What is Picture to People ?

"Picture to People" (P2P) is a huge Computer Graphics project. It was started to create new softwares able to make 2D drawing, 3D rendering, vexel drawing, text effects, photo effects, image filtering and other complex Computer Graphics operations. It has been made from scratch, including its low level Computer Graphics libraries like Maccala. Nowadays, most final features produced for this project are released as free online tools available from its official website. This blog talks about Computer Graphics, mainly concerning Picture to People development.

"Only who makes has true knowledge. Knowledge is control. True power depends on total control. Only who makes from scratch has the real power."

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Sketch effect

Some people have been asking me about an effect for transforming photos in sketches.

They told me there are several tutorials in the Internet about that: you combine some traditional filters to get something like a pencil sketch, but the results are poor. This bad quality is not by losing information, but because the result does NOT really look like a sketch made by human hands.

I checked it out around the Internet and could see they have some reason.

This way, I decided it's worthy to prepare a final effect to transform photos in sketches.

More about that in some days.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Cartoonization - a better example


After so hard work, I'm happy with the results of cartoonization effect.

I put a cartoon of myself in my profile to celebrate.

While I keep working hard trying to make this effect less expensive in time, I let here an image that shows a more expressive example about transformation of a photo in a cartoon style drawing.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Transforming photos in cartoons




After very hard days (including this last weekend), I finally created and implemented the math models concerning my new 1-click final effect.

Now I can transform photos in "cartoon style" drawings.

Next two hard tasks about that:
1) optimize model and algorithms: it takes about 15 minutes to cartoonize a 1000 x 1000 picture;
2) give this effect some interesting configuration freedom.

Anyway, I believe the hardest part I have already made.

The pictures show a photo and a its cartoon drawing.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Artistc effects for text 8



I have made one more effect for text. This kind of task is fun, but now I'm dividing my time with the cartoonization sub-project.

My free time has not been enough for so many tasks, so the only solution is to sleep less. Well, I'm already used to that. Very nice CG development tasks usually are very hard.

The picture above shows a text made of fire. For sure it's one of the most useful and appreciated kinds of rendered text.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Automatic Cartoonization?

Beside the development of new "nature like" effects for text, I'm working hard to create a new effect to final user.

I'm calling that "cartoonization". Yes, exactly like this. The idea is to transform arbitrary photos in "cartoon style" drawings, but keeping as most as possible the original information.

It's in the very beginning and I don't know if I will be able to make a math model for that. What I already know is: it's a really hard task that needs a very complex model made of several smaller ones, since I will deal with a lot of math properties of input photos.

I'm working so hard in P2P project that I'm not having time to post frequently.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Artistic effects for text 7

Make your own wall text right now. You can get the most impressive text effects using Picture to People text effect generator. No design skills needed.



Here I show another effect involving bricks and wall.


You just choose the font you want, so it's a one click tool.


I'm still developing several "nature style" effects like that.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Computer Graphics libraries

People have been asking me a lot about Computer Graphics researches and libraries.

Well, all I use is made by me. If I have just one or several libraries is a philosophical discussion for me. My software architecture lets me distribute only low level parts if I would like, but it doesn't matter. It's all part of the same project and goal: a professional software with absolutely no dependencies.

Despite this huge project has been made by just one person, there is another very big difference. Second what I know, I have the only, non commercial, made from scratch library big and strong enough to make all the hundreds of different low level tasks by itself and also the complex filters/effects constructed over.

The free CG software world is like this: usually you can see some few low level libraries for very specific tasks or offering only raw tools. When you find a software for more complex operations, it is always based on one or more lower level libraries. In other words: in fact a lot of thing is out of control.

I make everything at all. For now it can look irrelevant concerning the final result, but it isn't. Life cycle of open source libraries is very unpredictable. As the time goes, the total control I have over everything will make me more and more powerful to deliver new results.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Artistc effects for text 6

Make your own stone text right now. You can get the most impressive text effects using Picture to People text effect generator. No design skills needed.



I'm still making effects to render text in "nature like" way.


This image shows text made using stones.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Artistic effects for text 5

Make your own wood text right now. You can get the most impressive text effects using Picture to People text effect generator. No design skills needed.



I'm working hard to make more text "nature like" effects. I still want to create several different options.

After I feel it's enough, I will go back to structural development. I have a very very hard work to do: try to finish my own anti-aliasing rendering engine, including all math models behind that. Probably it will take months yet.

The picture shows a effect for create text made of wood.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Artistc effects for photography 4



People have been asking me about good effects to apply to pets' pictures. I don't know exactly why, but bloggers and geeks usually have pets.

Several people have sent me emails saying something like: "I would love to have a nice drawing of my pet. Do you have some stuff for that?"

Well, one of the effects I created for drawing give a very clean result. I believe it can be good for human faces, landscapes, or even to pets' closes.

Above you see an example of it used to make a drawing of a cat. I you want something like that, you can email me.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Get a link by dropping your entrecard

I decided to give a gift to my top entrecard droppers.

Now the top 5 droppers have a link bellow my entrecard. It's calculated according to last 30 days.

Even if you start to drop here today, after some weeks you can be at the top and win a permanent link. By "permanent" I mean this list is not a "last droppers" one.

If you reach the list, probably you will stay there at least one day. If you keep dropping, probably you will hold your site in the list.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Artistc effects for photography 3





I have made several effects trying to transform photos in "painted by hand" like images.

Some of them are more realistic, others are more impressionist or unreal.

I show you above a landscape and two pictures made from it. First you see a more intrusive effect and bellow a more realistic one. The models are very different.

The quality of result depends on the math properties of the image, so, according to the image, it could be better to apply some paint effects instead others.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Artistic effects for photography 2


As I told before, nowadays everything can be made in Computer Graphics, but regarding three questions: who? how long? how much?

It's worthy to make things easier for non professional designers. This way, they can achieve good, fast and free (or at least cheap) results.

Despite I don't have a ready software to distribute, nowadays people have been asking me for working on demand. Sometimes people look for some image or effect they don't know how to do by themselves or they would take a lot of time to get. It's fun, cause if I don't have a ready to use effect, I can create and develop it.

Recently, a non professional designer have asked me about a photo effect for "black & white newspaper press" like result. So, I made it.

He sent me by email the pictures he would like to transform. I processed them and gave back to him. As payment, I got just a nice review in his site.

It was really fun. It's very good when people can help each other without involving cash.

The picture above shows an example of the effect I'm talking about. Click inside the image to enlarge and see how it really is.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Artistic effects for text 4

Make your own brick text right now. You can get the most impressive text effects using Picture to People text effect generator. No design skills needed.



Now I show a text made in a kind of brick wall.

I will make a special page to show better most of all "nature like" text effects I already created. Some of them are more artistic and some are more realistic, but I believe all of them can be useful in a composition.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Artistic effects for text 3

Make your own ice text right now. You can get the most impressive text effects using Picture to People text effect generator. No design skills needed.



One more "one click" artistic effect for text. You need just to choose the font you want.

This effect intend to represent text made of ice.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Artistic effects for text 2

Make your own flower text right now. You can get the most impressive text effects using Picture to People text effect generator. No design skills needed.



Next posts will always be about my "nature like" text effects.

After you choose the font you wanna use like reference, just one more click and you get the final result.

Picture shows my effect to create text made of flowers.