I like it, mainly because of the control over scene illumination.
You're suggesting a frosted filter effect having both a threshold and a
tolerance then I suppose.  Better yet would be a user-defined filter way of
doing it, perhaps an array describing the baseline method to use.  Something
similar to what I've seen in paint programs which might allow for a strength and
pattern to be set.  If anyone knows what I'm talking about.

Bob

"Glen Berry" <7no### [at] ezwvcom> wrote in message
news:4kCkON82VrkeyrJZYDr6QYRpJQfc@4ax.com...
| On Thu, 10 Feb 2000 17:44:38 -0800, "H.E. Day" <hed### [at] fcinet> wrote:
|
| >My first suggestion deals with the Soft_Blur feature.  Could someone put
| >a
| >third value, "tolerance"  to the syntax?  This would be helpful if the
| >artist wants only the bright parts to glow. (Like the lights on the
| >surface of a spaceship :)  1 would be only the brightest parts and 0
| >would be all the picture.
|
| I had also thought of basically the same idea, but it would be better
| grammar to use the word "Threshold" instead of "Tolerance", if you
| don't mind my saying so. Basically any pixel who's brightness exceeds
| a certain "threshold" would be made to glow. Alternately, one could
| assign two numbers instead of one, and declare a "range" of values
| that would have glow applied.  This might allow some interesting
| experimental special effects, because you could selectively blur only
| the shadows, midtones, or anything else that you desire.
|
| My original idea was to keep track of the individual image pixel
| values in floating point format and only apply effects to pixels that
| *exceeded* 1.0 in value. The actual threshold would be changeable for
| example, to something like 3, 12, or whatever you want. This way,
| perfect white surfaces which might have a value of 1.0 would not be
| blurred, but light sources which might exceed a value of 1.0 by a
| significant amount *would* be blurred.
|
| In fact, this threshold could be applied to things other than the
| current blur feature. Lens flare, comma distortion, and "cross" or
| star-shaped highlights come to mind as possible candidates for effects
| that would depend on a pixel brightness threshold.
|
| Does anyone else like the idea?
|
| later,
| Glen Berry

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