Photographic mosaic

Not to be confused with color filter mosaic.

A photographic mosaic of a sea gull made from pictures of birds and other nature photos using hexagonal tiles

In the field of photographic imaging, a photographic mosaic, also known under the term Photomosaic, a portmanteau of photo and mosaic, is a picture (usually a photograph) that has been divided into (usually equal sized) rectangular sections, each of which is replaced with another photograph that matches the target photo. When viewed at low magnifications, the individual pixels appear as the primary image, while close examination reveals that the image is in fact made up of many hundreds or thousands of smaller images. Most of the times they are a computer-created type of montage.

There are two kinds of mosaic, depending on how the matching is done. In the simpler kind, each part of the target image is averaged down to a single color. Each of the library images is also reduced to a single color. Each part of the target image is then replaced with one from the library where these colors are as similar as possible. In effect, the target image is reduced in resolution (by downsampling), and then each of the resulting pixels is replaced with an image whose average color matches that pixel.

In the more advanced kind of photographic mosaic, the target image is not downsampled, and the matching is done by comparing each pixel in the rectangle to the corresponding pixel from each library image. The rectangle in the target is then replaced with the library image that minimizes the total difference. This require much more computation than the simple kind, but the results can be much better since the pixel-by-pixel matching can preserve the resolution of the target image.

Originally, the term photomosaic referred to compound photographs created by stitching together a series of adjacent pictures of a scene. Space scientists have been assembling mosaics of this kind since at least as early as the Soviet Union space satellite missions to the moon in the late 1950s. The name photomosaic and an implementation concept were trademarked by Robert Silvers' Runaway Technology, Inc.

History

1993 Live from Bell Labs event poster

• 1993 Joseph Francis, working for R/Greenberg Associates in Manhattan, is believed to be the inventor of the modern-day computer-generated colour image versions. His Live from Bell Labs poster created in 1993 used computer-themed tile photographs to create a mosaic of a face ( Ryszard Horowitz/ Photography and Art Direction, Robert Bowen/ Digital Artist). He went on to create a mosaic for Animation Magazine in 1993, which was repeated in Wired Magazine (November 1994, p. 106). Francis has said on his "History of Photo Mosaics" webpage that his interest in developing these techniques further was in part stimulated by the work of artist Chuck Close.

• 1994 Dave McKean creates an image for DC Comics, a mosaic of a face made from photos of faces, although this is believed to be created manually using Photoshop.

• 1994 Adam Finkelstein and Sandy Farrier create a mosaic of John F. Kennedy from parts of Marilyn Monroe pictures. The result was displayed in the Xerox PARC Algorithmic Art Show in 1994.

• 1994 Benetton: AIDS - Faces mosaic. Over one thousand young peoples' portraits from all over the word computer-processed spell out the word AIDS.

• 1995 The Gioconda Sapiens, a face with ten thousand faces, was presented to the public in April 1995 (Spain, Domus museum). This was the first large photographic mosaic, using photographs of 10,062 people from 110 countries to make the Mona Lisa.

• 1995 Adam Finkelstein (published mosaic in Mossy Bits) creates a mosaic of the oil painting American Gothic from images collected from the Web in early 1995.

2000 Puzzle photographic mosaic of the Royal Albert Hall

• 1995 Robert Silvers creates a Photomosaic and goes on to trademark the term Photomosaic and patent creation of Photomosaics in 1997.

• 2000 Andrej Olejnik creates the first pattern-based photographic mosaics rendered with Mosaic Creator software.

