User Guide

Crowd3
User Guide, v2.0

1. Create a folder for program artifacts.
2. Search your photos for people images.
3. Delete low quality people images.
4. Create a crowd image.
5. Save the crowd image to a disk file.

Getting Started

1. The first time you search for people images with Crowd3 you will be asked to locate or create a folder to hold Crowd3 artifacts. Choose any location that is writable by you. This folder will hold generated people images, a database, and the program log file.

2. Crowd3 needs to locate images of people in your photo collection. Press "Find people images in folders" and then "Select folders" and then select a folder containing photos. (Folders are searched recursively.) Crowd3 will analyze each photo and extract people images into your Crowd3 artifact folder. If this takes a long time because of a large number of photos, you can pause the process by canceling the progress dialog and later resume where you left off.

3. For the best quality crowd images, please review the people images found in step 2. The artificial intelligence technology used to locate people in photos is very good, maybe too good for this purpose, but not perfect. Delete the images that will not look good in crowd scenes. The best images will be those of people showing some of their upper body and looking directly toward the camera. Images with partial faces, faces looking away, very large or very small faces, backs of heads, too much background, or images that are too light or dark should be deleted. The Crowd3 people images are stored in the location you chose in step 1.

This step may be the most time consuming one. However, you only need to review the people images once. When the Crowd3 people collection is complete you can create any number of crowd images. Attention to this step will greatly improve the quality of your crowd scenes.

4. To create a crowd scene image, open the crowd scene maker window. Press "Create a crowd scene."

5. In the crowd scene creator window, specify the characteristics of your desired crowd scene. To use the default values just press "Create." Your crowd scene will appear.

6. That's it! Read about the crowd options below.

Choose Choose the folders to be used in a crowd scene. This will present a folder tree showing all the folders analyzed by Crowd3 and the original number of people images discovered. (You may have deleted some of them.) You may use shift-click to check/uncheck a range of folders from first checked to last checked at the current tree level. Use the Match field to check/uncheck folders whose names contain the match string.

Number of people Specify the number of people to appear in a crowd scene. You may specify a number from 1 to 1000. The number is approximate since some images will overlap the edges of the scene.

Density Select "low" to provide slightly more space per person on the image. Low will display slightly more upper body and slightly less overlap of faces. High will be better if your images don't have any/much upper body.

Simulate depth Select "yes" if perspective should be simulated in the crowd scene. If so, people in back rows will be reduced in size. If not, all people will be the same size.

Grayscale Select "yes" if color images should be converted to black & white. This is a good choice if your crowd contains a mixture of color and black/white images.

Image size Specify the pixel width and height of the crowd scene image. You may specify 1280×800 (16:10 ratio), 1400×1050 (4:3), or 1920×1080 (16:9). Alternatively, you may specify a background image which will determine the size of the crowd image.

Background file This field contains the name of the selected background image file. Several sample background files are supplied with Crowd3. On Windows, the background files are in <installation folder>\crowd3\app-<version>\resources\app\backgrounds. On Linux, the background files are in /usr/lib/crowd3/resources/app/backgrounds.

Create Create a new crowd scene using random people images from the selected folders.

Shuffle Create a new crowd scene using exactly the same people images as the current crowd scene but in a different order.

Save Write the crowd scene image to a JPEG file.

Do not delete the Crowd3 database file, crowd3.db, in Crowd3 artifacts folder.

Crowd3 analyzes and creates JPEG files only. The Crowd3 image collection is stored in PNG files.

The "Find people images..." function takes varying amounts of time per image, anywhere from one second to several minutes. The rate depends on computer speed, memory size, image size, and number of people in the image. The artificial intelligence software used by Crowd3 was "trained" on low resolution images. Your photo collection is most likely high resolution so significant time may be needed for multiple searches of scaled versions of your images. Consider letting the program run overnight for large photo collections.

Do not expect the "Find people images..." function to find all the people in an image. AI technology is imperfect.

Crowd3 may have difficulty separating the person from the background when the background colors are similar to the person's face or hair colors. Also, faces close together may be difficult to separate.

If there are images in the Crowd3 image collection that you like but are not quite right, you may edit them with a photo editor. Cropping the image or clearing unwanted pixels may greatly improve the image in crowd scenes.

Canceling the "Find people images..." function may take several seconds. The in-progress operation has to finish.

Expect people images in the Crowd3 collection to require about 400 KB each, or about one gigabyte for 2500 people images.

A list of people image filenames in the latest crowd image is saved in "crowdPeople.log" in the Crowd3 artifacts folder.

In case of error, Crowd3 writes to a file named "crowd3.log" in the Crowd3 artifacts folder.

See the list of known problems here.

Please report defects, inconsistencies, and oddities to dennis508@yahoo.com. Please supply as much information as possible so that the problem can be reproduced and fixed. Useful information includes error messages, the program log file, screenshots, the image files causing the problem, and a description of what you did and saw.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome. Send email to dennis508@yahoo.com.


