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GL Tools requests Hi, I was thinking that it would be nice to have a closed spline tool, where we can determine the number of points and the possibility to be "fillable" with and image. It can be a great tool to make "dirty masks" and also useful for projection mapping. Also I have used the GL grid tool, and it is great! I used it on a project to deform the image of this projection mapping on a huge tree. It was difficult because the projector had a wide angle lens that deformed (a lot) our "picture reference"... so the only way to get it to match was with the GL grid, and it worked great! Thanks!... the only problem I see is that the way to interact with the tool is a little difficult. Maybe in snow leopard is possible to create an interface where one could click and drag the points of the grid? |
That's a cool idea. On the interaction issue, I did a quick bezier-curve demo a while back, and used a simple method to move points and curve handles- number key selects point, then you can move it with the mouse. It's not particularly elegant, but works OK.
Having said that, it only really works with a fixed, preset number of points, so probably isn't really what you're after.
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That can be done a number of different ways but maybe not the "magically" part of it; basically, either with GL Tools and Particle Tools, or GL Tools (with or w/out OpenCV..., err, CVTools) or just GL Tools. You want to look at making quad structures, imo...
It would be great to do an "edge detect" on images, make a structure based on that, and then be able to do "what we will" with it (without using Image PixelS).
I like that work! It looked cool!
...I've used something sort of like "phil" qtz in the comp repository (which used tb's javascript as a matter of fact), to define the area I want to mask, and it can work well, though I would change it up considerably if your problem scenario was what I was trying to solve. Similarly, you can setup something with CVTools(OpenCV) to create quad structures wherever you click and use that as your image mask by feeding the created structure through the correct masking setup to key the image you want on top.
It would be nice to have a patch for creating arbitrary bezier shapes though, and making them 'fillable'. I guess behind the scenes, the patch would essentially create all the geometry needed to create that shape.
This kind of thing might be better achieved with a custom plugin that uses the cocoa bezier tools. They're are 2D rather than 3D, but you can do some lovely stuff with 2D beziers under programmatic control- just look at some of the stuff produced using Nodebox (and Flash, of course) for some examples.
On a more general level, it would be great it QC had general Postscript/Bezier support and font and file-import functions builtin. Maybe in a future version...
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Totally agreed, and far from poo-pooing the idea, I've requested the feature myself awhile back (which then inspired my to figure out the semi-workaround I referred to). I wonder if that lasso feature that has been added to Preview in SL for doing image editing could be usurped in anyway to make it easier to pull off.
The "phil" thing was actually a pseudo re-emulation of something I had running in Nodebox, but I like the QC version better (as it is more flexible, for me at least).
- Nodebox
vs.
- QC
- QC - This only shows points, but can do bezier lines that warp with the image.
Still, like you are saying, it would be sweet if there was something specifically made to do this, as it could probably be a bit more stable and flexible.
Certainly a combination of CV tools with a closed bezier could be quite a powerful tool for image composing. Being able to "cut out" an image in real time without needing a pre-rendered alpha, would be a really nice addition to the tools... my guess is GL tools but maybe that bezier from preview or the cocoa bezier tools are the way to go. Going back to the GL grid... actually, if you think about it, the GL grid could be exactly this tool we are talking about. If you move the edges of the grid to make a new shape you get a fillable mask! It would be awesome if one could select a number of points on the grid and move them accordingly with a click, or even to "disable" some of the internal points... maybe it would be a little cumbersome to deal with, just a thought.