Hello Photo Mosaic lovers,
AndreaMosaic 3.32.10 betaA new Beta version of AndreaMosaic is ready. There are many new features and changes:
News:
* Initial Support for VideoMosaics (Windows only, no Mac/Linux).
* Support for PPM and Photoshop RAW file format.
* Professional version supports up to 100 Gigapixel mosaics.
* Improved memory usage.
* Russian and Ukrainian translation (Thank you Vasily Nadolsky).
Changes:
* Improved keywords and terms used in the User Interface.
* Working thread priority changed from Idle to Lowest, and configurable.
* Removed [x] Original Tile Variant option.
BugFixes:
* On small screen resolutions AndreaMosaic is resized properly.
* Minor issues.
VideoMosaic (Windows only)
A Photographic Mosaic is a mosaic made of still images. A
VideoMosaic is a mosaic made of video clips. With this version of AndreaMosaic it is possible to create also VideoMosaics, it is only a initial support to this kind of artwork. So, there are some performance issues and the configuration is done through a Text File instead of the User Interface. Another limitation is that the VideoMosaic will recreate a static image, in other words the final mosaic will look like a static image. An interesting aspect is that all features applied to the tiles (rotation, flipping, color change, irregular mosaics) can be applied also to the VideoTiles (i.e. Video Clips).
How to create a VideoMosaicFirst of all we need to build a high number of short Video Clips that shows a somewhat still image. Select a nice video/movie on your computer and then in AndreaMosaic press the button
Select Tiles -> Extract Tiles from Video. You will be asked to select a video (AVI file) and if successful you will see the Extract Tiles Window with a preview of your video. Deselect the [x] JPG option (unless you want to create also photomosaics) and enable the [x] AVI option. Then press the button to
Extract. Right now this process will take a very very long time (many hours) and it seems that AndreaMosaic is frozen. In the next version it will be much faster. I'm sorry for this issue. This step will create in the same Folder of your video a new Folder with many very short Video clips that have a static look, with few changes in the video clip. If you have issues opening the Video with AndreaMosaic then please read this
topic.
There are several options that control how the video clips are extracted. If you want to change them create a configuration file called
AndreaMosaicConfig.txt in the same folder of AndreaMosaic and insert the following text:
Code:
[Extract VideoMosaic]
; Minimum number of frames of the video clip. Default value 30 frames (about 1 second).
MinFrameCount=30
; Maximum number of frames of the video clip. Default value 400 frames (about 13-16 seconds).
MaxFrameCount=400
; Higher values will extract video clips with greater variety between the frames. Default value 1000. There are no specific limits, I may suggest values between 50 and 5000.
MaxDifference=1000
; Video clips with a low variety (lower than the MinDifference value) and with a length longer that MinDifferenceFrameCount will be considered as Static Clips and will not be extracted. Default value 150. There are no specific limits, I may suggest values between 1 and MaxDifference.
MinDifference=150
; Default value for MinDifferenceFrameCount is 50 (about 2-3 seconds). Use a value that is less or equal than MinFrameCount.
; If set to 0 then Static scenes are ignored at all.
MinDifferenceFrameCount=25
; If this value is 1 then the Static Video Clips will be extracted into a separate Folder.
ExtractStaticVideo=0
Another option is the codec to use for Compressing the videos. See the FourCC option in the section [VideoMosaic] later on. If you leave this parameter to zero "FourCC=0" then the Video Clips are exported uncompressed. This is the default value.
One important suggestion is to resize your video before proceding with the extraction. Make it much smaller. A VideoMosaic at High Definition (with 720p lines) and 250 tiles will have a Tile Size of about 60x40 pixels. With a HD 1080p mosaic each tile will be less than 100 pixels. So it is totally useless to extract VideoTiles from a High Definition Video at 720p. The required size of your VideoTile is less than 100x80 pixels in most cases. This suggestion is important for performance reasons, else it can take hours or days to create a VideoMosaic. Also I suggest to use always uncompressed video for better performance (FourCC=0)Once you have a good number of Video Clips you can go on with the creation of the VideoMosaic itself. The instructions and features are exactly like the creation of a standard photographic mosaic with the following differences:
In the
Mosaic Size parameter select one of the three suggested options:
Video SD 480p,
Video HD 720p or
Video HD 1080p. You can also specify the size in pixels like 500 pixels. Just remember to use very small values, especially for the first videos i recommend
Video SD 480p.
In the
Select Tiles Window instead of adding a Folder to the
Include Folder List you must add the Folder with your Video Clips in the
Video Folder List.
In the Tile Size parameter select a low value, VideoMosaics are very small compared to Photo Mosaics, so I suggest a value between 50 Tiles and 500 Tiles.
