The secret of great photography? Use someone else's...

BBC News reports:

Digital photographers could soon be able to erase unwanted elements in photos by using tools that scan for similar images in online libraries.
Research teams have developed an algorithm that uses sites like Flickr to help discover light sources, camera position and composition in a photo.

Using this data the tools then search for objects, such as landscapes or cars, that match the original.

The teams aim to create image libraries that anyone can use to edit snaps.

James Hays and Alexei Efros from Carnegie Mellon University have developed an algorithm to help people who want to remove bits of photographs.

The parts being removed could be unsightly lorries in the snaps of the rural idyll where they took a holiday or even an old boyfriend or girlfriend they want to rub out from a photograph.

(In the example above, the house in the first photo has been isolated and replaced with boats and the rest of the lake found in someone else's photo of the same scene, taken at a different spot)

To find suitable matching elements, the research duo's algorithm looks through a database of 2.3 million images culled from Flickr.

'We search for other scenes that share as closely as possible the same semantic scene data,' said Mr Hays, who has been showing off the project at the computer graphics conference Siggraph, in San Diego.

In this sense 'semantic' means composition. So a snap of a lake in the foreground, hills in a band in the middle and sunset above has, as far as the algorithm is concerned, very different 'semantics' to one of a city with a river running through it.

The broad-based analysis cuts out more than 99.9% of the images in the database, said Mr Hays. The algorithm then picks the closest 200 for further analysis.

Next the algorithm searches the 200 to see if they have elements, such as hillsides or even buildings, the right size and colours for the hole to be filled.

The useful parts of the 20 best scenes are then cropped, added to the image being edited so the best fit can be chosen.

Early tests of the algorithm show that only 30% of the images altered with it could be spotted, said Mr Hays.

The other approach aims to use net-based image libraries to create a clip-art of objects that, once inserted into a photograph, look convincing.


'We want to generate objects of high realism while keeping the ease of use of a clip art library,' said Jean-Francois Lalonde of Carnegie Mellon University who led the research.

To generate its clip art for photographs the team has drawn on the net's Label Me library of images which has many objects, such as people, trees and cars, cut out and tagged by its users.

The challenge, said Mr Lalonde, was working out which images in the Label Me database will be useful and convincing when inserted into photographs.

The algorithm developed by Mr Lalonde and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon and Microsoft Research analyses scenes to find out the orientation of objects and the sources of light in a scene.

'We use the height of the people in the image to estimate the height of the camera used to take the picture,' he said.

The light sources in a scene are worked out by looking at the distribution of colour shades within three broad regions, ground, vertical planes and sky, in the image.

With knowledge about the position, pitch and height of the camera and light sources the algorithm then looks for images in the clip art database that were taken from similar positions and with similar pixel heights.

The group has created an interface for the database of photo clipart so people can pick which elements they want to add to a scene."

My feet hurt

I just got back from an 8 mile walk round Dundee using part of the 'Green Circular' route. (Click the image above for a bigger view. The numbers are mileposts - I walked clockwise from my home, down to the Tay, past the airport, up to Invergowrie, then north to Camperdown Park, up to Camperdown House, then south back home. A mix of country path, suburban cycle dirt track, pavement and concrete).

I planned it using a site called 'Map My Walk' which if you do a lot of walking might be worth a visit. There's also 'Map My Run' and 'Map My Ride' for cyclists. It's a nice mashup using Google Maps - I visited it last year when it was in beta and it's come on a long way. Well worth a look.

You can convert your route in to a Goggle Earth file so you can see your seemingly long walk on a global scale. If you're planning a round the world trip this could be just your thing. Here's my walk as a Google Earth file...

Proof that design is important

Dundee University in the news again. And this time it backs up what I was saying about how design at university should be so much more than just producing Mac monkeys, even at undergraduate level.

(I saw some of these images earlier this year and they're a bit 'odd' (I can't think of the word I want - 'odd' isn't right) - they make serious illnesses look almost beautiful...)

(Click here to watch a video)

"Doctors are turning to graphic artists to help patients better understand their illness and course of treatment.

The artists turn medical images from 3D anatomical scans into less formidable forms, suitable for patients.

Trials of the system have shown it can aid understanding and deepen dialogue between patients and their care givers.

The system is also being used as part of a project to raise awareness among diabetics of some of the most serious side-effects of their condition.

'Doctors talk shop, which can be difficult for patients to penetrate,' said John McGhee, a PhD student and 3D computer artist from the University of Dundee, who helped to direct the visualisation project.

The tools and methods used to pass on information about illnesses and cures were as various as the doctors themselves, Mr McGhee said.

'None are that great,' he said.

But, by producing simplified images from detailed MRI scans, for example, patients can get a far better grasp of what is happening inside them, how it came about, and what is being done about it, he said.



(image of cancer cells)

The effect of the images has been used in a study of 18 patients suffering from arteriosclerosis, an illness that causes hardening of the arteries which can, over time, lead to heart attacks and stroke.

Initially, Mr McGhee said, the trial was all about whether the patients - average age 71 - could understand what the images depicted.

But, he said, it proved its effectiveness in other ways too.

