Seam Carving

Group Description

Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing is a paper written by Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir on a new technique to reduce the size of an image while keeping its "semantic".

This group aims to present images modified by the technique explained in that paper, either following the original ideas or exploring variations around the algorithm.

If you want to learn about seam carving, first have look to this
astonishing video illustrating the paper of Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir: "Seam Carving for Content-Aware Image Resizing".

Paper abstract:
Effective resizing of images should not only use geometric constraints, but consider the image content as well. We present a simple image operator called seam carving that supports content-aware image resizing for both reduction and expansion. A seam is an optimal 8-connected path of pixels on a single image from top to bottom, or left to right, where optimality is defined by an image energy function. By repeatedly carving out or inserting seams in one direction we can change the aspect ratio of an image. By applying these operators in both directions we can retarget the image to a new size. The selection and order of seams protect the content of the image, as defined by the energy function. Seam carving can also be used for image content enhancement and object removal. We support various visual saliency measures for defining the energy of an image, and can also include user input to guide the process. By storing the order of seams in an image we create multi-size images, that are able to continuously change in real time to fit a given size.

Posting rules:
This group is open to both artwork and experiments, it should be instructive so please detail which software or which algorithm you used and share your observations with us.
When possible, try to post also the original image in a comment or diptych.

If you want to try:
Some people already made first implementations of seamcarving:
A GPL command-line implementation by Andy Owen
Wrapped in a GUI by Gabe Rudy
Ported in Java by Mathias Lux

A GPL command-line implementation in C# by Kai Strempel

Liquid resize for Windows and Linux, binaries only
[UPDATE] another group called Liquid Resize/Content-Aware Image Re-Sizing was created specifically for this program, I invite you to check it.

Another implementation for Windows, by kometbomb(?)
Yet another one for Windows, by Mike Herf

An online version by Patrick Swieskowski

Actionscripts here and there

Mmm would be nice also to contribute to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seam_carving with relevant data...