Polar Reflection

[Xhin]

Distort > Polar Reflection

 

This plugin started as a means of "clamping" some arbitrary part of an image and evolved into something much cooler.

 

Essentially, it's a means of reflecting part of an image outwards in a polar-like way. You can also clamp it like I intended originally, and there are some other neat effects as well like making the effect spiral.

 

In any case, let's take a look at it:

 

• Internal -- by default the effect makes an image reflect outwards, however if you use this setting, it will instead reflect the outer part of the image inwards.
• Rectangular -- like several of my other plugins, this will convert polar coordinates to "rectangular coordinates" -- basically giving a rectangular aspect to the image's outer edges. With this plugin, you get a cool "hallway"-like effect when you use it.
• Source Size -- changes the size of the circle (or rectangle) that is reflected.
• Reflection Size -- changes the size of the reflection. At the moment, this can be anywhere between half the size of the source to the entire size of the source. While smaller sizes are possible, I haven't yet figured out an algorithm for representing them.
• Source Pan -- Uses a different part of the image as the circle. Note that this setting currently doesn't work with the "rectangular" setting.
• Spiral -- makes the reflection spiral outwards. This setting is sensitive in a strange way -- smaller values will do almost nothing while higher value will jump around like crazy. Fixing it is on my todo list.
• Distort -- I honestly have no idea how this works, but it looks interesting -- it applies a kind of "ripple" or "mountain-like" effect to the image along the reflection lines. There are three different settings here to work with.
• Edge Behavior -- by default, everything outside of the circle is being reflected. You can however clamp it, cut it or wrap it. Wrap seems like the least useful option, so I have it at the end.
• Zoom -- zooms out of the source image, changing the resulting image accordingly. Like the rest of my plugins, the image is a seamless texture so zooming out doesn't look weird.
• Destination Pan -- Lets you move around the rendered image. This has a real 3-D effect to it for some reason (particularly if "rectangular" is on).
• Quality v0 -- a faked-out quality slider (currently a mild blur). I'll fix this along with the rest of my plugins in batch at some point in the future.

 

Let's take a look at what each setting does. I'm going to skip the "Internal" and "Rectangular" settings until the end.

 

 

Here's a base image for comparison purposes.

 

 

Here's your default settings. Note how there's a part of the image in a circle that matches the original image, and it just reflects outwards.

 

 

Here's what happens if you alter the Source Size setting. You get a bigger circle.

 

 

Altering the Reflection Size setting, meanwhile, will make the actual reflections bigger.

 

 

I'm now Source Panning around, which picks different parts of the image to reflect outwards. Note that this setting does not currently work with the "rectangular" setting turned on.

 

 

Returned to the default settings, and turned the Spiral setting up. Now when things reflect, they also rotate by an amount proportional to their distance, resulting in an interesting spiral-like effect.

 

Distortion Settings

 

 

Here's an X Distort. Notice the triangular "ridges" that form.

 

 

Here's a Y Distort.

 

 

Lastly, here's what it looks like if you Distort Both.

 

Edge Behavior

 

Here's a Clamp. I also applied a spiral so you can see that those effects work well together.

 

Here, I've Cut the image. If you Cut when "Internal" is on, it'll cut out the inside instead of the outside.

 

 

Lastly, here I've set the Edge Behavior to Wrap.

 

 

Here's what it looks like when you Zoom. Actually zooming out with the plugin can be quite disorienting sometimes because of the 3D effects and the nonlinear nature of the reflection effects.

 

 

Here's what Destination Pans look like. I'm just moving around the rendered image.

 

 

Here's what it looks like if you have the Internal setting on -- the reflection happens internally rather than externally. It's also hard to tell that there's reflection actually happening because of the current reflection size limits and how much things are warped as they get close to the center. This should improve with the next version of this plugin.

 

 

Here's what it looks like when you have the Rectangular setting on. Using the spiral setting here looks quite good. Also note that while you (currently) can't use the Source Pan effect while Rectangular is on, you can use the Destination Pan effect to move around, which tends to feel more like you're moving your head around in a hallway than anything else.

 

Still to do

• Fix the Quality slider. This will be a batch update for all of my plugins.
• Get source pan working with the rectangular effect.
• Get smaller reflection sizes working.
• Fix the spiral slider sensitivity issues.
• Mess around with the distortion effects more and bundle a better version of them in a separate plugin.
• Release the source code. Like the quality slider, this will be a global batch update.

Download Link

https://github.com/Xhin23/Paint.net-Plugins/blob/master/Polar_Reflection.dll

Edited September 29, 2019 by Xhin