Develop Reference

Multiplying Pixel Values in BufferedImage results in strange Behaviour

I am currently working on a program to help photographers with the creation of timelapses.
It calculates an decline or rise in brightness over a series of images. So the change in Exposure and iso for example dont affect the overall decline in brightness.
For this i use a simple Swing-based Interface which displays the first and last image. Under them are sliders to adjust the Brightness of the image.
This is applied via a direct manipulation of the BufferedImages underlying DataBuffer.
Mostly this works but i encountered some images which seem to have kind of a problem.
Do you have an idea why this is happening?
public BufferedImage getImage(float mult){
BufferedImage retim;
retim = new BufferedImage(img.getWidth(), img.getHeight(), img.getType());
Graphics g = retim.getGraphics();
g.drawImage(img, 0, 0, null);
g.dispose();
DataBufferByte db = (DataBufferByte) retim.getRaster().getDataBuffer();
byte[] bts = db.getData();
for(int i=0;i<bts.length;i++){
float n = bts[i]*mult;
if(n > 255){
bts[i]= (byte) 255;
}else{
bts[i] = (byte) n;
}
}
return retim;
}
This is the method which takes an float and multiplies every pixel in the image with it. (And some code to prevent the byte values from overflowing).
This is the unwanted behaviour (on the left) and the expected on the right.

Your problem is this line, and it occurs due to the fact that Java bytes are signed (in the range [-128...127]):
float n = bts[i] * mult;
After the multiplication, your n variable may be negative, thus causing the overflow to occur.
To fix it, use a bit mask to get the value as an unsigned integer (in the range [0...255]), before multiplying with the constant:
float n = (bts[i] & 0xff) * mult;
A better fix yet, is probably to use the RescaleOp, which is built to do brightness adjustments on BufferedImages.
Something like:
public BufferedImage getImage(float mult) {
return new RescaleOp(mult, 0, null).filter(img, null);
}

This is due to the capping of the value in certain bytes in the image.
For example (assuming RGB simple colour space):
The pixel starts at (125,255,0), if you multiply by factor 2.0, the result is (255,255,0). This is a different hue than the original.
This is also why the strange results only occur on pixels that already have high brightness to start with.
This link may help with better algorithm for adjusting brightness.
You could also refer to this related question.

Generate n colors between two colors

I'm trying to write function, which can generate colors between two colors based on a given value. An example would explain it better..
Input ..
X : 1
Y : 0.5
Z : 0
The user gives any set of color:value pairs, then enters a number(say 0.75). I have to then generate color which is a blend of Y and Z in proportion(based on the their values and the input value). I was thinking of the following approach.
Find the colors which surround the value, for 0.75 it will be 0.5 and 1.
Mix those two colors somehow, based on the value and generate new colors.
I'm completely lost, as how to generate colors and are there any libraries for this.
UPDATE:
It is part of a bigger project I'm working on. Lets say we have ..
1 : X
0 : Y
and the user inputs, 0.25
I would like to have something..
(X*0.25 + Y*0.75)
as it's more near to Y, that's why the higher proportion. If the user inputs, 0.5.. the output should be
(X*0.5 + Y*0.5)
and so on. I have no idea how to do this with RGB colors.
P.S: The questions is not specific to language, but I'm doing this in Java.

You have to blend each color channel (red, green and blue) seperately like this:
Color x,y; //set by you
float blending;//set by you
float inverse_blending = 1 - blending;
float red = x.getRed() * blending + y.getRed() * inverse_blending;
float green = x.getGreen() * blending + y.getGreen() * inverse_blending;
float blue = x.getBlue() * blending + y.getBlue() * inverse_blending;
//note that if i pass float values they have to be in the range of 0.0-1.0
//and not in 0-255 like the ones i get returned by the getters.
Color blended = new Color (red / 255, green / 255, blue / 255);
So far for the color example. Generally if you want a linear interpolation between two values you have to do the following:
var firstValue;
var secondValue;
var interpolation;
var interpolated = firstValue * interpolation +
secondValue * (1 - interpolation);
But since you have Color-Objects in your case, you cannot interpolate the whole object in one step, you have to interpolate each relevant value on its own. Eventually you have to interpolate the alpha-channel as well, don´t know that, since you didn´t mention it, but for completeness i include it in this answer.

