Redrobes free Image Processing Tools.

[Redrobes]

I have written a lot of my own tools to process images and help make maps. Occasionally I have released these on the guild but I would have to release a windows and a linux version and then there are many versions of each to contend with and then there is the hassle of installation and many other problems.

So I decided to program up a framework which runs on a web server and gives you all access to these tools with a nice user interface.

Without further ado.. here is the link to the frame work:

https://redrobes.com/cgi-bin/index.pl

Have a read of the front page instructions but the basic process is quite simple. You start a new job, pick which recipe you would like to use, proceed to get a Job ID and Job Pin number, then go to the edit page.

From there you upload your image to be processed and change any other parameters and then hit the RUN button.

Hit the big Refresh button until the job starts and then completes.

Then look at the output image and click on it and grab it by using right mouse button with "Save Image As..." or similar depending on your browser.

Profit !

You can leave the page and come back later to your job but you will need to use the Find Job and enter your Job ID and Pin Number to get at the edit page again. So when they were given to you it might be a good idea to note them down.

Right now there are about half a dozen recipes you can pick from and ill make posts below about each of them and what they can do. Whilst you can do many image processing procedures on lots of graphics apps most of the ones I provide will be hard to find or otherwise hard to set up on graphics apps. There's probably an alternative app which can do these jobs but I have found it necessary in the past to write these so I think they are unusual if not unique.

A couple of these I have mentioned before. Some I released as app on here that I think are now defunct some more I have talked about but said they were too hard to set up. So with this framework its going to be much easier for everyone.

Have a go, post if you have any problems, or if you find it doesn't work for you and possibly if you would like another utility that you think is unusual.

One more thing...

If you get to the image upload and you want to process an image which has been uploaded to the guild then there is a bit of text under the button with a link which allows you to "upload" the image from a guild attachment ID. I can bet you that my server will be able to get the image from the guild faster than you can download and re-upload it to the image processor. So enter the ID and it should come in a lot faster.

[Redrobes]

Recipe: Gores

I have posted the app on here about Gores before but its for taking a world map (usually one with a 2:1 aspect ratio) and then it projects it into something which has these "leaves" which you cut out and then paste it on to a ball to make a globe. You can use better apps like GProjector and others but this one is pretty easy to use. You set the number of gore leaves to use.

This is one where you can use the attachment id thing. So lets use
https://www.cartographersguild.com/a...6&d=1610625037
So by entering the ID 127766 (its sort of cut off from the link above but if you click on it or hover the mouse you will see it) into the attachment ID box it should load up the guild world map.

Guildworld_4K.jpg

When setting the number of gores to 12 then after processing it gives this:

GuildWorld_Gores.jpg

Which if someone wants to print, cut out and then and wrap around a ball then do post your result !

And it would help if the image didn't have the black border around the image. So if your doing this for a proper project then use a proper world map with just the land masses and seas. Also, use a nice high res image as it doesn't have nice edges on the gores if using a low res image.

[Redrobes]

Recipe:Line Dither

Line dither will dither an image with lines where you can set the angle and it will generate a set of lines at that angle where the thickness of the lines are linked to the brightness of the image.

So starting with this image of Mona Lisa...
MonaLisa.png

it can be dithered to this
MonaLisa_LineDither.png

The reason why this is an interesting dither is that it just uses two colours only black and white and that none of the black lines cross so that it can be cut out of a sheet of paper with a laser cutter for example.

[Redrobes]

Recipe: Line Dither 2

Similar to above but this time it will do the dither with a series of thin black lines at a variety of angles like the old hatching that you used to get on wood block etchings. This is another useful dither because it will generate a greyscale image from just black and white. Therefore you can use this to plot photos on a pen plotter.

MonaLisa_LineDither2.png
(click on the image to see the full effect)

I am sure you can incorporate this sort of effect into maps.

There is another recipe Line Dither 2 with NC where it will output the NC code to drive a laser engraver so that you can engrave these sorts of images onto items. Use that at your own risk and work out how to make the file compatible with your own engraver for best results.

[Redrobes]

Recipe: Watermark

This is an oldie but loads of people could do with this based on the images I see on the guild.

So this processor will put a small signature or logo onto the large image in random positions and feint impressions so that its hard to remove.

I.e. Taking one of my old images.
Attachment 6381

and by adding this signature:
RedSig2.jpg

It will process it out to this:
RedrobesSignedMap.jpg

If you think the signature is too severe then lower the contrast of the signature image.

[Redrobes]

Recipe: Thumbnail

This one is really basic. You input a large image and it spits out a small Thumbnail version of it. You can input the exact size you want or you can put a 0 in for the size for height and it will find the best height based on the width you asked for or you can enter a 0 for the width and set the height and it will figure out the best width.

This program will do a really good job of scaling the image down for a really good quality thumbnail. Some apps don't do this too well. But I put this one in because I need to generate thumbnails quite often and this way is really quick.

RedrobesMap_Thumb.png

This one is 64x64 pixels.

[Redrobes]

I have some spatial filters to run through and they need a bit of explanation, but ill leave it there for the mo and you can post back if you try these out and how you get on and whether it needs to be tweaked in some way.

[Wired]

Ohhh, neat! Thank you very much for sharing these tools!

[ChickPea]

I really like the watermarking script. It works beautifully and it can be as strong or as subtle as you like.

[Redrobes]

Ohhh, neat! Thank you very much for sharing these tools!

Thanks - I have quite a few more to share but they get progressively more complex and I hope that this framework will allow me to put them up.

I really like the watermarking script. It works beautifully and it can be as strong or as subtle as you like.

Thanks - Its possible to do this on any graphics app with layers but this takes the chore out of it. Having a watermark with lots of shades of grey in it would make it very hard to remove. You see these kinds of marks on google maps tiles so they must think its good enough. Of course they might have embedded more invisible marks in them too but who knows.