Artifacts Affected by Dot and Line Adjustments

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don range
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Joined: Fri May 10, 2013 12:37 am

Artifacts Affected by Dot and Line Adjustments

Post by don range »

I am trying to create a movie of several sequences for which most of the images are front views of a human face. A few images I would like to include are side (profile) views of the same face. The 112-dot pattern with connecting lines established by the face locator is set up for front face views, so I have made manual adjustments in the positioning of the dots and lines of the profile view faces to try to get a morph that I like. I am generally satisfied with the way the sequences that transition from front view to profile view (and the reverse) look, except for bright geometric-shape artifacts that appear in the middle frames of the sequence then fade away as image 2 is stabilized. The shape and size of these artifacts are substantially affected by the manual adjustments I make to the profile view image dots and lines. I have not figured out how to make these adjustments to get a good transition without the bright artifacts.
Can anyone suggest how to adjust the dots and lines to avoid these artifacts?

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fantam
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Re: Artifacts Affected by Dot and Line Adjustments

Post by fantam »

If you morph two front view faces, the result could be perfect. But if you morph a font view face to a profile view face, the result is hard to be perfect, because some feature dots of the font view face are hard to be located on the profile view face.
In this case you don't need to still use the 112-dot pattern, just remove those hard-to-be-paired dots.
If you still can't resolve this problem, you can send the source project to support@fantamorph.com.

don range
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Joined: Fri May 10, 2013 12:37 am

Re: Artifacts Affected by Dot and Line Adjustments

Post by don range »

Thank you, your suggestion of removing some dots enabled me to fix the problem. While working on this problem and refining other sequences I learned a lot about moving dots with the triangles turned on to find the cause of, and eliminate, artifacts. But I am having a problem that makes moving the dots much more difficult than it should be. The problem is that frequently while making a short move of a dot the Sequence List suddenly turns on (if it was off), or turns off (if it was on). When it turns on or off the Image 1 and Image 2 windows reposition themselves to adjust for the screen space gained or lost by the Sequence List turning off or on. This happens in both Full View and Edit Only View, and with the main window operating full screen or not. With the image windows jumping around it is very hard to lay down a dot where you want it, like shooting at a moving target. Sometimes it takes 6 or 8 jumps before I can find a spot near where I want to place the dot and complete the operation by releasing the mouse button. Why does this happen, and what should I do to prevent it? Using 5.4.1 on a Windows 7-64 Pro machine.

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fantam
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Re: Artifacts Affected by Dot and Line Adjustments

Post by fantam »

Sorry I can't reproduce the problem "the Sequence List suddenly turns on (if it was off), or turns off (if it was on)".
Can you please give me a step-by-step instruction so that I can reproduce this problem?

don range
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 10, 2013 12:37 am

Re: Artifacts Affected by Dot and Line Adjustments

Post by don range »

Sure. Any help will be much appreciated.
1) Open project. The project I am working on has 108 sequences, with total frames 22,680.
2) Maximize FantaMorph on the monitor.
3) Turn Sequence List on.
4) Select a sequence.
5) Set view to Full.
6) Turn Dots and Lines on.
7) Start the sequence running. Settings are:
== Auto Loop on
== Auto Switch on
8) The settings in the panel between the two images are:
== Edit Dots (E) arrow is active
== Auto Add Corresponding Dot
== Auto Jump To Corresponding Position
== Dot Mode
== Zoom/Pan Sources Simultaneously
== Zoom/Pan Preview Simultaneously
== Slider in middle of range
9) Change zoom control at bottom of Image 2 to from Best Fit to 300%.
10) In Image 2, drag one of the dots on the mouth or on either eye of the face.

That's the setup. I doesn't happen with every dot drag, just a small fraction of them. But often enough that it is extremely frustrating. In the course of verifying the above procedure before sending it to you I dragged a few dozen dots and had it happen three times. Some days it seems to happens more often, but I have not been able to figure out any conditions that make it occur more or less often. I usually have lots of other programs open, but my machine has 12 GB of memory and Resource Monitor show only one-third used, so I don't think that's the issue. I see this problem on many of my sequences. Most of my images are TIF files about 1 MB in size. Sometimes if I drag a dot to a particular spot (with no particular location that I can identify) and hold it there before releasing the mouse button, the Sequence List toggles on and off continuously and the image windows jerk back and forth until I drop the dot wherever it lands. Sorry I can't be more specific as to how to make the problem more repeatable.

don range
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri May 10, 2013 12:37 am

Re: Artifacts Affected by Dot and Line Adjustments

Post by don range »

Problem SOLVED (I think).
I noticed that moving the mouse rapidly back and forth for several seconds over the face of either Image 1 or Image 2 in the Full view, if dots were turned off, would turn the dots on. This seemed to be fairly repeatable. That made me suspect that the wireless mouse might be generating unwanted signals such as a Ctrl-D mixed in with the mouse movement commands (although it never turns dots off, only turns them on). I changed the mouse. Since replacing the mouse I have dragged a lot of dots without a single instance of the Sequence List inadvertently turning on or off. So a failing mouse may have been the cause of the problem, but I need more hands-on time to be sure it is fixed for good.

The issue with the dots being turned on by moving the mouse rapidly and repeatedly over a face is still there with the replacement mouse. That makes me concerned that the problem may not be fully and permanently solved. But since rapid mouse movement over a face is not a typical FantaMorph activity, and the Sequence List problem seems to be fixed, FantaMorph is currently working well for me.

I was having no problem with the original mouse in any application except FantaMorph, so it seems odd that the mouse could be generating spurious F2 characters to cause the Sequence List problem in FantaMorph. One of the applications I use daily uses F2 to bring up a particular dialog box, and I have never seen a spurious F2 instance when using the suspect mouse in that application.

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