Ray Tracing 2

I'm still working on my ray tracer. For bad or for good, currently I'm very obsessed with my 3D libraries. I can't finish some other graphic effects because I don't stop studying and researching about advanced 3D math and algorithms.

Recently I implemented some nice improvements concerning material properties and configurations. Below I show you the same image as before, but rendered using different materials with finer settings.

Subscribe in a reader

Ray Tracing

Nowadays, my 3D libraries are very robust. Probably they are almost so mature as my 2D vector based libraries, although they are less than two years old. Some weeks ago, I thought it was already time to create my own ray tracer, a really powerful one.

Well, it is under development. It's already fully functional and has very professional quality. Now I have going through many challenges, because I don't want it the way it is.

I need something very beyond what I already got: I want the same quality, but at least 20 times faster. 3D rendering optimization is a very hard work if you need it in a very deep level. This subject is heavily researched by many people and it has been a very important area of Computer Graphics for at least 20 years. Unfortunately, my experience shows the best algorithms are never published for good.

Anyway, I need to overcome this challenge, or will not be able to publish graphic tools based on ray tracing. My software has NO dependencies, so it uses NO libraries or even hardware acceleration. It needs to be VERY fast in its own essence and I'm working on it.

A text with 20 letters made using a complex font can have several thousands of polygons. To get professional quality, even when rendering a small image, the software needs to test dozens of millions of ray-object intersections. If everything goes as I want, I will be able to render complex shapes like 3D text in a reasonable time, so I can release it at Picture to People site.

Below I show you an image rendered using all power of my ray tracer (there is no background plane).

Subscribe in a reader

Colorful Pencil Drawing - other example

I want to show another pencil drawing generated using the new Picture to People feature. This time I used a different style with ticker pencil strokes.

Contrary to what many people think, choosing the finest stroking styles or using as input photos as large as possible are not always the best options. It depends on the input picture properties and the result you are looking for.

Here you see a photo and its colorful pencil drawing rendered using the Photo Colorful Drawing tool. You can click the images to see them in full size.

Subscribe in a reader

The next generation of pencil drawing effects

As an evolution of the researches I made to develop the "Photo Sketch" feature, I developed a new amazing tool to turn pictures in colorful pencil drawings.

I have long experience as developer of artistic graphic effects and I think it is my best software to create complex realistic drawings from photos. It has many interesting properties:

- it's can be super realistic if you use it correctly;
- the strokes can be even more delicate and detailed;
- taking in account the renderer complexity, its processing time is short;
- it has no limitations concerning number of strokes.

Below I show what this new feature is able to make:

This new tool was already released. You can use it in Picture to People site, at the Photo Colorful Drawing section.

Subscribe in a reader

Fonts, vectors & headache

I'm developing new 3D text effects, so I need to handle font data and vector calculations. There are some kind of conventions about how font metadata must be, so I can generate my vector data more easily. What happens if people create fonts regardless those conventions? I can't get my vector based info quickly enough.

If you have some knowledge about vector based calculations, for sure you have already heard about "normal vectors". Possibly you have even made some calculations with them.

Well, they are really important for many 2D and mainly 3D graphic algorithms, so I deal with these kind of vectors daily. They are so important that usually we use some conventions to get them as easy and fast as possible. That's the point: they must be fast to calculate. Below you see an transparent wire-frame letter "a" in Arial font. The normal vectors of interest are drawn in gray too. I got all these normals easily because our good old Arial font was made correctly.


Unfortunately, there are many non-professional fonts that are not so good as the Arial one. This really bothers me, because I can not get the vector based data for these bad fonts as fast as I need to use in complex graphic effects. I have already added a lot of complexity to some of my algorithms just to be able to use these fonts.

If people followed techniques, conventions and standards when doing tech tasks (like fonts creation), software development would not be such a mess. :(

Subscribe in a reader

An easy image converter

Now you can convert your images among 50 of the most important file formats available in the market by using Picture to People Image Converter.

You can transform your favorite images into formats like BMP, DIB, GIF, JPG, PCX, PNG, TGA, TIF, etc. It's very simple and easy to use: just set the input file to upload, choose the output file format and convert an image with one click.

If an image conversion tool can be useful for you, consider using this very handy Image Converter.

Subscribe in a reader

Realistic rock texts - a new example

I would like to show you another example of stone text created with the last Picture to People tool. It uses state of art, complex procedural algorithms to generate the more realistic free stone/rock text effects ever.

Despite all complexity behind the scenes, the parameters you have to set are just the ones you could easily understand. It was never so easy to create realistic stone text effects.

Compared to the previous example, I changed the stone renderer, the guide font, the background color and the rock reference colors. The result is totally different (click to enlarge).


According to users testimonies, my new stone/rock renderer is one of the most useful and exciting tools I have ever made for Picture to People project. I'm very happy with the good feedbacks I have been receiving.

You can use this amazing tool at the Stone Text page.

Subscribe in a reader

Realistic stone text effects

I worked very very hard to create the most recently published Picture to People tool. It's a stone renderer able to create astonishing texts made of rock/stone.

Now you can get very easily the most realistic rock text effects. Since this feature is very configurable, the amount of possible results is countless. Among the several parameters, you can select the background color and even influence the stone colors.

You can set a stone rendering type by choosing from a list with several options. The text images generated have a good 3D look and there are a good amount of useful shadow parameters too.

Below I show the kind of stone text effect you can get using this new Picture to People tool (click to see in real size).

Create your own stone/rock texts by using the Stone Text section at Picture to People official website.

Subscribe in a reader

Another ice text example

Here you see one more example about what the new Picture to People ice text effects can do. There are some ice renderers, so it's possible to get several different ice or freezing styles. Below I show you a frozen text.

Anyway, I kept the best examples to present as tutorials at this blog about text effects. As the time goes, you will be able to see some realistic ice text effects there and also explanations about how to get them.


If you want to make some good ice text effects, just surf to this Text Generator Catalog and go to the "Ice Text Effects" section.

Subscribe in a reader

New ice text effects

Now Picture to People project has 6 new powerful ice text effect generators.

Some of them are better to be used with thin font faces and others generate more interesting images with thick fonts. Usually all ice effects give even nicer results with black (or at least dark) backgrounds.

By choosing wisely the font face to apply, you can get amazing realistic ice texts. You can create several ice styles, and below I show you a frozen text example (click the image for a full size viewing).

These new text effects can be used by starting from the Text Generator Catalog, at the "Ice Text Effects" section.

Subscribe in a reader