A color is a point in a three-dimensional space. The exact coordinates used depend on what's called a "color space", of which there are several: RGB, HSV, and so on. So to compute a color in between two given colors, get those two colors in the same color space, and compute a third point between those two along the line in 3d-space between them.
The simplest way to do this would be simply to do a linear interpolation for each of the three values of the colorspace (R, G, and B, for example). But there's a further complication that the coordinate values are often not linear, so you have to linearize them first (for example, TV colors are exponential with a lambda of about 2.2). Depending on your application, incorrectly assuming linearity might work OK anyway, especially if the starting colors are already close.
(As mentioned by luk2302, add a fourth coordinate for alpha if necessary).

You could use Java.awt.color by doing somting like this:
public Color mixColors(Color color1, Color color2, double percent){
double inverse_percent = 1.0 - percent;
int redPart = (int) (color1.getRed()*percent + color2.getRed()*inverse_percent);
int greenPart = (int) (color1.getGreen()*percent + color2.getGreen()*inverse_percent);
int bluePart = (int) (color1.getBlue()*percent + color2.getBlue()*inverse_percent);
return new Color(redPart, greenPart, bluePart);
}

Color detector in Java

I have list of colors in HEX format (for example #000000) and I would like to detect color type (blue, red, green etc.) and then change color type to another color type. Is this possible and are there any frameworks/libraries for this task?
Example:
I have color #EB1369 (red) then I convert it to blue and it becomes for example #1313EB (blue).

Here's a function that will let you shift colors around the hue circle. You should read the wikipedia page on the HSB (or HSV) color system to really understand what is going on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSV_color_space
/** Converts an input color given as a String such as "ab451e" to
* the HSB color space. Shifts its hue from the given angle in degrees.
* Then returns the new color in the same format it was given.
*
* For example shift("ff0000", 180); returns "80ff00" (green is the opposite of red).*/
public static String shift(String rgbS, int angle) {
// Convert String to integer value
int value = Integer.parseInt(rgbS, 16);
// Separate red green and blue
int r = value >> 16;
int g = (value >> 8) & 0xff;
int b = value & 0xff;
// Convert to hsb
float[] hsb = Color.RGBtoHSB(r, g, b, null);
// Convert angle to floating point between 0 and 1.0
float angleF = (float)(angle/360.0);
// Shift the hue using the angle.
float newAngle = hsb[0] + angleF;
if(newAngle > 1.0)
newAngle = newAngle - 1.0f;
hsb[0] = newAngle;
// Convert back to RGB, removing the alpha component
int rgb = Color.HSBtoRGB(hsb[0], hsb[1], hsb[2]);
rgb = rgb & 0xffffff;
// Build a new String
return Integer.toHexString(rgb);
}
Detecting colors can be complex, it depends on the result you really expect.
If what you want is simply an approximation (red, green, blue, yellow, etc.) then you can look at the hue circle of the HSB color-space, choose a hue value for each color you want to define, and then map the color you get in input to the closest one you chose.
You can also rely on things like named HTML colors: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colornames.asp . Take this list, create a mapping in your program, then all you have to do is map the color you get to the closest one in your map, and return its name. Be wary though: computing the distance between two colors can be tricky (especially in RGB) and naive approaches (such as channel-by-channel difference) can give surprisingly bad results. Colorimetry is a complex topic, and you will find good methods on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_difference

Try convert RGB values to HSV (HSB exactly) - it is format for colors which is more comfortable for human. After conversion, all u need to do is change H V (probably) and convert it back to RGB.

I guess that you like to convert RGB color to HSB. YOu can do this wuth:
java.awt.Color.RGBtoHSB(...)
then you can easily determine whetther H value fits in your definition of blue, and modify it to whatever you like. After this, you can easily convert it back to RGB via:
java.awt.Color.getHSBColor(...)
And ifg you do not like jawa.awt.color just multiply color vector by transofrmation matrix.

