Connecting the dots
Tucked inside issue #7 of JPG magazine is a very brief article about an on-line resource called the Rasterbator. Regardless of your feelings about onanism or lame puns about it, this art project engine is worth a look. The program (dealing in half-toning, not raster layers despite the pun) will take in a digital photo and spit out a printable .pdf file. The printed pages are then cobbled together to form a (potentially very large) blow-up of your original picture. To connect the dots, this means that you can enlarge any picture[1] to a size as massive as you want through half-toning, the big-dot printing seen on billboards.
[1] The on-line engine will process photos up to 1 MB in size; the free downloadable application has no size limit.
Well, this I had to try.
In the same issue of JPG there’s an article on recycling CD jewel boxes for displaying photographs. Though the magazine didn’t connect these two dots, it seemed natural to merge the two projects. There was an area of wall in the front room that had felt rather empty and was asking for something a bit under a meter wide to fill it. Enter the Rasterbator.
Because the application’s strength is in producing massive images meant to be seen at a distance, by default it expects to print on A4 or 8.5 x 11 paper. However, you can set it to produce an output file with larger or smaller ‘puzzle pieces’. It also allows you to set maximum dot size, and your choice has a lot to do with how the image will look at different distances. 1 mm dots produce a grainy photo-like look (and consume all of your printer’s ink); 10 mm dots would be good for a wall-size Che Guevara, say. All of the settings are adjustable, though, and I wanted a pseudo-impressionistic look, so I upped contrast and saturation in the source image and set the Rasterbator to produce medium dots in small images.
In seconds[2] the Finnish software converts your photo (in this case a detail cropped from an old, lo-res tourist shot taken on Easter Monday, 2005) into the .pdf file ready for download. Print it out, trim margins away, assemble, and BAM! Homemade posters of your photographs in sizes limited only by available wall space and printer ink.
[2] Seconds once you are ready; I spent the better part of a Saturday night dicking around with various pictures and settings. It is way too much fun.
Here’s the end result:
Technical chatter: this image is 71 x 62 cm (or 28 x 24 inches, five CD cases high by five wide). It’s based on about 1/4 of a snapshot that was just 500 pixels wide, and Rasterbated with a maximum dot size of 5 mm.
What I like about it is that, as with the brushstrokes in an oil painting, the picture looks different depending on how close you are to it, and that it manages to do so by looking both industrial and impressionistic. It invites both distant glances and close examination. You get to see how many small and simple elements combine to create the illusion of something complex. Here’s another detail, the winged lion of Saint Mark against Adriatic sky:
Related: Jane has good things to say about Qoop, who will take your photos and make posters that don’t look like a game of Battleship
Ooohhh. Ahhhhh.
I’ll have to muck about with this. I like your results.
“Hillbilly, Mon Amour or something.” Heh.
Comment by Jane — Wednesday 10 January 07 @ 11.35 MST+2.00
Hey. It’s back.
Comment by Jane — Wednesday 10 January 07 @ 23.45 MST+2.00
Damn you! Damn you! Like I needed this! This is the coolest thing since martinis in the office. How many precious hours will I lose to you and your little projects? I have to do one of these now. Especially now that I have a whole house to decorate and little money to use to do so.
Comment by jdog — Thursday 11 January 07 @ 04.43 MST+2.00