PRESENTING RESULTS FOR GROUP 3Group Members : Francis, Post, Young
Final Results ( PREFER SIZES of about 800x600 ) A view of the bullfighting arena in Barcelona with a facade derived from a Gaudi bench in Park Guell  A piece of the bullfighting arena with various repairs  A part of the old city wall in Barcelona altered to appear more as it might have originally What IMAGES were used ( PREFER SIZES of about 400x300) The bullfighting arena in Barcelona  The piece of the Gaudi bench used to generate the texture applied to the arena  A piece of the bullfighting arena with significant wear and tear (provided here in the same resolution as the repaired version for easier comparison)  A part of the old city wall in Barcelona with its modern appointments DESCRIPTIONWhat were the goals?In our project, we sought to accomplish two different but related tasks in manipulating buildings around Barcelona. First, we restored the condition of a piece of the bullfighting arena. We repaired, among other aspects, broken bricks and tile discoloration resulting from years of wear and tear. Second, we changed the facade of a couple buildings around town, the same bullfighting arena as well as a building attached to the old city wall. On the bullfighting arena, we replaced the existing tile with a texture from a Gaudi work in Park Guell. On the city wall, we replaced the pink wall with a more original-looking stone wall and removed the glass windows. How stock footage was capturedBoth photographs of the bullfighting arena as well as the one of the old city wall were taken with a simple, handheld digital camera with a resolution of 7.2 megapixels. The focus of our project was the manipulation of the photographs, rather than the photographs themselves, so we did not need to go to great lengths to set up perfect shots. We captured a great deal of images of both the arena and the city wall and chose the ones we found to be the most amenable to the task at hand. Other Material that was used (acquired!)A Google image searched turned up a photo of the Park Guell Gaudi bench, a small piece of which was used as the basis for the colorful facade added to the bullfighting arena. Tools used and HOW?We had hoped for a more readily accessible and automated tool for the generation of textures, but in the absence of such, we ended up carrying out all our manipulations manually in Photoshop. This approach was naturally painstaking and more meticulous than one involving automated tools, but it yielded good results nonetheless. As far as the tools available in Photoshop, the clone stamp tool proved extremely useful in creating the desired textures. Our technique was more or less to very carefully mask the area(s) to which the new texture was to be applied and then use the clone stamp to apply it. The clone stamp also naturally served us well in making various repairs to the worn part of the arena. We also altered hue/saturation, dodged, burned, smudged, blurred and any number of the other powerful tools for which Photoshop is so well regarded. Code or scripting (include as an attachment OR link)n/aWhat worked?As mentioned, the clone stamp worked quite well in generating new textures as well as in repairing small pieces of the arena by copying other, undamaged pieces. The Gaudi bench also worked well as a basis for this technique, because it was homogeneous enough such that various pieces of it combined together looked fairly natural yet heterogeneous to the extent that a new, unique texture could be created from it. With the lasso and magnetic lasso tool, we were able to select the specific areas that we wanted to change easily. Sometimes, we also dealt with the color, brigtness, and contrast of a particular area. When adjusting these aspects, we were also able to utilize the lasso tools. Also, when generating shadows for areas restored, we simply used the paintbrush tool at a lower opacity, which worked quite smootly.What was unexpected?As alluded to earlier, we mistakenly expected, for something as seemingly common as generating a new texture from (an)other image(s), a free tool would be available, but I suppose we should have expected something so useful to demand a price. We also, of course, did not expect the restoration to go as slowly as it ended up going. With all of the masking adjustments and lack of knowledge on how to generate a solid texture, we ran into lots of inefficieny, it seems.What did NOT work?Generating the facade for the old city wall was difficult with the clone stamp. We used as a source for the clone stamp the parts of the wall which were still brick. Unfortunately, we could not actually generate a believable texture which looked entirely like the part of the wall that was actually brick. Instead, what resulted, after using both the clone stamp and the healing brush extensively, was a more worn looking stoney brick surface, which still fits in the image. Sometimes, parts of the bullfigting arena image were very dificult to select, and restore. The parts where the facade dipped and ran, like at the top, and other hard-to select areas created a sometimes repeated effort for us.How would you fix it?We would probably need one of the commercial tools that could generate a texture as large as the needed area, which is larger than the source area by far.Thoughts for the future of this effort?Learn how to create a good texture mapping from a single image. With the texture mapping software or tool, the process of restoration would become much simpler. It was interesting to work on changing the facade of a building. It would be good to see a program which specifically addressed this restoration on buildings; to see all of the tools that are used and what aspects are addressed to create more of the "real" feeling.Other details and DOCUMENTATION.The CD we turned in includes images at various stages of the production of each of our final images, which are useful in noticing where changes, small and large, were made.
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