A while ago, I attended the farewell/retirement party for my friend Ed Covannon. You may remember Ed's posts in the blog-formerly-known-as-1000Nerds about China & Innovation. Held at a social establishment across the street from our previous work location (reduced to a pile of rubble, now cleaned up), the roast was emcee'd by another former co-worker who chooses to remain nameless.  Let's call him "Mr. X" - and since we're all friends here, we'll just call him "X". Ed's farewell was a great multi-media occasion. This, of course, is what happens when a bunch of nerds gather together to pay homage to one of our own. (We'll spare you the haiku tributes, published internally under the moniker "Edless".)

Buildings 65 & 69 being imploded. 
The referenced social establishment is to the right, just out of the picture
Photo credit to John Dyer.

So during "X's" portion of the roast, he divulged a bit of information that was heretofore unknown to most people. While I initially thought he was kidding, I soon realized that a fraud had been perpetrated on the 1000Nerds blog! The picture of Ed that we had so faithfully published with his posts was, in fact, FAKE - it was a synthesized image! Furthermore, "X" was the mastermind behind the creation!

Who knew? When I first received Ed's picture to set up his blog profile, I thought the picture was quite striking. And I did comment to him that he bore quite a resemblance to the guy from Schindler's List... you know, Liam Neeson. Well Ed thought that the jig was up at that point - that he had been found out - but that wasn't the case at all. Ed is a handsome man in his own right. And while it's true that (being the artistic, scientific, creative Lithuanian that he is) he went through a bit of a wild phase, you'd never know that now. I felt that the picture was a nice, artistic interpretation of the inner Ed - smoldering, introspective, ... a really great picture for his profile. For reference, the before/wild and after pictures below were part of "X's" presentation.

Ed does have that classic look, one that is universal enough that he is often compared to any number of Hollywood leading men - most notably Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson. The peak of the Ed-look-alike phenomenon took place when the James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig hit the screens. What was fascinating was the number of people who thought that the new Bond looked just like Ed (not even the other way around).

Now look-alikes are not new. Wikipedia has a brief article on the matter. In fact, a quick Google search finds over 3 million websites covering look-alikes. I would have never thought that Sean Connery and the Ayatollah Khomeini resemble each other. But, if you don't believe me, check this out. (We should note here that people tend to tell "X" that his look-alike is Danny DeVito.)

So the looming question, at least in the mind of our intrepid "X," was this: Could a virtual Ed Covannon with look-alike provenance be synthesized through the magic of digital imaging? Further, could this virtual Ed be synthesized ONLY using image content from his alleged look-alikes? The question is not: Why do it? That's easy - because you can! The important question then becomes:  How to do it.

Step 1: Finding a software package
Pictures can be processed using a simple morphing program to create linear combinations based on the input images, using them as orthogonal eigenfunctions (this part is for the Nerds). The program used for this exercise was Morph Studio. It's been discontinued, but a Google search on "morphing software" will show lots more candidates.

Step 2: Acquiring the input images
"X" googled Ed's look-alikes and searched for images of Ford, Neeson, and Craig having approximately the same pose. The images were then cropped and rendered in black white. These images would be processed with our simple morphing program. One certainly could see some of Ed in each of these pictures. But could the right combination of digital imagery DNA lead to Ed's likeness?

Step 3: Dialing in some representative combinations
Now for the fun part. The first linear combination was the 50-50 mix of Ford and Neeson shown below.

Perhaps there was a tad too much Ford in that recipe. Throwing in a pinch of Craig to kick it up a notch is shown below.

There was definitely some degree of convergence here.Too bad that there was less Craig than the others, what with the thrill of being James Bond and all. But a Han Solo and Qui-Gon Jinn with a pinch of Bond hybrid can't be all bad.

Step 4: Making the analytical choice
Several linear combinations were then synthesized and evaluated. The thought of non-linear combinations (i.e. including distortion) came to mind, but let's walk before we can run. This was quickly becoming too complex of an algorithm and frankly could consume a lot of time. So to cut to the chase, "X" recruited the consulting services of the ultimate authority - Ed's wife - figuring that, of all people, she would expedite convergence of this blossoming process. Donna's final selection is shown below. It wound up being a 55-30-15 mix of Neeson-Ford-Craig.

Voila! Lest you doubt the technique, here's a comparison to the real Ed.

So everyone was amused and "X's" endeavor in Digital Genetic Imagineering was fulfilled. Which brings us back to the beginning of the story. Unbeknownst to "X", Ed submitted the picture to the blog. Frankly, if you're going to synthesize your own picture, what better place to do it than on the Kodak Tech blog?And though I did comment on the picture, why would I doubt a standup guy like Ed?Actually, Ed had sworn "X" to secrecy since he was apparently intimidated by the potential "Wrath of Jane."

[This "Wrath of Jane" stuff makes me think this might be a good time to digress for a moment and make a statement once and for all... Engineering degree notwithstanding and in spite of what many of my co-workers have insinuated, I am NOT the model for the Alice character in Dilbert!  I don't even know Scott Adams! And the next guy who says it may well enjoy my FIST OF DEATH!]

But getting back to the story... A few blog readers have made comments to Ed about the picture: "that must have been a few years ago", or "did anyone tell you that you look like a young Harrison Ford?" The overwhelming reaction however, was acceptance - people not caring, not being observant enough, or a subliminal validation of our Virtual Ed. We humans tend to trust the obvious. Perhaps the virtual image was closer to our mental image of Ed than the actual picture! By now Virtual Ed has become Ed's trademark, his brand. ; And now you know whole story...

Ah, the magic of digital imaging. So give it a try folks. Perhaps the important question is not "What's in your wallet?" but "Who's in your face?"

 

Note: Kudos to Ed Covannon and "Mr. X" for their contributions to this post.