Each HEX Color has three parts in it, red, green and blue the # identifies a HEX color, the following two letters are the amount of red; the next two are green and the next two are blue. i.e: RGB
The two letters can have a maximum hexidecimal value of FF which is 255, and a minimum of 00 which is zero.
So you can argue like this, I want a color with 2 red parts, 7 green parts, and zero blue parts, which will give you #020700
That is why #FFFFFF is white (all the colors together) and #000000 is black (no colors at all)
With this logic you can modify the color in any way you want; The Color class can also help a lot.

changing rgb color values to represent a value

I am trying to make a color change on a canvas in java to respresent how strong or weak the values respresented by color are relative to each other.
The rgb colors have to be the same color just different shades, like white to grey to black and every shade of grey in between. How can I change the rgb values considering that the values I am representing vary a lot, from -9999999 to positive 9999999.

I think you should take a look at HSL/HSV instead of RGB.
While RGB is elementary in nature in that it expresses colors in terms of the primaries, it does not allow you to make "understandable" changes to the R, G or B values to arrive at "similar" colors. With a HSL/HSV model, you will be able to make changes to Brightness/Lightness/Value (L/V) to arrive at colors with varying amounts of gray, or make changes to Hue (H) to obtain similar colors across the spectrum. You can start at full brightness (White) and create darker tones of gray by decreasing the value of L/V and eventually reach the color of no brightness (Black).
A very mild introduction to color theory, for developers is available here.
As to your question, you should express your colors in terms of HSL, with increasing values of Saturation to have a range of colors starting from white to black. Of course, if you want gray tones in between white and black without any other color, you should keep the hue to a minimum.
A short example on how to get a range of colors follows. For brevity, I've populated the colors into an array, but that is not required since you might want to use the color rightaway (besides considering memory requirements).
private Color[] produceColorRange(int steps)
{
float value = 1.0f; //Starting with full brightness
Color[] colors = new Color[steps];
for(int ctr = 0; ctr < steps; ctr++)
{
value = value - (1.0f/steps); //tend to darkness
int rgb = Color.HSBtoRGB(0.7f, 0.0f, value); //create a darker color
//Hue is Blue, not noticeable
//because Saturation is 0
Color color = new Color(rgb);
colors[ctr] = color;
}
return colors;
}
If you use the above method and paint a JFrame, you will be able to get a result similar to the one below (except that I've modified the hue and saturation to get my color range).
Note that if you want a simpler way of getting a color range, initialize a Color object with Color.WHITE and invoke color.darker(). Of course, you will not be able to control the increment.

Yes, scale your values to fit your domain. That depends on how your RGB values are stored. Usually, 8 bits are used for each. Since grey has R = G = B, you want to scale values in range (-9999999,9999999) to (0, 255).
Consider x in the first interval. Since the first range covers also negative numbers, first, do a shift.
x = x + 9999999
Now x is in the interval (0, 19999998). And the next step is to scale it down to (0, 255). Since the colour values grow linearly in that interval, all you have to do is this:
x = x * 255 / 19999998
Now x is in the interval (0, 255) just like you want.
Generally, if your inital values are in an interval (a, b) and want to transform it into (0, c), apply this formula: (Note that a can be negative)
x = (x - a) * c / (b - a)
So if you R, G, B values are 16 bits long, c will be 2**16 = 65536 and the formula:
x = (x + 9999999) * 65536 / 19999998
Hope that helps.

I'm not completely sure I understand your question, but, if I do:
Why not just scale the RGB values to the values in your range (from -9999999 to positive 9999999)? Moreover, set R, G, and B all to the same value so that you're using shades of gray to represent the value.
Like this:
private final int MIN = -9999999;
private final int MAX = 9999999;
public Color getScaledColor(int val) {
int gray = (int) Math.round((double) (val - MIN) / (double) (MAX - MIN)
* 255.0);
Color color = new Color(gray, gray, gray);
return color;
}
Note that this solution will not give unique colors for all the values in the range you specified. But also keep in mind that the human eye can only distinguish between so many shades (and 2 * 9999999 + 1 is probably more than the number of shades than it can distinguish between).

The HSL Color class implements the formulas provided in the Wikipedia link on HSL/HSV provide above.

