Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-23 Thread Nicolas Robidoux
Joao:

Read the article!

My guess is that the SR scheme combines two things:

1) Look for similar things at the same scale within the image to
reconstruct a platonic ideal which you then replicate (this is
super-resolution using data from the same image; classical
super-resolution uses multiple shots of the same scene).
2) Do the same at multiple scales, in the hope that there is
self-similarity to pick up on.

But I've only read the summary.

-

Prequel: I am very biased because I develop and program competing
methods which could be described as belonging to older generation
approaches. So, I'm fighting obsolescence.

Now: If I was to suggest a state-of-the-art cool method to someone,
I would suggest NNEDI3 (which is programmed in Avisynth).

Why?

a) NNEDI3 not an academic scheme. It's well tested in real world
situations, I'm pretty sure that the code is FLOSS, and there is an
open source community around it. It was put together so that it does
pretty well all the time, not only when the data fits the ideal
input.

b) No matter how wonderful the discovery of how common
self-similarity is in this world (a crush with fractals actually
contributed to getting me back into grad school a few years back), the
world is not universally self-similar.

Take out the test images from the Weinzmann site in which you do not
find repetitions of the same pattern, either at the same scale or at
multiple scales. Does the SR method really create a faithful or better
enlargement?

(Bias warning.)

If you look for self-similarity, you'll find it...where it's not.

Look at the skin of the baby. Do you see that the woolen hat was
woven into it?

And I really dislike what SR does to eye pupils.

Also: Some of the sharpness comes from applying something which in the
end is a lot like a variation diminishing limiter (Jensen like?). Do
you really want this waxy look?

Not that these things could not be fixed (it's most likely a matter of
setting thresholds).

This being said: Do my methods do better? Maybe not. But they are
local (SR requires an analysis of the whole image), fairly cheap, and
adapt to large enlargements or reductions robustly.

-

Again, in the same ballpark, it is my opinion that NNEDI3 (which I
have absolutely no connection with) is likely to disappoint less.
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Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-23 Thread Joao S. O. Bueno
On 23 August 2012 08:55, Nicolas Robidoux nicolas.robid...@gmail.com wrote:
 Before starting to program SR, I would also contact the authors and ask

 1) If they are, or know people who are, willing to help

 2) If there are patents that get in the way.

On the other hand - how is your work going? Are you making it avalilable as  a
GEGL OP as well?

regards,

  js
 --
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Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-23 Thread Nicolas Robidoux
 On the other hand - how is your work going? Are you making it avalilable as  a
 GEGL OP as well?

Yes, that's always been the plan. But everything else I do has been
taking a lot longer than expected...

At least, I think that I've come to the point where my methods are
just about as good as they can be. Exploration is winding down.
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Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-23 Thread Nicolas Robidoux
One last grumpy comment: Look at the right nostril of the baby. It's
pure fiction.
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Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-23 Thread Nicolas Robidoux
Sorry: Left nostril.
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Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-23 Thread Joao S. O. Bueno
On 23 August 2012 09:07, Nicolas Robidoux nicolas.robid...@gmail.com wrote:
 One last grumpy comment: Look at the right nostril of the baby. It's
 pure fiction.

Since we are to this - one of the thigns that had impressed me the
most is the border of the yellow helmets
of the workers - on one of the last pics.
I certainly would like to have the ability to get to such a result
within an app on my desktop, even if it depended on parameter tunning.

But - again -- I am looking forward for what you are doing there! :-)

(as for the check if there are software patents in the way --
unfortunately it is not 1995 anymore, where one or other lzw patent
could be avoided.

It is 2012 - and there are software patents even to blinking your eyes
and clean your b. -- it is just a matter
of whether the patent owners target you or not.

We are in a point where either all software patents will collapse into
a legal singularity,
or programming anything will be illegal.
)

  js
 --




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Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-22 Thread sam tygier
On 19/08/12 15:26, David Thurgood wrote:
 Dear Sir,
 I apologise, in advance, if this is the wrong e-mail address to use, but I 
 confess to finding the GIMP lists rather confusing.  Please forward this to 
 the most appropriate GIMP developer.
 
 The reason for writing: I have just seen this most interesting site that 
 shows the results of a new processing algorithm for picture enhancement.  The 
 results are impressive indeed!  So it occurs to me that your already 
 excellent GIMP programme may one day have an extra plugin.
 
 Link:  http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~vision/SingleImageSR.html


Some of those enhancements are incredible (in a literal sense of the word). 
specifically the final MC Escher(esq) towers.

If you look at the fences under the smaller arches, they have been interpolated 
from nothing. does the algorithm somehow spot the similar regions at other 
scales, and filled in the small arches with copies of the big arches? It has 
also been smart enough not to make sharp details out of the compression 
artefacts, for example around the top of the arch on the light side of that 
largest tower.

sam


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Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-22 Thread Jernej Simončič
On Thursday, August 23, 2012, 0:01:04, sam tygier wrote:

 Some of those enhancements are incredible (in a literal sense of
 the word). specifically the final MC Escher(esq) towers.

I found the eye chart the most incredible:
http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~vision/SingleImageSR.html#auto_img_eye_chart

Look at the bottom row.

-- 
 Jernej Simončič  http://eternallybored.org/ 

When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.
   -- Coolidge's Immutable Observation

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Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-22 Thread Simon Budig
sam tygier (samtyg...@yahoo.co.uk) wrote:
 If you look at the fences under the smaller arches, they have been
 interpolated from nothing. does the algorithm somehow spot the similar
 regions at other scales, and filled in the small arches with copies of
 the big arches?

Apparently so:

Our approach is based on the observation that patches in a natural
image tend to redundantly recur many times inside the image, both within
the same scale, as well as across different scales. Recurrence of
patches within the same image scale (at subpixel misalignments) gives
rise to the classical super-resolution, whereas recurrence of patches
across different scales of the same image gives rise to example-based
super-resolution. Our approach attempts to recover at each pixel its
best possible resolution increase based on its patch redundancy within
and across scales.

Really cool.

Bye,
Simon
-- 
  si...@budig.de  http://simon.budig.de/
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Re: [Gimp-developer] News of a new image enhancement algorithm ...

2012-08-22 Thread Nicolas Robidoux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-similarity

SR and Fattal are most effective when the image contains much of it,
and this is reflected in the choice of test images.
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