Average Color Input

For some reason this just popped into my head last night and I thought I'd throw it out there.

I think the average color node could be a lot more useful if it was re-interpreted to allow taking the average color of an input. The way it stands now, all you can do is use the average color of the base image, I'd like to see it have a required input that averages the color of what is displayed. You could retain the original functionality by just setting the image node as the input.

I'm aware there are probably other solutions for finding the average color using other nodes, but It's my assumption that these would involve inherently slower methods than the average color node uses to determine the image average color.

Problems:

Updating a node breaks filters that use it.

Averaging colors of an input with transparency.

Thoughts?

I'm picturing your node corvus, let me know if I get it right:


Notice the Legacy mode- this makes sure we don't break things already using the component.

Still not sure about input images that have transparency.

(Pardon the horrible shop, it was quick and dirty)

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KGtheway2B wrote: Problems: Updating a node breaks filters that use it. Averaging colors of an input with transparency.

Neither of these is the actual problem. We never change the components -- instead, we issue a new version of a component (look into the Obsolete category on the Component bar in the Editor to get the idea). And we can deal with transparency in some way (say, averaging it as well).

The actual problem is that to average the colors of some image, one must have said image. And Filter Forge doesn't form intermediate images during the rendering -- it doesn't store component output in bitmaps and pass these bitmaps between components.

I believe I already explained the situation with the MinLevel / MaxLevel and Average Color somewhere on the forums, but don't remember where exactly.

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Vladimir Golovin wrote: The actual problem is that to average the colors of some image, one must have said image. And Filter Forge doesn't form intermediate images during the rendering -- it doesn't store component output in bitmaps and pass these bitmaps between components. I believe I already explained the situation with the MinLevel / MaxLevel and Average Color somewhere on the forums, but don't remember where exactly.

Hi Vladimir,

Interesting. So, we're actually talking about two different types of features / nodes.

1) A node similar to average color which generates multiple colors, which are then useable by inputs. (like KG's thing above)

2) A node similar to average color, but which can take any other bitmapped input, not just the source image. sounds like #2 is not possible, because of the way FF works.

So, do you think #1 is possible? Is it possible to construct this using existing FF nodes, like min level / max level?

A blur with radius at 100% and gaussian unchecked should produce the average color.

You might want to hook up a checker in between your source and blur - with solid fill checked and repeat as low as you can live with (low repeat = low average sample pool). This will shave off a great deal of the time needed for the blur to rasterize its internal bitmap tiles.

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CorvusCroax wrote: Are the colors useable as node inputs?

With some modification, yes.

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CorvusCroax wrote: How does it work?

Rather than trying to explain it, let me make a simpler version that is closer to what you are looking for...

Here is also an alternate method for getting the average color from an input image.

This particular snippet compares the two methods, the "blur-the-heck-out-of-everything method" and an "alternate method" that uses much less blur by tiling the image at small size, with the external image average.

Average Color from Input.ffxml

As to color palette, I got this far:



The filter extracts 24 colors from the image (Life preserver in this case) and graphs how much each color is used. Theoretically, you could then pick the 3-7 colors that are used the most. But since it already takes some 45 seconds to render without trying to select out those 3-7 colors, it is not going to be that useful as a snippet.

Perhaps it could be used for simply creating a color palette from an image without trying to make it a snippet?

cool