Customizable player avatar in a 2D Game

How can I have that functionality in my game through which the players can change their hairstyle, look, style of clothes, etc., and so whenever they wear a different item of clothing their avatar is updated with it.
Should I:
Have my designer create all possible combinations of armor, hairstyles, and faces as sprites (this could be a lot of work).
When the player chooses what they should look like during their introduction to the game, my code would automatically create this sprite, and all possible combinations of headgear/armor with that sprite. Then each time they select some different armor, the sprite for that armor/look combination is loaded.
Is it possible to have a character's sprite divided into components, like face, shirt, jeans, shoes, and have the pixel dimensions of each of these. Then whenever the player changes his helmet, for example, we use the pixel dimensions to put the helmet image in place of where its face image would normally be. (I'm using Java to build this game)
Is this not possible in 2D and I should use 3D for this?
Any other method?
Please advise.

One major factor to consider is animation. If a character has armour with shoulder pads, those shoulderpads may need to move with his torso. Likewise, if he's wearing boots, those have to follow the same cycles as hid bare feet would.
Essentially what you need for your designers is a Sprite Sheet that lets your artists see all possible frames of animation for your base character. You then have them create custom hairstyles, boots, armour, etc. based on those sheets. Yes, its a lot of work, but in most cases, the elements will require a minimal amount of redrawing; boots are about the only thing I could see really taking a lot of work to re-create since they change over multiple frames of animation. Be rutheless with your sprites, try to cut down the required number as much as possible.
After you've amassed a library of elements you can start cheating. Recycle the same hair style and adjust its colour either in Photoshop or directly in the game with sliders in your character creator.
The last step, to ensure good performance in-game, would be to flatten all the different elements' sprite sheets into a single sprite sheet that is then split up and stored in sprite buffers.

3D will not be necessary for this, but the painter algorithm that is common in the 3D world might IMHO save you some work:
The painter algorithm works by drawing the most distant objects first, then overdrawing with objects closer to the camera. In your case, it would boild down to generating the buffer for your sprite, drawing it onto the buffer, finding the next dependant sprite-part (i.e. armour or whatnot), drawing that, finding the next dependant sprite-part (i.e. a special sign that's on the armour), and so on. When there are no more dependant parts, you paint the full generated sprite on to the display the user sees.
The combinated parts should have an alpha channel (RGBA instead of RGB) so that you will only combine parts that have an alpha value set to a value of your choice. If you cannot do that for whatever reason, just stick with one RGB combination that you will treat as transparent.
Using 3D might make combining the parts easier for you, and you'd not even have to use an offscreen buffer or write the pixel combinating code. The flip-side is that you need to learn a little 3D if you don't know it already. :-)
Edit to answer comment:
The combination part would work somewhat like this (in C++, Java will be pretty similar - please note that I did not run the code below through a compiler):
//
// #param dependant_textures is a vector of textures where
// texture n+1 depends on texture n.
// #param combimed_tex is the output of all textures combined
void Sprite::combineTextures (vector<Texture> const& dependant_textures,
Texture& combined_tex) {
vector< Texture >::iterator iter = dependant_textures.begin();
combined_tex = *iter;
if (dependant_textures.size() > 1)
for (iter++; iter != dependant_textures.end(); iter++) {
Texture& current_tex = *iter;
// Go through each pixel, painting:
for (unsigned char pixel_index = 0;
pixel_index < current_tex.numPixels(); pixel_index++) {
// Assuming that Texture had a method to export the raw pixel data
// as an array of chars - to illustrate, check Alpha value:
int const BYTESPERPIXEL = 4; // RGBA
if (!current_tex.getRawData()[pixel_index * BYTESPERPIXEL + 3])
for (int copied_bytes = 0; copied_bytes < 3; copied_bytes++)
{
int index = pixel_index * BYTESPERPIXEL + copied_bytes;
combined_tex.getRawData()[index] =
current_tex.getRawData()[index];
}
}
}
}
To answer your question for a 3D solution, you would simply draw rectangles with their respective textures (that would have an alpha channel) over each other. You would set the system up to display in an orthogonal mode (for OpenGL: gluOrtho2D()).

I'd go with the procedural generation solution (#2). As long as there isn't a limiting amount of sprites to be generated, such that the generation takes too long. Maybe do the generation when each item is acquired, to lower the load.

