Photocollage System

What is Photocollage?

• Photographic approach in combining multiple images to create a new whole

• Result is an expressive composition containing multiple views of the same subject matter that forces the viewer to re-adjust his/her viewpoint as each individual image is examined

Paris by David Hockney

Portrait of the Artist’s Mother by David Hockney

Woman with Cigarette by Joyce Neimanas

Motivation

• Traditional methods require considerable amount of time to manually fit photographs into place

• Certain images may not be what the artist wants (may require artist to re-photograph) Trial and error process can be

frustrating and time consuming

Project Overview

• Interactive, computer-assisted framework for creating a composite image in the style of a photocollage given one of more photographs

• Engage user interactively through a simple, user friendly graphical interface

• Provide specialized tools for creating photocollage, but flexible enough for multiple purposes

Related Work

Automatic Panoramic Automatic Panoramic Image MergingImage Merging

• Create panoramas from series of photographs

• Apply projective transformation to make seamless overlapping of images

• Non-interactive

Related Work

The STAMP CollageThe STAMP Collage

• Spatio-Temporal Association with Multiple Photographs

• Interactive exploration of 3-D space using photography

• Combines pictures of various scale through transformation of images

• Collage consists of key photo in center and the photos linked to it placed at the transformed positions

Related Work

The STAMP CollageThe STAMP Collage

• Create STAMP collage using the STAMP editing tool allowing users to pick out photos and create links between common areas

• Usability tests conducted on fine art and engineering students

Related Work

The STAMP CollageThe STAMP Collage

Related Work

Adobe PhotoshopAdobe Photoshop

• Standard image-editing Standard image-editing application that can be application that can be used to create used to create photocollagesphotocollages

• Tools for manipulating Tools for manipulating images like rectangular images like rectangular marquee and marquee and transforming, but transforming, but doesn’t provide doesn’t provide immediate results immediate results (requires a lot of (requires a lot of intermediate stages)intermediate stages)

• Time consuming & Time consuming & burdensomeburdensome

Related Work

Adobe PhotoshopAdobe Photoshop

EvaluationEvaluation• Lack in visual cues Lack in visual cues

needed for collagesneeded for collages• Changing stacking order Changing stacking order

of layers is bothersome of layers is bothersome (drag layer in Layers (drag layer in Layers Palette or go into series Palette or go into series of menus)of menus)

• Transforming images Transforming images require going into menu require going into menu options to select options to select commandcommand

• Scaling images require Scaling images require holding down <Shift> to holding down <Shift> to prevent distortionprevent distortion

• Can make layer contents Can make layer contents invisible without moving invisible without moving or deleting themor deleting them

• Can link layer sets to Can link layer sets to move layer contents move layer contents together simultaneouslytogether simultaneously

User Tasks: Overview

• Load image(s) into application workspace

• Browse through collection of images• Automatic generation of

photocollage• User-driven creation of compositions• Specify shape of final composition

Photocollage Framework

• Process begins with loading a set of source images in one window (scrapbox)

• In main workspace user can view the composition in the making and interact with the current result

Photocollage Framework

Automatic Photocollage

• User loads a few images of same scene taken from several views

• Selecting an option to automatically generate a collage• Computer will cut up the images and construct a new whole

by combining parts of each image while maintaining their relative positions in the picture, and applying random transformations to the pieces

• User can specify final composition shape- application will then only collect images for construction within the boundaries

Photocollage Framework

Interactive Photocollage

• User loads images to be used in the collection window

• Select areas of a picture to be used in the composition => goes to the workspace

• Tools: scissors, glue, scale, rotate, stack order• Can also create photomontages with series of

pictures by organizing all the pictures in a haphazard way

User Interface Design

• Simple interface keeping user navigation through interface minimal

• Main section is the workspace for putting pieces together

• Scrapbox sits next to the workspace containing unused pieces

• Pieces can be dragged onto the workspace from the scrapbox and vice versa

• Tools as buttons located below workspace• Tabbed panes to separate browsing of image

collection from the workspace and scrapbox

Implementation

• Programming language: Java• Advantages: libraries for building graphical user

interfaces and for image processing, platform independent, can turn into a web applet

• Abstract Window Toolkit (AWT) and Java Foundation Classes (JFC) Project Swing APIs: support building GUI and graphics functionality as well as adding interactivity to applications

• Java Advanced Imaging (JAI) API: object-oriented interface, simple high-level programming model for easily manipulating images

Prototype

• Create GUI application with menus• Load series of images of a scene

taken from different angles at a constant distance from each other within a 180 degree viewing range

• Split up images into grids and randomly choose squares from one image to interchange with another

Usability Study

• Methodology: Gather numerous amount of participants to carry out various tasks using the proposed system

• Tasks: comparison between creating a photocollage using Photoshop and proposed system,

• Analysis: ease of use, user comprehension of system, amount of time to carry out tasks