Welcome to the first of what I can only imagine will be billions of nerdy bloggy posts written by yours truly. I've been reading through some blogs of other bloggers. Of the three employees in the Kodak directory with the last name Gilman, officially two-thirds of them are Kodak bloggers. There's me, of course. The other one-third is Paul. (We've never met, but I can only assume he is my long-lost quadrillionaire uncle who's been searching for a peasant relative for decades.)

My goal is simple: 100% Gilman bloggers!

I have met the other third of the Gilman trio. Happily, she is my lovely wife, who I can't seem to talk into blogging.

I'm writing today to discuss some of my infatuations. Firstly, I love a lot of things that I am incapable of spending the time to learn about and understand. This leads to frustration beyond measure, due to the "jack of all trades but master of none" life I seem to lead. By "jack of all trades" I mean I can muddle through some stuff but mostly guess my way around, hoping that it works out, like this blog! Ha!

Back to the point, you'll find, as you read through my various musings (I'm probably using that word wrong and presumptuously), I try hard to accomplish little. That came out weird. I'm not trying to accomplish little, I'm trying hard but getting little accomplished. Better?

I love numbers but I'm terrible at math. I love to draw but have no artistic talent.

I can kinda draw a tree or two!

I love to write, but words tumble through my fingertips in a nonsensical, difficult to comprehend, and run on-y sentence kinda way. Bringing Kodak's core into relevance, I love to take digital images but tend to leave them on the memory card for all of eternity.

There are a bunch of other things that'll show themselves to be of interest to me that'll come up in time, but I think the above will preface you for the trip you are about to take if you read anything I write.

Time is a huge factor in life as learning takes time. Learning is the root of life (maybe it's water? Air? I dunno, I'm just tossing darts here...) I'm a father of one and some change (brand

new shiny one is on the way, complete with new baby smell!) which gives me naptime to learn about all the things I'd like to. I find that a 2 hour nap can go by in about 15 minutes if I'm really figuring stuff out.

All this to say that learning for me, in the junk I'm interested in, comes in small chunks that are ineffective until 3 weeks have gone by - learning and relearning the same things. So, you'll have to be patient with my vast useless knowledge of a small part of a lot of stuff, and if that didn't make a lick of sense, you'll quickly get the idea of my writing style.

Size intrigues me. I love the size of all kinds of stuff. Giant stuff like the hotels in Las Vegas

are amazing, but more amazing when dwarfed by the Grand Canyon.

On the other side of that coin, I can't seem to stop taking pictures of stuff with the macro setting on my camera. Yesterday I took a picture of my eyeball. Really just the front of it, not the whole thing. And I'm sure this picture will be stolen and used for the iris recognition system I have on my front door; therefore, I've airbrushed it a bit to not get taken advantage of. (No really, I did).

Cameras are incredible. I can't look this clearly at my own face in the mirror, but here we sit noticing that I have a couple brown spots in there. I've never seen those before! If you look closer still at the reflection in my pupil you can see my hand trying to redirect the flash more on my face than over my head. A closer look still may show Kodak written on the front of the camera. I can't see that far due to temporary camera-flash-induced blindness, but it may be there! Too cool!

Speaking of small, I'm one of the people working to start production on a new Kodak Continuous Inkjet Printing project. We measure things in microns. For those who are unaware, a micron is really small. To be exact-er, it's one-one millionth of a meter or about one thousandth of a millimeter... Anyone seen a millimeter lately? No? That's because they are stupidly small to begin with. But oh wait, chop that millimeter into a thousand pieces, go ahead, I'll wait... My point? A micron is super tiny, which, in itself is pretty incredible, but it gets crazier. I've seen, when working on this stuff, measurements smaller than a micron. Let's take an example of like .952 microns... Written longhand it is 0.000000952 meters (or .000952 of a millimeter) or if I remember my decimal point counting lessons properly (and it's entirely possible that I don't) it would be 957blahblahblah millionths of a meter. Talk about making Vegas hotels look tiny? Yikes! I don't know about the rest of you, but these figures are so much smaller than anything I've thought possible! And we can measure and manipulate things at this level?! It makes ya wonder. (Well, I can't speak for you, but it makes me wonder!) Here's a little visual example:

Have a lovely evening, and I'll see you on the flip side!

Jules Verne and H. G. Wells both wrote about it.  The first science fiction movie ever made was made about it.  Ralph yelled to Alice about it.  Sinatra sang about it.

Finally, in 1969, we did it - we went to the moon.  In total, astronauts landed on the moon on six separate occasions, the last time in 1972.  And while we've talked about going back since then, there haven't been any real plans - until now.

NASA has begun work on a new program to safely return astronauts to the moon by 2020 - and then travel to Mars and beyond.  The first mission in this program - the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) - is scheduled to launch at the end of this year to find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology that can be used on future missions. 

Pretty cool.  But wouldn't it be even better if there was a way to get involved yourself?  Guess what - there is.

While you and I may not be able to make it to the moon in person, NASA is giving everyone the opportunity to send their name to the moon - as part of the LRO mission.  It's actually pretty easy -

1. Go to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter web site before June 27, 2008 (that's the last day to enter a name)
2. Click on the "Send Your Name To The Moon" link on the right side of the page
3. Enter your name and click "Add Name" - then download your certificate
4. You're going to the moon!

According to NASA, all the names will be collected and entered into a database that will taken on board the LRO and will remain with it for the duration of the mission. 

So head on over and get signed up, space cowboy - and know that you (or at least your name) will be on board when the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter blasts off.  Just be sure to sign up before June 27, or it'll be too late.

BTW - you know those high-resolution images the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will be taking of the lunar surface?  Just guess whose image sensors they will be using in those cameras...