Show HN: Create image mosaics with Polyfoto

32 points by sdrabing 4 years ago | 14 comments
  • sdrabing 4 years ago
    Still working on some bugs, but it's easy to use already.
    • tomcam 4 years ago
      This technique has been around for a long time but it was patented, and the patent finally expired a few years ago. Fun to see it commoditized like this.
      • CyberDildonics 4 years ago
        What makes you think patents prevented photo mosaics? There were multiple programs anyone could buy for $50 over 20 years ago.

        The basic technique is to scale down images and treat them as high dimensional points, then match them with patches of the main image, also treated as high dimensional points. This can be done efficiently with high dimensional nearest neighbors.

        You might be thinking of SIFT, which was a patented and part of the methodology was more efficient high dimensional searching using best bin first kd-trees.

      • sdrabing 4 years ago
        I had no idea a patent existed for this type of software, I figured this current program out through trial and error and a couple of iterations.

        How can a developer protect themselves from publishing patented software? Is there any way of knowing if a certain type of program is patented?

        • alok-g 4 years ago
          >> Is there any way of knowing if a certain type of program is patented?

          If you've a seen similar thing pre-existing, chances are that it may be someone's intellectual property, and which then should be respected.

          In this particular example, Wikipedia page on photographic mosaics [1] itself has a section on IP aspects of the same [2].

          >> How can a developer protect themselves from publishing patented software?

          The best approach is to respect the prior art and properly license the same as needed.

          At times, a developer may have strong reasons to believe that the related prior patents are either not infringed or are invalid. In this case they should be ready to be challenged.

          [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_mosaic

          [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_mosaic#Trademark_...

      • monkeydust 4 years ago
        Nice work. Curious what value the patent holder extracted from the original patent that's expired