How to get High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) support natively in Windows 10

Microsoft is bringing High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) support in Windows 10 natively. The Photos app will support this. High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a file format for individual images and image sequences developed by Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). HEIF images can store twice as much information as compared to JPEG of the same size and in better quality. Even Apple has announced, its replacing JPEG files and supporting HEIF standard with release of iOS11. They are calling it HEIC.

With the latest Windows Insider Build 17123, Microsoft is adding this support. With the upcoming Redstone 4 Creators update to be released soon for the public, this will be supported natively. As said earlier, Photos app will support this feature. Announcing this feature, Microsoft in its blog post explains -

“HEIF is an image container that leverages modern codecs like HEVC to improve quality, compression, and capabilities compared to earlier formats like JPEG, GIF, and PNG. In addition to traditional single images, HEIF supports encoding image sequences, image collections, auxiliary images like alpha or depth maps, live images & video, audio, and HDR for greater contrast.”

How to get the HEIF support in Windows 10?

For Windows Insiders to try this, first you need to join the Windows App Preview Program for the Photos app and make sure you are running the March release of the  Photos app (Version 2018.18022.13740.0 or newer).

This version of the Photos app has been updated for RS4 to support viewing the primary image inside a HEIF file and to guide the install of dependencies like the HEIF and HEVC media extensions from the Microsoft Store. Once installed, these media extensions enable HEIF viewing in Photos as well as thumbnails and metadata in File Explorer.

Double clicking any .heic file, (if you are not having any .heic file, you can get these images from net), Photos prompts to download codec from store. After downloading, .heic files will start showing thumbnails in File Explorer. You might need rebooting.

The largest photo on Earth–70 billion pixels Budapest

Check this  – the largest Photo on Earth – 70 Billion Pixels. (70 gigapixels) !!

http://www.70-billion-pixels-budapest.com/index_en.html

 

 

Go to the above given link to view the photo, click at the bottom thumbnails to zoom into that particular image. Click on ‘Home’ at left side above slider to get back to see the entire image. Try the Aero-plane thumbnail and others to zoom in.

 

Some Amazing facts -

“The World Record starts with a high definition camera and and a telephoto lens with an extremely narrow field of view. Sony’s A900 25MP camera seemed an obvious choice, and Sony was pleasantly eager to provide us one. Fitted with a 400mm Minolta lens and 1,4X teleconverter, it provided a 2,4 degree horizontal FOW per frame. Our estimate was that a 60 gigapixel image (with the necessary overlaps) would require 5040 individual photographs — 24 rows with 210 frames in each, taken with a 360 degree horizontal and a 60 degree vertical FOV. Counting with 4 seconds per frame (during which the robotic head re-adjusts for the next shot), it was quite clear that the task would take a minimum of 6 hours to complete…”

 

 

“Should the final image be printed, the finished 300 DPI picture would make a poster 156 meters long and 31 meters tall. The amount of paper it would take would also cover two 10-story apartment blocks.”

 

 

“Post-processing was done on a Dell Precision T7500 Workstation with twin 4-core Xenon processors, 24GB memory and 6TB hard disk, courtesy of Microsoft Hungary. For the initial compilation we used Autopano Giga, the most complete software solution for processing high-resolution images. The task took two days to complete and resulted in a single 200 GB Autopano KRO file.”

 

Web display

To display it on the web, we compiled a picture consisting of 21 individual layers, each compiled of a series of 254x254 JPGs in a so-called image pyramid. The full pyramid consists of 1.476.098 frames, of which over 1 million is situated in the deepest layer. We used the Microsoft Silverlight plugin which, with its ever-so-slight color washing, provides the best results among current technologies. More importantly, it allows users with mid-spec machines and average internet connections to experience the World Recorder panorama in its full glory.

Data storage

Due to the level of projected interest and the resulting bandwidth demand, we needed a safe and stable storage solution. Windows Azure offers both in a platform based on „cloud computing”, which provides equal chance of access to all and every users from anywhere in the world. Computing and storage capacities are dynamically scalable to bandwidth demand.

