Tuesday 30 November 2021

November 30, 2021

The Tuesday Night drawing group of Santa Fe drew together online using Zoom, because of the Covid 19 quarantine. The model was from the Washington DC area.  I drew from El Paso.



Ambos Lados leaving Casa Ortiz in Socorro, Texas,
just below El Paso



Twelve framed 8 x 8 inch prints
fit in a bucket
for hit-and-run pop-up exhibitions


El Paso artists



Quelab at the Twinkle Parade in Albuquerque
December 4, 2021






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November 23, 2021

The Tuesday Night drawing group of Santa Fe drew together online using Zoom, because of the Covid 19 quarantine. 

Nvidia Demo -- Gaugan2
Various outputs with Nvidia Gaugan2 --
featuring the new text-to-image input


Nvidia Gaugan2 YouTube video.  Now if I could only paste one of my figures into their AI landscape and make it look believable, by using AI to manipulate light -- AI re-lighting to match with any background.


  • DREAM -- another online text-to-image program




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Saturday 20 November 2021

Hologram Testing

Adric at Quelab received a HOLOGRAM display (Portrait) from the LOOKING GLASS FACTORY.  I massaged some of my creations into formats that could be displayed as holograms in three ways.  My hologram files are available in a shared folder.


Hologram Testing


DEPTH MAP
Format


The first files in the video are created adding a the "Depth Map" to the JPG image. The depth map has to be adjacent to the original image, before uploading to the hologram display.

Looking Glass Factory has an online program (paid) that creates images with depth maps, and Adric used that (apparently Owl3D) to create the first hologram of one of my drawings:

November 2, 2021
Petalica Paint
Looking Glass Factory Conversion (Owl3d)
My pencil drawing altered by AI
coupled with a "depth map"  --
to be uploaded to the "Portrait" hologram display


I used the Artificial Intelligence programs VQGAN+CLIP and Deep Dream Generator to first warp one of my drawings into something completely different. 
  • Then I created a Depth Map using the free online program DPT Large.
  • I stitched the Depth Map next to the original image using XnView (Create>Strip of images...)
  • Note that it seems to make no difference if the Depth Map image is on the right or left
  • The Depth Map image always has to be on the right

October 26, 2021
VQGAN+CLIP
Deep Dream Generator
DPT Large
XnView
The Depth Map image always has to be on the right
The hologram works
with the Depth Map on the right or the left 
of the original image


Download the top image pair -- 211026_C_with_depth_map.jpg (903.42 KB, 2048 x 1024 pixels) -- for viewing on the hologram display

This hack seemed to work as well as the paid method.


QUILT 
Format

One can also create a "Quilt" JPG or PNG image file, made of a sequence of images, to then view as a hologram, as seen below.  
  • On May 4th I created a 3D figure drawing in Paint 3D (200504_A.glb in the zip download -- 2.63 MB)
  • I saved an MP4 video in Paint 3D of that object spinning in 360° (Menu>Save As>Video>Animation/Turntable)
  • I imported that MP4 into EzGIF to convert it into a SPRITE file (explanation at the bottom of this blog post)
  • UPDATE:  This probably looked fuzzy because the figure rotated too fast, and thus the hologram display was delivering simultaneous images that were more extremely different than normal stereo vision

May 4, 2021
Paint 3D
EzGIF
5 x 5 Quilt 
was very blurry and choppy when viewed as a hologram


NOTE: The blurriness comes from overlapping the images, when the columns and rows are different from what is expected, as demonstrated in this video.  The display is probably trying to show 5 x 5 in an 8 x 6 format.



LOOKING GLASS FACTORY recommends the following QUILT image for the PORTRAIT display:

  So I improved on the above image:

May 4, 2021
Paint 3D
EzGIF
XnView


But I had to FLIP the image horizontally in order to put the SPRITE/QUILT in the proper sequence:

Download the larger file for hologram viewing:
210504A_qs8x6a0.75.png 
(4.88 MB, 3360 x 3360 pixels)
8 x 6
3360 x 3360 pixels
4:3 ratio


UPDATE:  This image was not smooth either, but it was the most interesting of all the holograms on this page.  It also "looked" different from a distance than it did up close.


