Microsoft Research creates HDR ​hallucinati​on (without drugs)

A few weeks ago the Microsoft Research TechFest was on, and everyone feasted their eyes on some of the amazing technologies MSR had to show off. But there was one that didn't get mentioned, or at least I don't it did, otherwise I'd look rather foolish.

Anyhow, the technology is called “High Dynamic Range Image Hallucination” and is as good as hallucinations go. In a nutshell, if you like nuts, they can recreate detail lost from low-dynamic range photographs to create high-dynamic range photographs.

The result? Over-exposure and under-exposure is simply a few brushstrokes to fix. This should appeal to photographs all the way from amatuer to professional, since everyone makes mistakes.

Here's a few screencaps.

Check out my blog post on it with a YouTube video of their presentation.

wow, thanks for this TechFest report, longzheng.

MS Research once again proved they totally rock

WOW, thanks for this coooooooooooool stuff. [A]

MSR really do rock! now then...

It's sad that we can't download the program and play with it, just like Photosynth. Lot's of interesting things but we can't play with it.

Why do they even release any papers if we can't play with it?

ZippyV wrote:



It's sad that we can't download the program and play with it, just like Photosynth. Lot's of interesting things but we can't play with it.

Why do they even release any papers if we can't play with it?

Because this is Microsoft Research, not Microsoft.

longzheng wrote:



ZippyV wrote: It's sad that we can't download the program and play with it, just like Photosynth. Lot's of interesting things but we can't play with it. Why do they even release any papers if we can't play with it?

Because this is Microsoft Research, not Microsoft.

Aw, come on.



I do wish more researchers would post here, though. Why don't they?

By the way, although Photosynth is interesting, but it doesn't take a lot of work to write a program that let's you flip and display photographs in 3-D (I was able to do that last night in fact). I wonder how much work it would take to come up with some useful searching algorithms...

thumbtacks2 wrote:

By the way, although Photosynth is interesting, but it doesn't take a lot of work to write a program that let's you flip and display photographs in 3-D (I was able to do that last night in fact).

Photosynth flips photographs in 3D......did you even look at the thing? Look at the videos on it?

I thought version one of thumbtacks was pathetic enough. Was hoping a 2.0 would be some improvement.

thumbtacks2 wrote:

By the way, although Photosynth is interesting, but it doesn't take a lot of work to write a program that let's you flip and display photographs in 3-D.

This is not the most interesting part of Photosynth. It's the application that puts everything in a 3D environment based on those pictures. I'd like to take some pictures myself from my town and see how the results from that. I'm not interested in the places they've shown on their site.

Harlequin wrote:



thumbtacks2 wrote: By the way, although Photosynth is interesting, but it doesn't take a lot of work to write a program that let's you flip and display photographs in 3-D (I was able to do that last night in fact).

Photosynth flips photographs in 3D......did you even look at the thing? Look at the videos on it?

I thought version one of thumbtacks was pathetic enough. Was hoping a 2.0 would be some improvement.

?

Yes, I watched the video, thanks. And looked at lots of screenshots. No, I haven't installed it, though. I realize there are significant algorithms behind it, and I do realize its intent. I thought it was an interesting idea. Is it so original that it cannot be done by anyone else? No, I don't think so.

But like Paolo said, I need to "focus" on one project at a time.

Come to think of it...maybe I'll stop posting here, too, for a while.

Like a real long time.

It just gets tiring how you guys sit and praise the Research department like everything they do is groundbreaking. It really isn't sometimes. But I think it would be better if I continue to spend most of my energy proving that point in terms of code and not wasting my time here.

C'ya.

I think all research departments are groundbreaking, in every industry on the planet. That's what makes them research departments

thumbtacks2 wrote:

Come to think of it...maybe I'll stop posting here, too, for a while.

Like a real long time.

It just gets tiring how you guys sit and praise the Research department like everything they do is groundbreaking. It really isn't sometimes. But I think it would be better if I continue to spend most of my energy proving that point in terms of code and not wasting my time here.