'It was about imparting information but more importantly about getting a dialogue going on to help to get the patient discussing what is going on,' he said.

Exposure to the images also helped in subsequent discussions, said Mr McGhee.

'When they talk to health professionals and go armed with better questions and knowledge of their anatomy,' he said.

In a related project, computer graphics derived from medical images are being used in a bid to prompt diabetics to keep an eye on their health.

Run by PhD student Emma Fyfe, also from the University of Dundee, the project has produced a five minute film that explores the effect diabetes has on the retina.

In some cases diabetes can cause abnormalities in the blood vessels serving the retina and make sight deteriorate.

It was important for diabetics to have regular scans to catch the side effects of diabetes at the earliest opportunity, she said.

'If they catch it early they can stop it,' said Ms Fyfe. 'But they cannot go backwards; they cannot cure it.'

The film has been shown to the Scottish Diabetes Group and there are plans to show it to other groups around the UK.

The research was shown off at the Siggraph computer graphics convention being held in San Diego, US from 5-9 August."

Dundee 'most cost-effective place to study in Scotland'

The BBC is reporting that according to the Royal Bank of Scotland

"Dundee is the most cost-effective place in Scotland to study, according to a survey of students' spending habits.

The city came top in a value-for-money comparison, ahead of Glasgow, St Andrews, Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

The research from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) found Dundee had lower living costs and higher wages for part-time jobs.

The report said students in Dundee could be more than £1,100 a year better off than those in the Scottish capital.

The survey found that the average Dundee student would spend £134 on rent and bills, and earn £113 in one week."

So now I know what to say about any complaints from students when we ask them to buy the occasional book...

Dandy comic ditched

When I moved up to Dundee, one of the things that gave me a thrill was the fact it was home to The Beano and The Dandy amongst others, and I often walk past the printing works and take in the smell of the presses...

But according to the BBC:

"The world's longest running comic, The Dandy, has ceased to exist in its traditional format.
The weekly title has been changed to a fortnightly magazine called Dandy Xtreme.

Dundee-based publisher DC Thomson confirmed the comic had been given a major facelift in its 70th anniversary year.

It said favourite characters such as Desperate Dan would still feature in the central pull-out, Dandy Comix.

DC Thomson said the format of the publication had been updated because of feedback from readers.

Dandy editor Craig Graham said: 'Following extensive research, we discovered The Dandy readers were struggling to schedule a weekly comic into their hectic lives. They just didn't have enough time.

'They're too busy gaming, surfing the net or watching TV, movies and DVDs.'"

It's a sad day indeed.



Especially as they seem to have spelt 'Comics' as 'Comix'...

Video here

Infrastructure is patriotic

The Minneapolis bridge collapse, like the failure of the New Orleans levees and, over the past few weeks, the flooding of large parts of the UK suggest that there are some things governments never learn: infrastructure is everything. (Famine in India, for example, is the result of a lack of decent storage and transport. They grow the food okay, but can't get it anywhere before it goes off. The answer isn't to drop our unwanted grain on them, it's to help them build infrastructure).

Actually, I think they do learn it. The real problem is that spending money on roads, rail, flood defences and so on is unpopular because it means raising money through taxes (or, particularly in the case of the US, not spending it on foreign wars but since that is really being funded by whichever countries are financing the US overdraft, it's a moot point).

Today in Britian the Liberal Democrats announced policies to add a £10 tax to flights and to tax road freight, raising (they say) billions of pounds to plough back in to rail. Nice policy, but the Lib Dems are good at coming up with nice policies because they know they'll never form a government. They often come up with 'common sense' ideas that no government would ever act upon because one thing you can say about the electorate is they don't like paying taxes while simultaneously demanding better services.

So in all the speculation about its causes will the bridge collapse be blamed on the Governor? Possibly. On the contractors? Perhaps. On the electorate for resisting higher taxes? On drivers for refusing duty on fuel to pay for road repairs? I wouldn't have thought so.

From BLDGBLOG: Infrastructure is patriotic:

"The Federal Highway Administration's annual budget appears to be hovering around $35-40 billion a year – and ... annual government subsidies for Amtrak come in at slightly more than $1 billion. That's $1 billion every year to help commuter train lines run.

To use but one financial reference point, the U.S. government is spending $12 billion per month in Iraq – billions and billions of dollars of which have literally been lost.

Infrastructure is patriotic.

There is no reason to question the political loyalties of those who would advocate spending taxpayer dollars on national infrastructure – from highway bridges and railway lines to steam pipes, levees, electrical lines, and subway tunnels – instead of on military adventures abroad.

Four months of foreign war would be enough to double the annual budget for the Federal Highway Administration – if that's what one would choose to spend the money on – taking care of quite a few of those 81,000+ bridges which are still open to traffic and yet 'functionally obsolete.'

Perhaps the best way to be 'pro-American' these days is to lobby for modern, safe, and trustworthy infrastructure – and the economic efficiencies to which that domestic investment would lead.

At the risk of promoting a kind of isolationist infrastructural nationalism, I'd say that urban design and engineering is a sadly under-appreciated – yet incredibly exciting – way to serve your country."

