Huge Problem - artifacts when zooming

I’m having a huge issue with my brand new fotomagico, whenever I zoom in on my images. The images gets major artificating (twitchy line of pixels that moves) or waves coming across the image.

I’ve tried many solutions with no luck. Has anyone else encountered this? Please help, the Boinx support has no idea what the problem is or how to fix it.

Peter

I’ll throw a few idea out there, but it’s possible none of them apply :-/

Are you trying to zoom in “too much”? You won’t be able to hold the resolution if you attempt a major zoom into a particular part of your image, unless the original image is of a high enough res to hold it. Most cameras actually result in low-res images (72 dpi to perhaps 180 dpi), so zooming in too far will result in pixelation.

Are you trying to zoom in “too fast”? That could also be a cause of pixelation. Slower zooms look more natural, but they also tend to look “smoother” as well.

Does your image contain thin “lines”? It’s the same problem newscasters have on TV – DON’T WEAR PINSTRIPED SUITS!! The thin stripes in the image intersect with the pixels on screen and result in “moire” patterns – which to us appear like pixelation. The line “twitches” a bit (using your term) and appears to glisten or shake or sparkle (hard to think of a term for it). As you zoom in, the pixels making up the thin lines will have that effect.

Again, those are just possible reasons for your problem. I’ve only had one image that caused me a problem, and that was a map which had thin latitude and longitude lines running across it at a slight angle to horizontal and vertical. As I zoomed in to a portion of the map, those lines created “moire” patterns on screen and looked funky. Other than that, nothing like what you’re describing has happened to me – yet.

Thanks for the advice Stantastic, but unfortunately I’m sure that those aren’t the problems. I’ve zoomed in very slowly, and i’ve tried a dozen different resolution sizes for the images. Also, it’s happening on any image with detail. The only images it doesn’t happen is on the two or three with bland, even backgrounds.

Thanks for the advice and help.

Hey Stantastic, I reviewed my show again, and the images that have lots of detail, like a moose with well defined hair, cause the problems…but most of my images are of those type.

Any thoughts on how to solve this?

No, I can’t really. If the pixelation is occurring ONLY in the “detail” areas, then at least you know where it’s going to happen, so it’s predictable. I suppose one option is to “soften” that area in Photoshop using a small blur amount, but that’s probably NOT what you would want to do – it will just take away from the crispness and high detail of your original image.

It’s possible this really has something to do with FM4 itself. I’d let the developers chime in at this point.

Hi there! It is always helpful to “see” the result in a short clip in order to make a judgement where such artifacts come from, maybe you can upload such a short clip to demonstrate the results you are seeing. @stantastic is right, that most of those artifacts come from sub-pixel rendering in the graphics card (aka Moiré Pattern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moiré_pattern ). We upload the image into the graphics card with the resolution most needed for presenting on screen. If you use a high zoom range, we need to hold a big image in the graphics card with much more detail than if you are e.g. just panning. This high detail causing the Moiré Patterns when the image is transitioning to zoomed out stage.

Hi Achim,

Unfortunately, I’m having trouble with the artifacts when I have a low zoom range, and i’m getting artifacts with the entire range of image sizes, from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160.

I’m trying to set up some live help, so we’ll see if we can get it fixed. Any other thoughts, what size of image would you suggest if I’m keeping it basically on the Ken Burns zoom that it is given when I load my images?

Peter

@petermather: I saw a slideshow you sent to support on 01/14/2013 and played it pack on my screen. I can see that the first image has some big problems. In the following I only can see a single line on screen that flickers. Those lines are present because we have to slice the image into lots of smaller tiles in order to get the image uploaded to the graphics card and not to be restricted to the maximum texture size a certain graphics card can handle. The advantage is that the upload of very big images isn’t noticeable. The disadvantage is that we got small artifacts in single lines. Please can you send the original image files from that slideshow to support(at)boinx.com with reference to this forum post? I want to examine theses closer. Unfortunately the images are encrypted in the slideshow you sent and there is now way for me to get them back.

Hey Achim, i’m not sure exactly what you want. Should I simply email you the images from the slideshow. Do you think you can solve this…I’m surprised this issue isn’t a problem for everyone, it is very distracting in the slideshows. It is possible everyone has this problem, but they don’t notice?? or do I have a bum copy. I’m very confused. I’ve got a big show coming up in two weeks, right now, to zoom in on my images, i have to import them into Final Cut Pro, create a zoom and export them as movies. ahhhha…please help!!!

@petermather: Yes, please send me just the original images you are using in the slideshow or even better the FotoMagico slideshow document you have used to create the stand alone player. In order to help you with this issue we need to reproduce it on our end.