Keep the Show on the Road! Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 In my never ending quest to find new and more exciting ways to present two lane road stories and pictures, I have been experimenting with morphs. I will present one here for your viewing pleasure. I solicit your comments as to whether this is a suitable way to present “then and now” photos. The images below are taken on Tower St in downtown Centralia, Washington along one old alignment of the Pacific Highway (US 99). The B&W is probably early 1940’s and my “now” photo was taken earlier this week. US 99 Centralia, WA 1940 – 2009 BTW, this is a large Flash file (about 20mb) so the first pass may be a bit slow and jumpy depending on your network speed.. Wait for it to pan all the way across the street, then when it repeats it should be display smoothly. Comments and advice, please Keep the Show on the Road! Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Reese Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 I solicit your comments as to whether this is a suitable way to present “then and now” photos. The images below are taken on Tower St in downtown Centralia, Washington along one old alignment of the Pacific Highway (US 99). The B&W is probably early 1940’s and my “now” photo was taken earlier this week. US 99 Centralia, WA 1940 – 2009 BTW, this is a large Flash file (about 20mb) so the first pass may be a bit slow and jumpy depending on your network speed.. Wait for it to pan all the way across the street, then when it repeats it should be display smoothly. Dave Dave, Quite impressive and enjoyable. I really enjoyed that and look forward to more of these items from you. Too bad you are not available to do them of some East Coast locations that I know. Keep them coming!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DennyG Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Very cool. The impressive part is how you managed to match the position and perspective of the 1940's shot. During the first couple of passes, I looked for a "synch point" but soon realized that every building was at darned near the exact same position and angle in both pictures. Very nicely done. I think it's a great method for presenting "then & now" views. Static side-by-side pictures still seem the best way to do a serious comparison but the morphing technique, besides being entertaining, can augment that when it's done with the precision of this one. Definitely a winner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobilene Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Nifty! For a second, it felt like I was watching a PBS documentary about how a town had changed over the years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keep the Show on the Road! Posted January 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Denny and Jim, Yah, I almost got hit by a truck in order to get the same angle! But there is no danger too great to bring the gang at the American Road Forum the best in two lane entertainment and knowledge…..right!? The piece of software I am using (ambrosoft fantamorph 4) is quite amazing. It does morphs as does other software, but adds the ability to pan and zoom, which when used sparingly can add “life” to the morphed images. The panning also tends to obscure (distract attention from) distortions introduced by the morph process. Denny’s observation about the buildings matching is probably the key advantage to morphing. If you had the two photos in hand, you would see that the vanishing points differ a little, but by matching points in each photo, the morph distorts the images to match. So long as the “now” photo is taken with care to match, the warping in the morph is not obvious. Anyway, it is another “toy,” along with 3D and HDR, to make my very modest photographic skills “stand out.” I use the same method when I sing….I can’t carry a tune, but I add lots of facial expressions and hand gestures! Keep the Show on the Road! Dave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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