Jerry O'Neill

Software ‘beautifies’ portraits

written by: Jerry O'Neill

Ah, digital photography— so full of promise and so full of mischief ! Now, in addition to software that slims us down to make us look more attractive and athletic in photos, there’s software that operates at a much more subtle level to “beautify” our faces, using mathematical formulas to morph the original face into a version that’s very similar but (theoretically) more attractive. At the same time, the inventors—Tommer Leyvand and three colleagues at universities in Tel Aviv—say the improved version always shows what they call an “unmistakable similarity” to the original. The screenshot showing the Digital Face Beautification Read more »

Biggest Stereo Camera in the Universe?

And Other Wonders of the Solar System in Online Photos
written by: Jerry O'Neill

The wonderful photos of the planets, moons, and Sun taken by space probes must surely be one of the great accomplishments of humanity’s first steps into space. And most of them are available online, free for non-commercial use. One of the less-known space programs is STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory), a rather contrived acronym, but a fine description of what the program does—it makes stereo photographs of the Sun’s surface using two spacecraft, separated by well over 100 million miles. (Compare that to the normal separation of 63-65 mm between the two lenses of a stereo camera, the same as Read more »