Woodpecker: Smart image resizer

By Avi Muchnick on September 30, 2007 | 14 comments

One of the new Flex-based design tools we recently demonstrated at the TechCrunch40 conference is Woodpecker, a smart image resizer.



Woodpecker is the newest addition to our growing list of web-based design tools and also serves as an interesting experiment for us, in that it is the first application to be built using the Aviary Framework. Although it is being built specifically to be included as a part of the Aviary suite, we are also using it as a prototype for the platform model we ultimately hope to enable: Namely to let developers profit from the tools and additional functionality they build into our framework.

Woodpecker is based on a concept called Seam Carving, pioneered by the brilliant Dr. Ariel Shamir, now employed by Adobe. Seam Carving is a method through which an image is cropped without harming the important content of an image.

Without any advanced editing on the part of the user, Woodpecker can take you from this:



to this:



We considered this a really neat addition to our growing suite of web applications, and a quick one to develop as well. Our development team was able to build Woodpecker onto our framework in approximately 20 man-hours. Here's a quick tour of Woodpecker in action. Of the few Flash demos of Seam Carving that have gone up, Woodpecker is the most complete to date.

Woodpecker allows for precision control during mask painting (for protection and removal of specific items in an image). This means that you can protect (or auto-remove) specific parts of your image just by painting them green or red!



Woodpecker allows for multiple methods of seam carving (including novice and expert modes), which is very useful because not all images will display good results when carved using the same methods.



It allows for pixel addition as well, which means in addition to being able to remove pixels from an image, Woodpecker can also enlarge an image without warping the important content! Imagine the possibilities when trying to fill a specific sized frame, to not have to rely on the clone stamp tool in Photoshop (or Phoenix) to get a natural looking background.

Woodpecker will also be available on AIR as a stand alone desktop tool. We're giving out beta access to it (just sign up for image editing beta invites).

If you're currently at Adobe Max in Chicago and would like to see Woodpecker (or any tool in the suite), drop us an email at aviary( a )worth1000.com.

To learn more about seam carving in general, here's a (pretty viral) video of seam carving using Dr. Shamir's desktop tool.

<a href='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NcIJXTlugc' class='author' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'><b>flash video</b></a>