Project 2: Fake Miniatures

by Nara Kasbergen

The goal of this project was to create fake miniatures or a tilt-shift camera affect using only code. I accomplished this by letting the user select the area of the image that should be in focus (by selecting a single point) and then progressively blurring the image more the farther away from the focal plane you go, with an exponentially increasing distance. To achieve the blur, the code does a convolution of the image with a 3x3 Gaussian filter. I also increased the saturation of each image to help achieve the look of a miniature, which are usually brightly painted.

Limitations: I did not have time to implement any bells & whistles, so while the results look relatively good and convincing at arm's length, up close one can tell that the algorithm is not optimal, particularly because the focal plane is just that — a plane — and it does not take into account certain objects in the image that might have an irregular shape extending beyond the focal plane but that still should be in focus. I understand the theory of how to get around this, but I did not have time to implement it.

The Results

Note: The images below are thumbnailed to save bandwidth and to fit on the page nicely.

Given Images

Flickr Images

Image credit: Image #1; Image #2

Personal Images

Images #1-2 were taken during my study abroad in Japan. Images #3-5 were taken in San Francisco, CA.

See all images