
New Algorithm Impressively Depixelates Pixel Art - wslh
http://www.geekosystem.com/depixelating-pixel-art-algorithm/
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foob
The scribd paper link is broken but you can find it here:
[http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/paper/pixel.pdf) . It's very interesting and
definitely worth a read in my opinion. You've got to hand it to Microsoft,
we've seen a lot of great papers come out of their research department in the
last 15 years. Here is a video of the algorithm being applied to Super Mario
that I found when I was looking for the paper:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Fd-4NzB0w>

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JoachimSchipper
Dup: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2578706> (59 points, 19 comments)
talks about the same paper.

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palish
This is the first I've heard of it. So I'm happy for the dupe.

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JoachimSchipper
Look at <http://news.ycombinator.com/best> or <http://www.daemonology.net/hn-
daily> if you want to catch up.

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palish
Except this article isn't on either of those. There's nothing wrong with
dupes.

~~~
jokermatt999
I agree that there's nothing wrong with dupes in general (although if they
become too prevalent, it can be frustrating), but I think pointing out dupes
can be very helpful. If it's a "dupe" of a story that went nowhere, that
doesn't provide much information, but if there was a previous discussion,
linking to that allows people to find the already existing conversation about
it.

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Groxx
Though I mostly understand how much of a different algorithm it is, its
results are surprisingly similar to hq4x. It sort of looks like a vectorized
form - edges are smoothed better, but everything is excessively curvy
(seriously, there are almost _no_ corners _anywhere_ ). Not quite, as
vectorized forms of images tend to mess up horrifically on some corner-
meetings (examples of which are in the paper). Which this doesn't seem to do -
very impressive!

Does anyone know what hq4x does to the Doom picture? I'd be interested in
comparing edge-cases like that, especially as it seems hq4x would handle it
decently well, while this algorithm does pretty poorly. Understandably so, but
I wonder if it can be adapted to handle broader blending forms.

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aidenn0
hq4x is certainly in the sweet-spot for real-time emulation upscaling.

However, this algorithm does actually vectorize the image, which has
interesting uses for e.g. running all the sprites of a game through it and
using the static results in a remake (they also talk about extending it to
fill in animation frames in time which would be extra cool).

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ideamonk
What's new about these, does anyone remember Super Eagle and 2xSAI used in
emulators like VBA and ZSNES to stretch out and smoothen up old low pixel
graphics at decent fps that gives smooth gameplay?

Ref: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art_scaling_algorithms>

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furyg3
Really excited about playing old NES games on a large HDTV with this
technology. Or even on a small 'retina' display.

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andrewcooke
something like this already existed and it produced very similar results.

hmmm. wikipedia turns up many
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_raster_to_vector_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_raster_to_vector_conversion_software)
but the one i was thinking of was potrace - <http://potrace.sourceforge.net/>

i've used potrace many times before - it works really well (i once hand-wrote
some "powerpoint" slides, scanned them, then used potrace to make them appear
"natural" - people thought i had made a font based on my handwriting!)

maybe it's the handling of colour that's new here? potrace only does
monochrome images, as far as i know.

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timb
[http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/...](http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/supplementary/comparison_potrace.html)

~~~
andrewcooke
ah! thanks.

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cma
Someone needs to run this over the early khan academy videos.

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aquarin
What are the possible applications of this algorithm?

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earle
DECKARD: Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance, stop. Move in, stop. Pull out, track
right, stop. Center in, pull back. Stop. Track 45 right. Stop. Center and
stop. Enhance 34 to 36. Pan right and pull back. Stop. Enhance 34 to 46. Pull
back. Wait a minute, go right, stop. Enhance 57 to 19. Track 45 left. Stop.
Enhance 15 to 23. Give me a hard copy right there.

~~~
rbonvall
Uncrop!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUFkb0d1kbU>

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albemuth
Maybe windows can have good looking icons now

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Nicknameless
Does anyone know if there is any code available for this algorithm? I'd love
to get my hands on it.

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stefanherz
For someone still fascinated by imagemagick and stuff like tineye, this is
absolutely out of my league. thanks for sharing.

