Mosaic's Notice

What is Mosaic?

Here is an example picture below. The left part is the source image, the right part, the reconstructed image using random TV frames (clic on the image to see it at its normal size).

Who is the author?

How does it work?

Here is a quick overview of Mosaic's features as found in the menu bar:

• Open Source Image...
  Opens a file selector to allow you to select the image you want to reproduce. You can also simple drag'n drop an image on Mosaic's main window.
• Reload Source Image
  You can apply some filtering effects to the source image, therefore, you may want to revert to the original picture. This item does just that.
• Select Result Image...
  You can resume work on an image: for that, first select the original image with the previous methods, then use this menu item to select the resulting image you want to continue to work on.
  You can also drag'n drop a result image directly in the window. If some source image is already loaded, then if the dragged image has the same size as the source image, you will be able to tell if the newly dragged image should be used as a source image or as a result image to continue.
• Reload result image
  You can also apply some filters to the result image, or you may want simply to revert to the result image which is stored on your disk. Use this option then.
• Save Result/Save Result As.../Quit
  Do what you'd expect...
• Open Mosaic's Notice New!!!
  Will open this documentation with your favorite browser.
• Open Mosaic's Web Site at BeBits New!!!
  To go on the Internet to update to the latest version.
• View Source/View Result
  Select which image you want to see.
• Start Processing/Stop Processing
  Those options are self explanatory.
• Clear result image New!!!
  To start again with a blank image.
• Cheat New!!!
  To melt a variable quantity of the original picture inside the result image. This is obviously not what this program is about, but since what you want is to produce an amazing effect, this, well..., may help a little bit!
• Blur this Image just a Little/Blur this Image/Blur this Image More
  Will apply some blurring effect to the image currently displayed. You can't undo this operation, but files on disk are not touched. In other words, if your image is not saved on disk, you won't be able to recover the original image...
  Blurring the source image might help Mosaic a little bit, while blurring the result image will help remove the unpleasant edges of the mosaic. It is a taste question, to use it if/how you wish!
• Monitor
  Will allow to show/hide a monitor window showing the current TV image captured. Note that this image is the pure video source from which is extracted the picture that will be used. That extracted picture is usually much smaller, with possibly blur effects & cut borders.
  It will help you to select the best TV program for your work.
• If you have used stampTV to create named channel presets, then you will have more useful menu items in the TV menu. The presets read from stampTV's preference file will be made available allowing you to change TV channel while working. The shortcuts Alt-'+' and Alt-'-' will allow you to change the channel quickly.
• If you haven't used stampTV to create named channel presets yet, then you will find a shortcut to stampTV's website at BeBits. New!!!
• Clic on any part of the result image
  That will tell Mosaic that you are not happy with the frame you have selected, and Mosaic will replace it with some other frame.
• That's it!

License

The authors make no warranties, express or implied, including without limitation the implied warranties of merchandability and fitness for any particular purpose, regarding this software. The authors do not warrant, guarantee or make any representations regarding the use or the results of the use of the software in terms of its correctness, accuracy, reliability, currentness or otherwise. The entire risk as to the results and performance of the software is assumed by you.

I'll be glad to hear about your bug reports, problems, comments, flames...
You can mail us directly : Georges-Edouard Berenger (current maintainer & now main contributor) or Frank Olivier (the original author).

Mosaic is provided with source code for anyone to play with. If you want to contribute with any improvement or bug fix, please let us know! We will see if it makes sence for the official distribution.

Known bugs & problems

• If you can't select the image sizes, or which section of the TV image will extracted, or which algorithm will be used without editing the source code and recompiling the program.

History

v2.1 (November 22nd, 2000)

• Added an other euristic: best place instead of best improvement. That means that a new frame will go where it matches the original document at best (possibly only a very tiny bit better than the frame it replaces), rather than where it improves the most. This ensures that a frame will always be used at best, even if it means that other places will take longer to get to a satisfactory level. Overall, this should provides better results.
• Corrected the proportions of the extracted picture.
• Improved the aliasing code for the extracted picture.
• Sped up the code again.
• Added the cheat window: you can now blur the source image inside the result image to improve it... Obviously, that is cheating, but this provides nice effects in many case. I find myself playing with it just to help evaluate how good is the result image.
• Monitoring can now be turned off when not processing.
• Added a "Clear Result Image" option.
• Added direct access to documentation, Mosaic's website as well as stampTV's if no stampTV pref file with valid presets has been successfully read.
• Main code changes:
• Improved MosaicWindow::Compare () to take into account the current best result. In most cases, you only care about the exact end result of the function if it is better than some past result. Therefore, you can stop comparing when you have reached that limit and save time.
• Renamed the 'Window' class 'MosaicWindow', because of weird syntax conflicts with BView::Window () when writting the CheatWindow class.

v2.0 (November 13th, 2000)

• Maintenance now done by Geb.
• Cleaned up the source code. Removed many bugs & limitations.
• Added many UI features. Basically, the first release was a working prototype. This release is now a much more polished product with many options.
• Implemented/fixed the file menu items. Added intelligent file selector functions like: when you do a first "Save Result" or a "Save Result As", a new name will be derived from the source's name and the file panel will be opened in the folder where that image is.
• Added alternative drag'n drop support to open images.
• Added image filtering functions.
• Added monitoring.
• Added stampTV presets' support.
• Sped up the code dramatically.
• Last, but not least: wrote this documentation!

v1.0 (October 16th, 2000)

• Original release by Frank Olivier.