After you set the other common parameters of AndreaMosaic you can press the
Create Mosaic button. The resulting Mosaic will be a still Image (JPG File). This step is important because it is a preview on how your final VideoMosaic will look. If you like the result then you can finally proceed with the creation of the VideoMosaic: in
More Options select
File Format: Video Mosaic (uncompressed). Then press again
Create Mosaic.
There are some options that control how the video clips are extracted. If you want to change them Create a configuration file called
AndreaMosaicConfig.txt in the same folder of AndreaMosaic and insert the following text:
Code:
[VideoMosaic]
; Will set the Length of the final VideoMosaic in Frames. Usually each second contains between 25 and 30 Frames, so for a 10 second VideoMosaic you need like 300 Frames.
; Please use very low values for the initial Tests. You can use the Keyword Min and Max. Min/Max/Avg means the minimum/maximum/average length of all Video clips in the user Tiles.
; Examples: "Min*1", "Min*2", "Min*4", "Max*1", "Max*2", "Max*4", "Avg", 100, 30
; The default value is Max*2, this means that the videomosaic will have a length that is double than the length of the longest video clip used in the Mosaic.
FrameCountFromVideoTile=Max*2
; This is the Frame Rate of the final video. By default it will be the highest frame rate of your video clips. Default=Freq.
; Min/Max/Freq is the lowest/highest/most_frequent Frame rate in the video clips used for the mosaic.
; Examples: "Min", "Max", "Freq", "25", "29.97"
FrameRateFromVideoTile=Freq
; If no video clips will be used in your mosaic (or your Tile Library does not contain video clips) then the Video Mosaic will contain this number of frames. Default 10 frames.
FrameCountFromImage=10
; If no video clips will be used in your mosaic (or your Tile Library does not contain video clips) then the Video Mosaic will have this frame rate. Default 10 frames/second.
FrameRateFromImage=10
; Backwards Loop of the videotiles. If a VideoMosaic has a length of 110 frames then
; enabling the Backward/Reverse Loop means that the first 55 frames of the VideoMosaic play
; each VideoTile from frame 1 to 55. The last 55 frames of the VideoMosaic play
; each VideoTile from frame 55 to frame 1. So that the overall VideoMosaic can
; be played in an endless loop. If a length of a VideoTile is shorter, for
; example 30 Frames then the 110 Frames for the VideoMosaic are played in the following way:
; VideoMosaic Frame#: 1 ... 30 ... 31 ... 60 ... 61 ... 85 ... 86 ... 110
; VideoTile Frame# : 1 ... 30 ... 30 ... 1 ... 1 ... 25 ... 25 ... 1
; Options:
; All - all videotiles will played forward/backwards (default).
; Necessary - only VideoTiles shorter than the VideoMosaic will be played forward/backwards. The other VideoTiles will loop only forwards.
; None - all VideoTiles will be played only forwards.
BackwardsLoop=All
; The Codec used when compressing a Video Clip. It is used when creating the "VideoMosaic (Compressed)" or
; extracting VideoTiles from a Video. It is the case-sensitive FourCC Code (4 characters). Default value is 0 (uncompressed video).
; If you want to compress your video I may suggest the XVID codec: "FourCC=XVID".
FourCC=0
The final Video Mosaic will be of high quality (because uncompressed) but also a very big file. To make the file smaller you can use some free Video tools like VirtualDub or AVIDemux (here a small
tutorial) to compress the video with a wellknown codec like XVID. Another option is to use a compressor in
More Options -> File Format: VideoMosaic (Compressed). You can specify the codec with the above
FourCC option. But initially I prefer the uncompressed format for it's quality and because I can choose later how to compress it.
Support for PPM and Photoshop RAWIt is possible to Save your photographic mosaic in the file format PPM or RAW. These two formats are nearly equal, I suggest the PPM format because it contains also the width/height/pixel format of the mosaic. When you load a RAW format you need to specify the Width/Height of the Mosaic and the Pixel format which is
RGB interleaved.
The advantage of these two file formats is the possibility to have one file for very big mosaics, but beware that a 10 gigapixel mosaic will result in an 30 gigabyte file. Quite big. You can the open such a file in Photoshop, GIMP or Publish it freely on
GigaPan.
100 Gigapixel mosaicsNow with the Professional version it is possible to create mosaics of over 100 Gigapixels! I suggest to save such a (300 gigabyte) monster as a PPM file.
Thread PriorityThe default priority when creating the Mosaic was changed from Idle to Lowest. To change this behaviour create a configuration file called
AndreaMosaicConfig.txt in the same folder of AndreaMosaic and insert the following text:
Code:
[Options]
; Thread Priority
; Possible values are: idle, lowest, below_normal, normal, above_normal, higest
; Default value is lowest
Priority=lowest
Any feedback is very welcome
byee
Andrea
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