DKONG mosaic

[Boz]

Just screwing around last night and decided to see what a Donkey Kong mosaic would look like. I used only the "snaps" folder from Mame v0.80 for the thumbnails and batch processing in Photoshop to resize all the snaps to 50% of their original size. Ended up with thumbnails that were 84 x 111 pixels. After a couple of test runs, my final render settings were as follows:

Width:17304 pixels
Height: 23088 pixels
Total cells: 42,848
File size: 398MB (jpg!)

Images below are at 2%, 5%, 10%, 50%, 70%, and 100%. I zoomed in on the damsel in distress.

EDIT: Oh... I set this thing to render right before I went to bed thinking it would take about a half hour or an hour. When I woke up, I found that it took nearly 7 hours to render. (Sheesh!)

I'm not planning on using this for anything at the moment. But if I'm ever lucky enough to have a room in my house called a "game room" you can bet my wallpaper will probably be something along these lines.

[Boz]

10 percent and 50 percent

[Boz]

Finally, 70 percent and 100 percent

[dfmaverick]

Very cool.

398MB huh?

You wanna upload that 

[mo1e]

thats cool you do all that by moving the little pics around or not?

[Boz]

thats cool you do all that by moving the little pics around or not?

Not a chance!  I used software. I have an old version of Mosaic Creator found here: http://aolej.com/mosaic/

[Boz]

You wanna upload that 

Sure! I'll have to use the broadband connection in my Lamborghini though since the connection in my Beverly Hills Estate isn't fast enough. <G> 

[Veinman]

thats cool you do all that by moving the little pics around or not?

I have a bridge I want to sell you.

[mo1e]

lmao howmuch 

[mo1e]

just a quick question whats the best settings to get pics from my pc into a mosaic like that one? theres a list of different settings

[Boz]

just a quick question whats the best settings to get pics from my pc into a mosaic like that one? theres a list of different settings

Probably the best way to use the software is to just mess around with it trying different things. Honestly, I'm not trying to put you off. I have spent countless hours (years ago) when I first started using the software to learn how certain setting effected the output image. Use different settings between testing the output and running the final render. A couple of things that might help:

For testing:
1. use only about 1000 thumbnails. More will slow it down
2. turn off anti-aliasing
3. turn off stretching
4. turn off border compare

My settings for that huge image were these:
1. crop images to cell size
2. cell WxH 84x111
3. Cells Count X = 206
4. Cells Count Y = 208
5. 1200 DPI
6. "rectangle.mpd" was my cell template (I think it's the default)
7. border compare = on
8. muti-resolution compare = on
9. cell recognition quality = 200
10. minimal dist betw same image = 25
11. max cell image repetition = 60
12 Single cell colorize was 16%
13. Anti-aliasing = on
14. Stretch images = on


Aside from that, just play with it till you find something that turns out the way you like it. When you think you have it, double the cells count X and Y, and run a full render. Oh... and remember to use thumnails that are the same size as the cell. This will cut down on processing time.

[Franco]

Wow! Nice Work! 

Im going to have to have a play with this myself!

[Boz]

Here's another one I did a couple years ago of my neice and nephew. The thumbnails I used were all shots I had taken with my camera. I can't remember what I used for setting in the software, but the final image is 14401 x 10760 pixels. I'm zooming in on my neice's right eye.

[Boz]

25 percent and 50 percent

[Boz]

Finally, as you check out these zooms. Look what was used to make up the "glint" in her eye. It was the snow of the picture on the left combined with my blue jeans in the picture on the right. This is good software.

[nullb0y]

thats creepy im gonna do one aswell

[nullb0y]

and away it goes! (calculating)

[dema]

Very cool! I tried to do a mosaic a few months ago for my arcade cabinet, but the program I used kept cropping the images in the wrong place, so it didn't turn out too well. Maybe I'll give this a shot and see how it turns out.

Nice image!

[nullb0y]

check it out! once again all snaps

[nullb0y]

because its not a rwegged version it wont let me set the dpi to big "

[Boz]

because its not a rwegged version it wont let me set the dpi to big "

You can find older shareware versions around that don't have this restriction. That looks good though.

[Wade]

What is the point of doing this, if there are so many tiles that it is impossible to even see the individual images?

When I first saw this effect it was a large piece of artwork, which was on display across a huge room or lobby.  I think the picture was Einstein, or another easily recognizable person.  When close up, it was a bunch of photos which were clear (I think it was all 8x10 prints).

A simpler image which would require fewer tiles, is the way to go with this, IMO.  Then you would have the option of doing a wall-sized image with 8.5x11's or something similar.  I don't have any large unobstructed walls for such a display though.

Wade

[Boz]

What is the point of doing this, if there are so many tiles that it is impossible to even see the individual images?

Well, that's exactly the point. You do it so you can put up some huge picture or mural. I thought it might look interesting as a piece of side art on a cabinet or, in the case of my neice and nephew, a large wall poster. When people get close enough, they see what the image is made up of.

Yeah... you could (and probably should) use a smaller number of tiles for something attached to a wall. However, the "black art" to all of this is finding just the right balance between the number of tiles and recognition of the larger composite.

Too many tiles = can't recognize tile image detail - composite image is crisp
Too few tiles = great tile image detail - composite image is hard to recognize

EDIT: typo

[Ad_Enuff]

Very cool.

398MB huh?

You wanna upload that 

Better still try vectoring it!