Since I was asked in comments to supply a 3D way aswell, here is some, that is an excerpt of some code I wrote quite some time ago. It's OpenGL and C++.
Each sprite would be asked to draw itself. Using the Adapter pattern, I would combine sprites - i.e. there would be sprites that would hold two or more sprites that had a (0,0) relative position and one sprite with a real position having all those "sub-"sprites.
void Sprite::display (void) const
{
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, tex_id_);
Display::drawTranspRect(model_->getPosition().x + draw_dimensions_[0] / 2.0f,
model_->getPosition().y + draw_dimensions_[1] / 2.0f,
draw_dimensions_[0] / 2.0f, draw_dimensions_[1] / 2.0f);
}
void Display::drawTranspRect (float x, float y, float x_len, float y_len)
{
glPushMatrix();
glEnable(GL_BLEND);
glBlendFunc(GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA);
glColor4f(1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0);
glBegin(GL_QUADS);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(x - x_len, y - y_len, Z);
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 0.0f); glVertex3f(x + x_len, y - y_len, Z);
glTexCoord2f(1.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(x + x_len, y + y_len, Z);
glTexCoord2f(0.0f, 1.0f); glVertex3f(x - x_len, y + y_len, Z);
glEnd();
glDisable(GL_BLEND);
glPopMatrix();
}
The tex_id_ is an integral value that identifies which texture is used to OpenGL. The relevant parts of the texture manager are these. The texture manager actually emulates an alpha channel by checking to see if the color read is pure white (RGB of (ff,ff,ff)) - the loadFile code operates on 24 bits per pixel BMP files:
TextureManager::texture_id
TextureManager::createNewTexture (Texture const& tex) {
texture_id id;
glGenTextures(1, &id);
glBindTexture(GL_TEXTURE_2D, id);
glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_S, GL_REPEAT);
glTexParameterf(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_WRAP_T, GL_REPEAT);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR);
glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR);
glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D, 0, 4, tex.width_, tex.height_, 0,
GL_BGRA_EXT, GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE, tex.texture_);
return id;
}
void TextureManager::loadImage (FILE* f, Texture& dest) const {
fseek(f, 18, SEEK_SET);
signed int compression_method;
unsigned int const HEADER_SIZE = 54;
fread(&dest.width_, sizeof(unsigned int), 1, f);
fread(&dest.height_, sizeof(unsigned int), 1, f);
fseek(f, 28, SEEK_SET);
fread(&dest.bpp_, sizeof (unsigned short), 1, f);
fseek(f, 30, SEEK_SET);
fread(&compression_method, sizeof(unsigned int), 1, f);
// We add 4 channels, because we will manually set an alpha channel
// for the color white.
dest.size_ = dest.width_ * dest.height_ * dest.bpp_/8 * 4;
dest.texture_ = new unsigned char[dest.size_];
unsigned char* buffer = new unsigned char[3 * dest.size_ / 4];
// Slurp in whole file and replace all white colors with green
// values and an alpha value of 0:
fseek(f, HEADER_SIZE, SEEK_SET);
fread (buffer, sizeof(unsigned char), 3 * dest.size_ / 4, f);
for (unsigned int count = 0; count < dest.width_ * dest.height_; count++) {
dest.texture_[0+count*4] = buffer[0+count*3];
dest.texture_[1+count*4] = buffer[1+count*3];
dest.texture_[2+count*4] = buffer[2+count*3];
dest.texture_[3+count*4] = 0xff;
if (dest.texture_[0+count*4] == 0xff &&
dest.texture_[1+count*4] == 0xff &&
dest.texture_[2+count*4] == 0xff) {
dest.texture_[0+count*4] = 0x00;
dest.texture_[1+count*4] = 0xff;
dest.texture_[2+count*4] = 0x00;
dest.texture_[3+count*4] = 0x00;
dest.uses_alpha_ = true;
}
}
delete[] buffer;
}
This was actually a small Jump'nRun that I developed occasionally in my spare time. It used gluOrtho2D() mode aswell, btw. If you leave means to contact you, I will send you the source if you want.

Older 2d games such as Diablo and Ultima Online use a sprite compositing technique to do this. You could search for art from those kind of older 2d isometric games to see how they did it.