color visualizer

[theorbital]

This is my first post and from what I can tell this is a great community !

I have a client who wants a color visualizer as a mobile app on android and iOS.

he wants his customer to be able to load the app, take a picture with the built in camera phone and choose walls, trim, ceilings etc.. in the picture and replace the color of the selected item with another color so the customer can see what their living room for example would look like with a different color.

after reading the docs it looks like level adjustment by color is the way to go but I have no idea even if IM can do this in a mobile app and have it be excellent. it would have to identify the color that needs to be replaced and replace it with the chosen color.

There would also have to be a library of colors that they could chose from and perhaps chose suggested coordinating colors

sherwin williams has a flash app that does this type of thing for an example. http://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeown ... isualizer/

I don't even know were to start with this one so I thought I would put it out here...

Thanks

[fmw42]

+level-colors could be used on a grayscale version of the image using a mask for the area to be changed. There are also other ways, but it really depends upon whether the area to be changes is flat constant color, or there are color variations or if there are textures with color. Links to some example images would be helpful for further guidance. The Sherwin Williams app is a 3D model with pretty flat walls and so it is easy in a 3D system to change the colors of each face of a model and then add shadows afterwards. In a 2D system like IM or any image processing system, you do not have such freedom and so it is harder.

see
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/color_ ... vel-colors
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/masking/
http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/photos/#chroma_key

I know others have use progammed IM for Mac iOS for handheld devices. see
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16043&hilit=iPod&start=15#p58221

There was also one post about Android. see viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19882&hilit=Android

You might be best to either search the archives further or contact user Cloud to see if he has done anything for Android.

[theorbital]

thank you fmw42 for the quick reply.

Here is a sample image I could see being used. I just took a quick snap shot of a wall in my house with my ipad. there is a glare from the light but I would think in normal pictures there is a glare. I guess that is something I'm going to have to figure out how to deal with.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/11282572/kitchen.JPG

I see now that +levels-colors will not work cause of the grayscale.

it would neat to have the same effect with the chroma key masking. I think that worked rather well in the example you linked to.

Not sure if that is possible though with a picture like this.

So for example, lets say I wanted to see what my kitchen wall would look like in blue. it is gray right now. How would IM do that?

Thanks so much for the help on this..

[fmw42]

The glare and shadows make any color replacement based upon color rather impractical. The only thing I can suggest is that you would have to manually trace out everything but the wall. Fill the traced out wall with white and the rest black. Then use some background color that you desire and composite (-flatten) the original image with the color using the mask to select the color where the wall is located. The obvious limitation is that you need to select and mask out those areas that you want to see in a different color. That is tedious and difficult when you have small/narrow objects in front of the wall. That is why I said a 3D system has the advantage as everything is coded into faces and you can change any face you want to a different color.

You could consider stereo pair images and some system to build the 3D model of the room from the stereo pair. The you can color any face with any color. But that puts you back into the 3D world.

[theorbital]

so in your opinion using IM to accomplish my goal of having the user take a picture with their camera phone then tap on walls, trim, ceilings etc and replace with another color is not going to be practicable? That is fine, its best to figure it out now rather than spend all the time on trying to make something work that just isn't designed to do it.

I appreciate the honesty.

[fmw42]

so in your opinion using IM to accomplish my goal of having the user take a picture with their camera phone then tap on walls, trim, ceilings etc and replace with another color is not going to be practicable? That is fine, its best to figure it out now rather than spend all the time on trying to make something work that just isn't designed to do it.

I appreciate the honesty.

As a near real-time operation in 2D, considering your image as an example with its glare and shadows, probably, yes, in my opinion.

If the walls are a constant hue (irrespective of saturation and brightness), you could try my huemap script at the link below. Or try a similar function on GIMP, which would be interactive. You can then see if that has any merit.

Other than than, I have no good idea or solution at hand.

However, others on the forum may have other ideas and opinions. So wait to hear what others have to say.

[theorbital]

OK, will do fmw42. I have looked through your list of scripts and it is rather extensive and very interesting. You sure know your stuff. Thanks again.

[fmw42]

OK, will do fmw42. I have looked through your list of scripts and it is rather extensive and very interesting. You sure know your stuff. Thanks again.

Play with GIMP's huemap like filter, as you will get real-time results and can more easily measure the effectiveness of that approach.