Windows Azure also supports a large number of popular technologies and protocols including SOAP, REST, XML and PHP.

 

Also check the making of video and other interesting information in detail from that site.

Amazing !! Try to explore and zoom in to discover ! http://www.70-billion-pixels-budapest.com/

New Image Composite Editor (ICE) from Microsoft Research does amazing things

For the TechFest 2010, Microsoft Research  is releasing a new version of ICE (please note it links to the MSR ICE site , which at present is having the older ver. of ICE) . The new ver is not yet made public, but soon it will be.

EDIT (190310) :The new ver of ICE is now available, Please check - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/

Also check - ICE Is Now Synthy

Pl.note some features described in this post are because of plug-ins which may not be yet available.

 

 

“Image Composite Editor (ICE) with Multi-Image Fusion.  In the current version of ICE, it provides advanced features for panoramic stitching such as choosing the stitch’s orientation, custom projection, and selecting a 360 stitch’s mid-point, and this tool also integrates nicely as a plug-in into Windows Live Photo Gallery. Here we’ll show you some of the upcoming new features in ICE such as:

• Structured Panoramas
• Stitching Panoramas from Video
• Sharp Panoramas from Blurry Videos
• Creating Photographs from Videos
• Multi-Image Denoising and Sharpening using Lucky Imaging ”

In the demo as we see the new ver. of Image Composite Editor (ICE) does amazing things. You’ll have to see the demo video to understand.

HD Photo Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop Updated

This plug-in is a file format plug-in to enable Adobe Photoshop to open and save HD Photo files.
Updated versions of the HD Photo Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop for both Windows and Macintosh OS X are available now. There is an updated beta for Windows Vista and Windows XP, plus a new beta for both Intel and PPC Macs running OS X.

The encoder options dialog box, has been separated into the basic and advanced controls in two separate modes. This is more consistent with similar dialogs in Photoshop.
There is also some other re-arranging and general clean-up of the dialog user interface, with better consistency among related controls. The pixel format control will now only offer the pixel formats that are compatible with the current image mode in Photoshop.

There is also a major architectural overhaul of the underlying codec and memory management. These changes significantly reduce the memory requirement to encode and decode an image, improving performance and allowing support for much larger images without encountering memory limits.
source: Bill Crow's Blog.
This BETA plug-in is designed for use with the CS2 or CS3 versions and will expire after December 31, 2007. HD Photo is also known as Windows Media Photo.

Will HD Photo replace jpeg?

At the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) 07 International Convention and Trade Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft Corp. formally announced HD Photo, a new file format for end-to-end digital photography that offers higher image quality, greater preservation of data, and advanced features for today’s digital-imaging applications.
This new, next-generation digital image format offers the best solution for digital image editing and storage and unlocks the potential for digital photography on devices, applications and services. Microsoft also announced that it intends to standardize the technology and will be submitting HD Photo to an appropriate standards organization shortly.
HD Photo offers compression with up to twice the efficiency of JPEG, with fewer damaging artifacts, resulting in higher-quality images that are one-half the file size. In addition, HD Photo offers increased image fidelity, preserving the entire original image content and enabling higher-quality exposure and color adjustments in the image. This new format offers the ability to decode only the information needed for any resolution or region, or the option to manipulate the image as compressed data.
HD Photo offers both lossless and lossy image compression, and can retain the full dynamic range and color gamut data from a camera’s sensor.

Please read the full story at Microsoft Announces HD Photo.

Will this new format replace jpeg, because of its advanced features, higher quality at half the size?

Microsoft also announced the beta release of a set of HD Photo plug-ins for Adobe® Photoshop® software, developed with the help of Adobe Systems Inc. These plug-ins enable users to both read and write HD Photo files from within Adobe Photoshop software, and include support for high dynamic range pixel formats

You can download them at HD Photo Plug-in for Adobe® Photoshop® Software