkling of how the vastly expanded electronic and informational needs of houseguests would flavor our time together. Soon guests were positioning themselves to get dibs on one of the three computers in our Long Island house the way they would otherwise line up to jump in the shower.

...

Oy! Couldn’t we all stop the keying/ringing/texting/e-mailing and just talk? Mea culpa, on that score. My own escape from an overstuffed house was to sneak away to my office, where I pecked away at the mounting e-mail and checked Yankees scores. But my solace didn’t last long.

“I hate to bother you,” came a small voice from behind me. “The downstairs printer is jammed up. If I send you an attachment as a Zip file, can you unstuff it and print it up here?”

A somewhat much milder version of this happens in our family as well. In the last 3 years, our very geographically extended family got together twice, after a long time, for a couple of weddings (including mine). At some of the venues where we stayed, there was obviously no internet. Those of us who have become habitually connected into the online world, felt very fidgety about being unplugged. There was an element of restlessness and feeling helpless. One's eyes inevitably seek some sort of monitor, fingers itch for buttons to press. And wherever there's a computer, usually it's only one without Wi-Fi, everybody takes turns checking their emails, making sure all is well with their online world. People upload their digital photographs and everybody gathers around to see them again and again. Conversations drift towards discussing latest software, hardware and digital exploits. Yes, I did load some old movies & photos and show them off to relatives - to various reactions of embarrasment and laughter.

There were other aspects - everybody carried cellphones (and their chargers), everybody carried digital cameras (and their chargers, memory cards etc. ). Some moments in our wedding felt like walking into a field of paparazzi - there were so many continous flash bulbs from so many digital cameras.

Our family is still safe - there are not that many confirmed techies among us. We are still able to talk to each other in person. Our recent gatherings turned out to be a lot of fun (after the digital withdrawal symptoms had dissipated) and there were many lively conversations and sharing of experiences.

Nevertheless, I feel more connected to those who are online. Those I cannot email, seem to be living in an unreachable place. I can't tell whether this is the new 'normal' or the digitally obsessive.

The New York times story is here.

You can also try the quiz below (thanks, Praz), to see how geeky you are

80% Geek

Lunar Eclipse in Wellington

I finally saw one. Some time ago, my brother in South America was talking to me on the phone while he was watching his first lunar eclipse. Normally non-plussed, he was very excited - "Oh my God, it has really gone blood red."

So, I had a mental note that on 28th August I must, at all costs, get out and observe the lunar eclipse which would be visible here. When the evening came, it was actually my wife who reminded me. We both went out onto our staircase to observe the sky.



The moon was glowing beautifully in the sky. The Eclipse was to have started, but we could not observe anything out of the ordinary. Then we noticed a small shadow beginning to creep up under the moon's disc.



The clumps of heavy clouds were moving quickly across the sky, and we got glimpses of the progressing eclipse through the gaps in the clouds. A strong, cold Wellington breeze was blowing, The shadow very slowly progressed from the bottom of the moon's disc to the top. As it covered more and more of the moon, the colour of the shaded region got redder. So this is what is also referred to as 'blood moon' or 'Red moon'.

I took some photos with my regular Digital Camera.









More information links

• Wikipedia Page
• NASA's page