LOOKING GLASS FACTORY also asks for a specific naming convention:

Specific naming convention
for the QUILT images


We also uploaded a fake Dalí 3D file, in a less than idea format (only 5 x 5), and it did not look smooth -- it looked horrible.  It looked more like a lenticular image.  However it did technically work on the hologram display.  There may still be hope:


November 9, 2021
VQGAN+CLIP
Paint 3D
EzGIF
This looked more lenticular
than hologram



BLENDER ADD ON

I used the BLENDER add on -- AliceLG-Beta.  I exported a QUILT for the Portrait display of my figure 210223__02_decimated.glb (second in this zip file).  

Download the larger file for hologram viewing:
21022302decimatedgreen_qs8x6a0.75.png
3360 x 3360 pixels
1.41 MB


Test animation file


SPRITE
Conversion using EzGIF

After creating the 3D image in Paint 3D (free program on Windows 10), I exported an MP4 "Turntable" video.  Note that I choose the following settings:
  • Turntable
  • 30 Frame rate
  • Speed multiplier: 1.00
  • Number of loops:  1

Paint 3D
3D file 
exported as an MP4 video
in Paint 3D


I imported the MP4 file into EzGIF online and cropped the video.  Note that I used a 4:3 format, by inserting Height 800 and Width 600:

Cropping to 800H x 600W
in EzGIF


Then I converted the cropped video into a GIF:



Then I converted the GIF file into a SPRITE:



I choose 8 Columns, as the Portrait display prefers 8 columns x 5 rows:



The resulting SPRITE image
is 8 columns x 5 rows,
with two leftover frames


After downloading the SPRITE file, I cropped out the two leftover frames, and resized the whole image to 3360 x 3360 pixels.  I also increased the contrast:

The cropped and contrast adjusted SPRITE



HOWEVER the SPRITES I made with EzGif are ordered differently than the QUILTS that the hologram display accepts.  The QUILTS are a mirror image of the SPRITES:

Therefore I flipped the SPRITE image horizontally to convert it into a proper hologram QUILT:

Download the QUILT to view as a hologram:
210504A_qs8x6a0.75.png
(4.88 MB, 3360 x 3360 pixels)


ISSUES

There might be an issue with flipping the SPRITE to make a QUILT.  If there is any text in the image, it will show backwards.

Another issue with the above QUILT is that the main image -- that viewed from looking straight onto the hologram screen -- would be a side view, not a full head-on view.  This could be resolved by starting the spin in Paint 3D as a side view, before saving as a "Turntable."



THOUGHTS


I think we were technically successful at creating proper images to be viewed on the hologram display.  However artistically the first experiences are not smooth and need a lot of extra work.

There are other ways to make a hologram image for the LOOKING GLASS FACTORY displays:


And other ways to experience holograms without the LOOKING GLASS FACTORY display:

Perhaps we get get Artificial Intelligence to create 3D holograms, that we could also view in VR and AR, and print on a 3D printer.  It would be even better if that were based on one of my drawings.



UPDATE
 Dec 8, 2021

SUCCESSFUL HOLOGRAMS:

I refined two versions of the QUILTS of the blue 3D figure, and Adric imported them to the hologram display.  I first made a big SPRITE, and then cropped two sections from it to get smaller QUILTs -- to get a couple of series of images that do not change as much as the previous ones.  When viewed as a hologram, they don't look so fuzzy.  The figure looked good and in 3D.

Then we took screen captures of the two different hologram images (Ctrl/Alt/PrtSc).  These screen captures can be imported directly into the hologram display -- and are seen as a hologram, exactly the same experience as when importing the QUILT.

Below are smaller versions of these screen captures, with links below to both the QUILT and the higher resolution screen captures for downloading:

Quilt:  210504-Aa_qs8x6a0.75.jpg (4.72 MB)
Larger version:  210504-Aa.png (3.46 MB)
210504-Aa_qs8x6a0.75.jpg


Quilt:  210504-Ab_qs8x6a0.75.jpg (4.94 MB)
Larger version:  210504-Ab.png (3.16 MB)



Also when we connected the hologram display, my laptop recognized it as an extended monitor.  This way we were able to create a hologram directly on the display using Blender.  We had to first import the Add-on to Blender, and from there import additional Python scripts.  Here is a Blender/Looking Glass video.


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