• 2003 Doubletake Images creates the world's largest photographic mosaic—over 10,000 square feet (1,000 m²). The live event took place at Disneyland and was created by thousands of castmembers holding up photographs of themselves.[1]

• 2004 Roy Feinson creates a series of 38 giant mosaic murals to celebrate Disneyland's 50th Anniversary in which 250,000 guest-submitted photographs were used. [2] The project included the first tri-level mosaic, comprising an image of Steamboat Willie made up of photographs of Disney castmembers, which themselves were mosaics made up of over 150,000 guest photographs.[3]

• 2006 Picture Mosaics creates the first 3D scatter mosaic for Fox's hit show American Idol. The technique uses photos that are rotated in varying degrees and overlapping each other to mimic the effect of a collection of photos that are scattered across a surface. View the scatter mosaic example

Artistic aspects

There is debate over wether Photomosaics are an art or mere technique. The making of a photomosaic is sometimes paralled and compared to forms of artistic appropriation, like literary assemblage.

Trademark and intellectual property of the concept

Robert Silvers, a Master's student at MIT, filed for a trademark on the term Photomosaic on September 3, 1996. This trademark was registered on August 12, 2003.

Silvers also applied for a U.S. patent on the production of Photomosaics on January 2, 1997, which was granted as US 6137498  in October 2000 and has been assigned to Runaway Technology, Inc. Patent applications in other countries were also filed, and patents granted include EP 0852363 , JP 10269353 , CA 2226059 , and AU 723815B . He is quoted as saying: "By being granted this patent in the United States and other countries, we can protect our proprietary innovations and continue to make unique artwork." In September 2008, the Public Patent Foundation filed a formal request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to review certain claims in the US 6137498  on photomosaics. The request was granted and a reexamination proceeding ensued. On August 31, 2010, the USPTO issued a Reexamination Certificate confirming the patentability of all claims in the patent which were amended to refer to shape matching (a feature that contributes to the high resolution of photomosaics).

There are a number of other commercial companies that create mosaics with photos. Since there has been no litigation of these patents, these companies must therefore either use processes that do not infringe on the particular claimed process, have licenses under the patents, or are infringing those patents but Runaway Technology has chosen not to bring infringement proceedings.

Silvers' patent may be regarded as a software patent, a subject over which there is a great deal of debate. For example, Article 52(2)(c) EPC states that "programs for computers as such" are not regarded as patentable inventions. Nevertheless, current practice relating to computer-implemented inventions under the EPC means that a process that provides a technical effect may be patented even if it is implemented by a computer.

The UK patent deriving from EP 0852363  became the subject of revocation proceedings in July 2006. In September 2009, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK-IPO) decided that the patent should not be revoked and terminated the proceeding. This decision was made by the UKIPO and not the European Patent Office (EPO) which originally granted the patent since no opposition to the European patent was filed within the nine-month post-grant period.

Interactive and social mosaics

Seemingly a natural transition from standard media, photographic mosaics have found a unique place in the quickly expanding social networking world. Visitors can submit photos to be included into in a growing social interactive mosaic experience. Interactive mosaic themselves have become mini-social networks by joining people of common interests and causes into one place. A live example of this type of mosaic is the Meow Mosaic.

Video mosaic

Photographic mosaics are typically formed from a collection of still images. A more recent phenomenon, however, has been the use of video mosaics where, instead of using still images, video clips are assembled to create a larger image. As an example, the closing credits of the 2005 PlayStation 2 game God of War incorporated a still image of the main character, Kratos, formed from a number of in-game videos.

Another definition of the term video mosaic is the creation of one large still image from the stitching together of adjacent frames of video. A common application of this is with aerial video taken of a geographic feature like a road or a city. Instead of having to watch an entire video to get an idea of what the feature looks like, a mosaic of the relevant frames can be generated. Mosaicing or mosaicking can be used to save both time and bandwidth, since still images are much smaller than video.

See also

• ASCII art
• Impressionist mosaics
• Micrography
• Wikimedia logo mosaic

References

• Cartwright, Angela (2007) Mixed Emulsions: Altered Art Techniques for Photographic Imagery
• Francis, Joseph History of Photo Mosaics
• Menke, Richard (2008) Telegraphic realism: Victorian fiction and other information systems
• Silvers, Robert (2000) Photomosaic portraits
• A Short History of PhotoTiled Pictures includes a sample of Dave McKean's 1994 DC Comics photographic mosaic.