3 ms·

I tried something related many years ago; to evolve a image format that should be tiny: https://medium.com/@JuliusHuijnk/experiment-in-evolving-the-smallest-im

I tried something related many years ago; to evolve a image format that should be tiny: https://medium.com/@JuliusHuijnk/experiment-in-evolving-the-smallest-image-file-format-6c689e7ec79e https://medium.com/@JuliusHuijnk/experiment-in-evolving-the-... To be honest I haven't yet read the original article, since it's huge. It seems to aim for something compareable.

thomascountz 2y ago
Very cool results! Our approaches were similar, but I very quickly steered away from evolving geometry (squares/triangles) and went to points/coordinates and Delaunay triangulation. This also meant I avoided overlaps and gradients, which meant I was bound to the specific low-poly esthetic. Thank you for sharing; I think your intuits hypothesis of using EAs for compression is fascinating!
- Lerc 2y ago
  I can't read the article for comparison, I think it got hugged to death. Here's my one https://fingswotidun.com/blag/shaderpic1/ https://fingswotidun.com/blag/shaderpic1/ You can drag and drop images to set a new goal image. I used coloured triangle pairs with a small set of combination operations and a soft edge falloff. A write up of sorts at http://blag.fingswotidun.com/2016/05/evolved-images-using-shader-peliminary.html http://blag.fingswotidun.com/2016/05/evolved-images-using-sh... I'll look later when the rush dies down to see how they compare. [edit] I just realised it's been almost 10 years and I'm back to doing the same thing in a different domain. Right now I have a computer training an AutoEncoder to make the best 128 byte 32x32RGB images it can.
  - thomascountz 2y ago
    Wow! You're interactive demo is awesome! I had to dig up the original post by Roger Alsing[1] as it seems to have inspired a few people. I hadn't thought of evolutionary algorithms being used for image compression before; evolving from pixels to polygons creates a tool artistic expression, but also has utility for data compression (even if it's lossy). I wonder what other data formats could be compressed via evolution! [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20170116042711/https://rogerjohansson.blog/2008/12/07/genetic-programming-evolution-of-mona-lisa/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170116042711/https://rogerjoha...
SoothingSorbet 2y ago
I love your idea of using it for compression. I didn't notice a link to any code, would you be open to sharing the code? I'd love to take a look at how you did things and play around with it myself.

thomascountz 2y ago

Very cool results! Our approaches were similar, but I very quickly steered away from evolving geometry (squares/triangles) and went to points/coordinates and Delaunay triangulation. This also meant I avoided overlaps and gradients, which meant I was bound to the specific low-poly esthetic. Thank you for sharing; I think your intuits hypothesis of using EAs for compression is fascinating!

Lerc 2y ago
I can't read the article for comparison, I think it got hugged to death. Here's my one https://fingswotidun.com/blag/shaderpic1/ https://fingswotidun.com/blag/shaderpic1/ You can drag and drop images to set a new goal image. I used coloured triangle pairs with a small set of combination operations and a soft edge falloff. A write up of sorts at http://blag.fingswotidun.com/2016/05/evolved-images-using-shader-peliminary.html http://blag.fingswotidun.com/2016/05/evolved-images-using-sh... I'll look later when the rush dies down to see how they compare. [edit] I just realised it's been almost 10 years and I'm back to doing the same thing in a different domain. Right now I have a computer training an AutoEncoder to make the best 128 byte 32x32RGB images it can.
- thomascountz 2y ago
  Wow! You're interactive demo is awesome! I had to dig up the original post by Roger Alsing[1] as it seems to have inspired a few people. I hadn't thought of evolutionary algorithms being used for image compression before; evolving from pixels to polygons creates a tool artistic expression, but also has utility for data compression (even if it's lossy). I wonder what other data formats could be compressed via evolution! [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20170116042711/https://rogerjohansson.blog/2008/12/07/genetic-programming-evolution-of-mona-lisa/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170116042711/https://rogerjoha...

SoothingSorbet 2y ago

I love your idea of using it for compression. I didn't notice a link to any code, would you be open to sharing the code? I'd love to take a look at how you did things and play around with it myself.