C'ya.

Until tomorrow!

Bas wrote:



thumbtacks2 wrote: Come to think of it...maybe I'll stop posting here, too, for a while. Like a real long time. It just gets tiring how you guys sit and praise the Research department like everything they do is groundbreaking. It really isn't sometimes. But I think it would be better if I continue to spend most of my energy proving that point in terms of code and not wasting my time here. C'ya.

Until tomorrow!

No, I'm serious. I have lots of great ideas I'm in the process of implementing. It's just a shame that when MS researchers or other researchers from other companies do post on this site you guys manage to either ignore them or let the conversation pretty much tank. Heck, it looks like you even got Miguel de Icaza to post here and the reaction was really flat. What's up with that? I remember a search engine guy coming here a ways back who built a search engine out of .NET. Not that I found that too exciting being .NET and all that, but the fact that he built one was interesting. That takes significant skill. It's just really weird to watch this happen day in and day out, and it probably explains why more research types don't show up here and probably never will.

thumbtacks2 wrote:



Bas wrote:  thumbtacks2 wrote: Come to think of it...maybe I'll stop posting here, too, for a while. Like a real long time. It just gets tiring how you guys sit and praise the Research department like everything they do is groundbreaking. It really isn't sometimes. But I think it would be better if I continue to spend most of my energy proving that point in terms of code and not wasting my time here. C'ya. Until tomorrow!

No, I'm serious. I have lots of great ideas I'm in the process of implementing. It's just a shame that when MS researchers or other researchers from other companies do post on this site you guys manage to either ignore them or let the conversation pretty much tank. Heck, it looks like you even got Miguel de Icaza to post here and the reaction was really flat. What's up with that? I remember a search engine guy coming here a ways back who built a search engine out of .NET. Not that I found that too exciting being .NET and all that, but the fact that he built one was interesting. That takes significant skill. It's just really weird to watch this happen day in and day out, and it probably explains why more research types don't show up here and probably never will.

Perhaps but with condescending comments like..

thumbtacks2 wrote:


By the way, although Photosynth is interesting, but it doesn't take a lot of work to write a program that let's you flip and display photographs in 3-D (I was able to do that last night in fact).

Don’t expect to many ears and mouths moving in a favorable direction toward you.

What is probably an enormous amount of research and work, over the course of a large time span being reduced into a single night of work by yourself; doesn’t provide merit toward the validity of what your saying.

thumbtacks2 wrote:


Heck, it looks like you even got Miguel de Icaza to post here and the reaction was really flat. What's up with that?

I remember Miguel de Icaza coming here followed by many people welcoming him here and asking him questions about Mono. I also remember people asking him to post here more often. I'm not sure how that qualifies as flat.

Sourcecode wrote:

thumbtacks2 wrote:  By the way, although Photosynth is interesting, but it doesn't take a lot of work to write a program that let's you flip and display photographs in 3-D (I was able to do that last night in fact).

Don’t expect to many ears and mouths moving in a favorable direction toward you.

What is probably an enormous amount of research and work, over the course of a large time span being reduced into a single night of work by yourself; doesn’t provide merit toward the validity of what your saying.

I was not trying to be condescending. My point was that over a few nights, I found it somewhat easy to put together an application that reads in bitmaps off a disk, pastes them as textures onto a series of quads, and then spread them out onscreen like photos on a table. From there I was able to add some basic keyboard code to allow you fly over the photos and zoom in on them. It wouldn't take much more work to add mouse functionality, allow those photos to be flipped over and even sort them into a photo-album type structure. The real work would be build a nice sorting algorithm, something that can sort through the photos in a useful manner, etc.

And yes, I do understand Photosynth does a lot more than that. I'm not knocking Photosynth; but what I am saying is that somebody with enough time and devotion can come up with equally impressive software without a huge budget...although a huge budget would definitely help I'm sure.

That's looks very useful. I could see myself using that for outdoor photographs.