Creating continuously evolving composite overlay from portraits in folder

[mhhuk]

Hello, I have never used ImageMagic but told it may do what I need?

We're creating a project where visitors will take their own portrait which will be save to a folder.
We need portraits from the folder to be projected - all of that should be straightforward (?) But we want the portraits to overlay (as many as possible) to create a moving composite (so that each time a new photo is taken/ added to the folder, the composite is updated). Perhaps we need the script to perform eye-recognition and centers all photos too (? I don't know if this is possible/ necessary)

What we are going for is a MOVING version of Francis Galtons composite portraits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_portrait

Is this possible with Image Magick? Is this something any of you can do/ will undertake for us?

Thank you so much for your time and help!
Marianne

[fmw42]

Sorry, but I am not sure what you are trying to achieve. Imagemagick can composite many images onto one final image. That is not hard. But I am not sure where you want them composited and how the result will change with time. What do you mean by "projected"? Imagemagick has no facial recognition software. You might take a look at OpenCV for that.

Can you give more detail or an example? What platform is this for, since scripting and syntax are different for Unix and Windows systems.

P.S. Please do not post the same topic to different forums. I deleted your other post to the Users forum. If this is not a PAID consulting job, then I will move this post to the User's forum.

[mhhuk]

thank you.
platform should be Unix (I'm mac based).
I have no example (and can't manufacture one at moment cos I'm travelling). the link in post should give an idea. we want to create a composite portrait of visitors to an installation to see what the average visitor looks like - by overlaying/ compositing their images -and we want that to update as new portraits are added to database (simple image folder). so if you imagine a slide show where one image fade into another. that's what we want, except we want more than two images in the fade - around 10 would be ideal.

by projection, I simply mean that result will be projected onto screen.

I'm not sure I made it any clearer? will try to do so when next at a computer.

[mhhuk]

ps. yes if it can be done them we can pay for it. but in first instance just want to see if it can be done, so whichever forum is best for that.

[fmw42]

So you want a gif slide show of facea? Do you need them to morph from on to another.

See also the IM function morph at http://www.imagemagick.org/script/comma ... .php#morph and http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/anim_mods/#morph

Also, see my scripts: shapemorph, shapemorph2, transitions and fxtransitions at my link below. Are any of those close to what you want, but for more faces?

[Bonzo]

From the way I read the post the OP wants to do something like this: http://faceresearch.org/demos/average

There is software currently available to do this but possibly not automated?

[mhhuk]

yes bonzo. what we want to do is like face research but we want it to be automatic so when new portrait is taken and added to folder it is automatically added to composite ( and potentially earliest portrait removed - I think there's only so many pics you can overlay before image disappears).

which available software you thinking of?
thanks!

[fmw42]

From the way I read the post the OP wants to do something like this: http://faceresearch.org/demos/average

There is software currently available to do this but possibly not automated?

IM can easily do that with -evaluate-sequece mean, but the images need to be aligned beforehand reasonably well and there is no automated way to do that in IM. One would need facial recognition to say locate the eyes and warp the images so the eyes coincide. IM can do the warp using -distort Affine or -distort SRT, but the automatic eye location is not included in IM.

If it is not the average face that is needed, then IM can do the montage easily also.

[mhhuk]

and Fred, thanks. images don't need to morph just overlay as above. from words only I guess (fx)transition from one to next to create evolving composite..

will have a look at your scripts as soon as I am back at desk.

travelling for few days so my replies to posts will be slow - but v much appreciating your time!

[mhhuk]

Fred. if eyes were aligned - approximately - by diagram drawn on iPad used as camera - could that work. i.e. people would align themselves. I appreciate it might not be perfect but not sure we would mind the blur??

[fmw42]

Can you provide a set of images that have been manipulated on your iPad as described? We can easily test a set of images to produce the average image. Also if you just have a file of eye coordinates, the images could be warped to a common eye pair location and separation and then averaged.