06 August 2008

Radiohead rules

Like many other people, I saw that Radiohead had created an interesting music video for House of Cards with all sorts of visualizations. From what I read, they had sampled visual data using Lidar. Substantial portions of the data used in constructing the video are available (as is the music) to the general public. The House of Cards group on YouTube showcases how a number of people have re-run the data through various visual engines.



As you may notice, most of the videos on YouTube use some form of 3D engine to visualize the data. The data is structured fairly simply in the CSV files with x, y, and z coordinates, as well as an intensity level for each point.



Problem: I'm not adept (at all) with anything 3D based. So, I decided to see if I could kludge my way into trying to create a visualization of my own using what I know. Er.. All I know is Java and Graphics2D.



For rendering data, I just used a simple linear scale to position the x and y points. Each point was merely a filled circle. I plotted all points in white. The intensity value on each point drove the alpha values on each point. Lastly, I used the z value to control the size of the point- closer z values got larger points. Here's what I got for starters:





Some tuning in point size, and changes in colors to prevent it from looking too scary:





Anyone know an easy way to sequence some 1000 images into a decent video? I can't seem to get iMovie to have a delay between images of less than .3s, and the actual frames need to be rendered out at 30 frames per second.



*Follow up:* Meant the attach a larger copy that shows the patterns generated by the circle size and alpha variations:



04 August 2008

Broader thinking

Steph decided to take a horizontal sequence of pictures on her camera when we were up in the Rocky Mountain National Park. The goal was to stitch the images into a panorama. The last time I did this, was back in 2001, gluing together the Manhattan skyline (World Trade Center buildings included). That was done mostly with gimp, if I recall right.



Meet Hugin- a gem of a tool that does all the hard work needed to assemble a panoramic blend of pictures. The image below, cobbled from some 7 shots took around 3 minutes. Just be sure to preserve your Exif information as you get your pictures together since Hugin can use them to drive a massive amount of automation.





Hugin is an open source application, and it leverages the libpano suite. The value it provides is really outstanding. Moreover, the community behind Hugin seems to be adding value in raw photographic know-how on their blog: panospace. Kudos to a great app, and the community that powers it.