DeepX

Add a new dimension to your pixels!

About

As a child, I really loved looking at stereograms from various magazines and newspapers. I eagerly searched for them in every publication. As an adult, I realized that now I can create them myself. I hope you too are amazed at how easily the human eye can be fooled.

The implementation of the algorithm is based on a scientific publication of Harold W. Thimbleby (University of Stirling), Stuart Inglis and Ian H. Witten (University of Waikato).

Quick Start

Make sure you have the latest version of the golang compiler installed.

Currently, the creation of stereograms is supported only based on other images (i.e. masks)

Prepare your mask image. For example:

The mask image will be interpreted as monochrome, regardless of the actual number of colors encoded in that image. All pixels in the mask image that have a zero alpha channel (transparent) will be ignored (by default), and the remaining pixels will be included in the final mask image.

You can specify your own color, which should be considered transparent for each specific mask.

Create a new .go file and import deepX package. Write a piece of code that will load the mask image and convert it into a stereogram:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"image/png"
	"os"

	"github.com/MonkeyBuisness/deepx"
)

func main() {
	// INFO: load mask image.
	mask, err := os.OpenFile("mask.png", os.O_RDONLY, os.ModePerm)
	if err != nil {
		panic(fmt.Errorf("could not load mask: %v", err))
	}
	defer mask.Close()

	// INFO: generate stereogram.
	stereogramImg, err := deepx.NewStereogramFromMask(mask,
		// INFO: set a custom palette colors.
		deepx.WithColorPalette(
			deepx.MustColorFromHex("#6ad6e3"),
			deepx.MustColorFromHex("#000000"),
		),

		// INFO: increase the default DPI to avoid stereogram artifacts.
		deepx.WithOutputDPI(144),

		// INFO: the mask has a #6ad6e3 color as a background, select it as transparent.
		deepx.WithMaskTransparentColor(deepx.MustColorFromHex("#ffffff")),
	)
	if err != nil {
		panic(fmt.Errorf("could not generate stereogram image: %v", err))
	}

	// INFO: save the image with gererated stereogram.
	out, err := os.OpenFile("result.png", os.O_CREATE|os.O_WRONLY, os.ModePerm)
	if err != nil {
		panic(fmt.Errorf("could not open file to write stereogram: %v", err))
	}
	defer out.Close()
	if err := png.Encode(out, stereogramImg); err != nil {
		panic(fmt.Errorf("could not encode stereogram into png image: %v", err))
	}
}

The library code is documented, so refer to it for additional functionality.

Run your program:

$ go run main.go

Result:

You can find more examples here.

General Tips

To achieve better generation result:

• Try not to use very large or very small images as masks
• If possible, convert the image to PNG format to explicitly indicate transparency
• Avoid images with a lot of detail or color
• If, after generating a stereogram, there are artifacts in the image, experiment with the values for the DPI parameter. Make it larger or smaller and see what results it produces
• Use contrasting colors (such as white and black) for the final palette, and don't use colors with low intensity