[Gimp-developer] Call for Participation: A programming competition involving Image Processing, Machine Learning, Math and Visual Arts

[Guenter Bachelier <guba vi-anec de>]

Note: This competition has an impact on bitmap and vector graphic 
programs because with a CRMT-image interpreter
and corresponding CRMT-command lists all sorts of patterns and tiles can 
be generated from input images.



Exploring a Design Space for Patterns and Tilings

a periodical programming competition involving Image Processing, Machine 
Learning, Mathematics and Visual Arts
(student contributions are welcome)


The goal of this periodical programming competition (with some price 
money) is the exploration of a special design space of patterning & 
tiling methods and to make selected points of this space (methods that 
generate interesting and aesthetic results) available for image editing 
so that contemporary and future artists, illustrators, comic artists, 
designers, ... can use them under an open source license (CC0 and the like).

The design space relevant for image editing is based on the idea that 
patterns and tiles can be generated by basic shapes (prototiles) 
together with a CRMT command list approach that repeatedly clone, rotate 
and mirror a prototile and translate it over a finite pattern plane. 
With this unified approach the centuries of mathematical and artistic 
knowledge about patters, tilings and ornaments will be usable in image 
editing for bitmap and vector images. By programming CRMT-image 
interpreter as standalone programs or Plug-ins in bitmap graphic 
programs (GIMP, Photoshop, ...) and vector graphic programs 
(Illustrator, Inkscape) very powerful artistic tools can be made that 
will be using a growing number of CRMT command lists to generate all 
sorts of patterns from input images.

The goal of the first competition is to reproduce known tilings from the 
Tiling Database (http://www.tilingsearch.org/). This should be done by a 
learning process because such processes should be the basis for 
exploration the design space and its extensions in further iterations of 
the competition. Technically the learning of a CRMT command list for a 
tiling is viewed as a 2D packing problem with the 2-objective function 
"gap -> 0 & overlap -> 0".

The competition is originated in the field of Evolutionary Art therefore 
the learning process should be preferably done with Evolutionary 
Computation (EC) methods like Genetic Programming but it is not 
restricted to this if the learning environment with all aspects and 
parameters are published under an open source license so that others can 
use it for further exploration.

A detailed description of this programming competition with more 
technical details, winning conditions, price money, and future 
directions can be found under: 
http://de.evo-art.org/index.php?title=Exploring_a_Design_Space_for_Patterns_and_Tilings_Competition_2015

Registration starts on 01.05.2015 and ends on 15.11.2016. Contributions 
can be made until 15.01.2016.

Comments and suggestions to all aspects of the competition project are 
appreciated and should be addressed to Dr. Günter Bachelier (guba  at  
evo-art.org).



Please redistribute this Call for Participation in appropriate mailing 
lists, blogs, tweets, ... to address and attract as much as possible 
developer, scientists and students in Evolutionary Computation, Machine 
Learning, Image Processing and Editing, Mathematics, Media Art, ...