	Crowd3 creates images of crowd scenes using the people in your photo collection. Create a fantasy crowd with your friends from here and there and from then and now. Getting Started 1. Create a folder for program artifacts. 2. Search your photos for people images. 3. Delete low quality people images. 4. Create a crowd image. 5. Save the crowd image to a disk file. Share your crowd images with friends and family. Enjoy.
	Getting Started 1. The first time you search for people images with Crowd3 you will be asked to locate or create a folder to hold Crowd3 artifacts. Choose any location that is writable by you. This folder will hold generated people images, a database, and the program log file. 2. Crowd3 needs to locate images of people in your photo collection. Press "Find people images in folders" and then "Select folders" and then select a folder containing photos. (Folders are searched recursively.) Crowd3 will analyze each photo and extract people images into your Crowd3 artifact folder. If this takes a long time because of a large number of photos, you can pause the process by canceling the progress dialog and later resume where you left off. 3. For the best quality crowd images, please review the people images found in step 2. The artificial intelligence technology used to locate people in photos is very good, maybe too good for this purpose, but not perfect. Delete the images that will not look good in crowd scenes. The best images will be those of people showing some of their upper body and looking directly toward the camera. Images with partial faces, faces looking away, very large or very small faces, backs of heads, too much background, or images that are too light or dark should be deleted. The Crowd3 people images are stored in the location you chose in step 1. This step may be the most time consuming one. However, you only need to review the people images once. When the Crowd3 people collection is complete you can create any number of crowd images. Attention to this step will greatly improve the quality of your crowd scenes. 4. To create a crowd scene image, open the crowd scene maker window. Press "Create a crowd scene." 5. In the crowd scene creator window, specify the characteristics of your desired crowd scene. To use the default values just press "Create." Your crowd scene will appear. 6. That's it! Read about the crowd options below.
	Crowd Options Choose Choose the folders to be used in a crowd scene. This will present a folder tree showing all the folders analyzed by Crowd3 and the original number of people images discovered. (You may have deleted some of them.) You may use shift-click to check/uncheck a range of folders from first checked to last checked at the current tree level. Use the Match field to check/uncheck folders whose names contain the match string. Number of people Specify the number of people to appear in a crowd scene. You may specify a number from 1 to 1000. The number is approximate since some images will overlap the edges of the scene. Density Select "low" to provide slightly more space per person on the image. Low will display slightly more upper body and slightly less overlap of faces. High will be better if your images don't have any/much upper body. Simulate depth Select "yes" if perspective should be simulated in the crowd scene. If so, people in back rows will be reduced in size. If not, all people will be the same size. Grayscale Select "yes" if color images should be converted to black & white. This is a good choice if your crowd contains a mixture of color and black/white images. Image size Specify the pixel width and height of the crowd scene image. You may specify 1280×800 (16:10 ratio), 1400×1050 (4:3), or 1920×1080 (16:9). Alternatively, you may specify a background image which will determine the size of the crowd image. Background file This field contains the name of the selected background image file. Several sample background files are supplied with Crowd3. On Windows, the background files are in <installation folder>\crowd3\app-<version>\resources\app\backgrounds. On Linux, the background files are in /usr/lib/crowd3/resources/app/backgrounds. Create Create a new crowd scene using random people images from the selected folders. Shuffle Create a new crowd scene using exactly the same people images as the current crowd scene but in a different order. Save Write the crowd scene image to a JPEG file.
	Some Notes Do not delete the Crowd3 database file, crowd3.db, in Crowd3 artifacts folder. Crowd3 analyzes and creates JPEG files only. The Crowd3 image collection is stored in PNG files. The "Find people images..." function takes varying amounts of time per image, anywhere from one second to several minutes. The rate depends on computer speed, memory size, image size, and number of people in the image. The artificial intelligence software used by Crowd3 was "trained" on low resolution images. Your photo collection is most likely high resolution so significant time may be needed for multiple searches of scaled versions of your images. Consider letting the program run overnight for large photo collections. Do not expect the "Find people images..." function to find all the people in an image. AI technology is imperfect. Crowd3 may have difficulty separating the person from the background when the background colors are similar to the person's face or hair colors. Also, faces close together may be difficult to separate. If there are images in the Crowd3 image collection that you like but are not quite right, you may edit them with a photo editor. Cropping the image or clearing unwanted pixels may greatly improve the image in crowd scenes. Canceling the "Find people images..." function may take several seconds. The in-progress operation has to finish. Expect people images in the Crowd3 collection to require about 400 KB each, or about one gigabyte for 2500 people images. A list of people image filenames in the latest crowd image is saved in "crowdPeople.log" in the Crowd3 artifacts folder. In case of error, Crowd3 writes to a file named "crowd3.log" in the Crowd3 artifacts folder. See the list of known problems here. Please report defects, inconsistencies, and oddities to dennis508@yahoo.com. Please supply as much information as possible so that the problem can be reproduced and fixed. Useful information includes error messages, the program log file, screenshots, the image files causing the problem, and a description of what you did and saw. Comments and suggestions are always welcome. Send email to dennis508@yahoo.com.