And from the comments:

The solution for another bridge, whose concrete is literally falling down as people drive underneath (there's a major highway underneath), was to put a structure underneath that catches the falling debris. Never mind the fact that the bridge might actually collapse. Maybe they hope the structure will also catch the bridge?

(Via Design Observer.)

Is design important?

From BBC news:

"A schizophrenia drug developed at Dundee University is to be tested as a new cancer treatment.
Ground-breaking research has revealed Rimcazole can also be used to fight cancer.

Scientists have discovered it restricts the growth of tumours and kills cancer cells, but has little toxic effect on healthy tissue.

Clinical trials will get under way later this year, with conclusive results expected within two years."

About a year ago, I moved in to my new flat and a man came round to install my telephone line (the previous occupant having, for some reason, carved through the old one with a bread knife).

We got chatting, as you do, and he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I teach at the university. He seemed impressed: "you'll be one of those people curing cancer then?"

"Er, not quite. I teach design history".

End of conversation (though he did later start telling me stories about Prince William's nights out in Dundee when he was studying down the road at St. Andrew's).

I can see the centre mentioned in that news report, where they work on cancer cures, from my office window, and occasionally I go to the little 'restaurant' they have there. It's full of people who look like the ones you used to go to school with who were good at science and liked wearing lab coats and big goggles. It's odd comparing it to the 'Cantina', the design school's refectory which, despite being open to all is monopolised by art and design students and staff who all seem keen to stand out from the crowd and manage, somehow, to look like one homogenous group.

But there's a quiet air of determination in the life sciences restaurant, as though everyone knows they're working on something important, and having lunch is an inconvenient truth their education manages to nag them with in a way their stomach can't. I walked past that building on Christmas Day and again on New Year's Eve and the lights were on, cars were parked, and people were at work. I suppose petri dishes don't do vacations.

So when I look out of my office window (something I save for the afternoon so I'm always sure I'll have something to do...) I can't help remembering that conversation with the telephone guy and my sense of guilt that I don't work on something as important as my colleagues in the white coats, many of whom probably get paid far less than me.

But should I feel guilty?

I think this is one of the things that should define design study at university. It shouldn't be about simply learning and repeating the skills needed to get a job, but about trying to understand how design works and how it can improve people's lives.
A presentation I went to earlier this year by researchers looking at the nearby Frank Gehry-designed cancer care centre, Maggie's Centre Dundee showed a real link between the design of buildings and the rate of improvement in patient health, irrespective of the drugs they were on, and other studies looking at the working space for nurses showed design to be an undervalued contributor to healthcare - a hospital is more than a set of rooms with beds and a few chairs and filing cabinets. Yet any hospital that spends money on good funiture and art for the walls will be accused of wasting money - why aren't we getting that message across more? Why do academics like talking to themselves so much but so rarely tell their stories to others?

If you look at many of the top concerns for people in the UK (and elsewhere) such as crime, terrorism, the economy, the environment and so on, there is a clear (and sometimes not so clear) role that design can play in each of these.
And it's the university's role to explore these - not just at the postgrad research level and beyond but at the undergraduate level as well.

Design is important. It will never win a PR war against cures for cancer (which, incidentally, are also 'designed', even if by accident as in the story above) and perhaps we should stop with the gnashing of teeth about this. But I can't help feeling that a philosophy for university-based design has to stop obsessing with churning out employees for a shockingly visionless and often amoral industry and start seeing its contribution in terms of changing society for the better.

'Modern' Arabic typefaces

A couple of years ago a Korean student of mine explained to me how the Korean writing system worked - it was very ordered and logical and made a lot of sense. I noticed she had a few tourist leaflets with her for Brighton and London, in Korean, and that the typefaces were quite different on each. It hadn't really occurred to me before that you could have serif, sans serif, modern and antique Korean typefaces before (because I'd never really thought about it) and I began to realise that I'd only ever seen 'foreign' type on documents intended for western audiences -hence Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic always looked 'traditional' (the way 'ye olde' English is always rendered in illegible Germanic type, I suppose.)

Anyway, the world of non-western typography is a rich one worth looking in to. Gill Sans for Chinese? Helvetica for Urdu?

The image above is from an interesting project, the Khatt Network for Arabic Typography:

The Typographic Matchmaking project was initiated by the Khatt Foundation (Amsterdam), in April 2005. The Khatt Foundation selected and invited five renown Dutch designers and matched each one of them with an established and upcoming Arab designer.

The aim was to facilitate a collaboration bewteen the Dutch and Arab designers in order to design Arabic typefaces that match and can become part of the font family of one of the Dutch designers’ existing font families. The main thrust of the project is to address the modernisation of Arabic text faces that can provide design solutions for legible Arabic fonts that answer the contemporary design needs in the Arab world (namely for publications and new digital media applications).

This project raises some interesting issues, in particular the one of how the symbolism of an 'exotic' or 'alien' language rendered in an 'exotic' or 'alien' way contributes to the alienation of the community that uses it. (The matter of 'modernisation' might also be another issue for some.)

Could rendering Arabic in western typefaces really be such a simple way of breaking down cultural barriers? It's an interesting idea.