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ericn1498365
Participant
July 25, 2017
Question

Vertical De-interlacing

  • July 25, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 1686 views

I'm relatively new to After Effects, but was told that this was possible and am looking for any insights:

I have some vertically interlaced graphics files that I'd like to de-interlace.  Essentially, I'd like to create a preview .gif of what a viewer would see from a lenticular array.

I have images that look like this as inputs:

The actual input files are much more complicated; this simple image is for diagrammatic purposes.

The output that I'd expect from the above image would be a series of frames of sequential solid colors.

Any thoughts?

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    3 replies

    Kevin J. Monahan Jr.
    Community Manager
    Community Manager
    August 24, 2017

    Hi EricN,

    Sorry for this issue. Did you ever find a solution? Please let us know if you have or if you still need help.

    Thanks,

    Kevin

    Kevin Monahan - Sr. Community and Engagement Strategist – Adobe Pro Video and Audio
    ericn1498365
    Participant
    July 25, 2017

    Let me try explaining the problem again.

    I'm looking for a process flow.  Any tool, any technique that can create the following output from the proscribed input.  This may take some out of the box thinking.  It's also possible that After Effects isn't the right tool to use, but I've seen it done in a previous life, which is why I'm searching here.

    The input is the image above.  Vertical stripes.

    The output I'd like to generate a sequence of frames that show an image constructed from a series of equally space vertical lines.  For instance, in the image above, the red lines would add up to one image.  The blue lines would create another image.  From there those individual images would be sequenced.  If the above image were the actual input, the result would be a rectangle that cycles colors - green, yellow, magenta, red... etc.

    Again, I'm looking for high-level thoughts on how to achieve this goal.

    Simply masking won't work, as that'll leave gaps - a second step would be needed.

    Masking and blurring makes a sub-standard image

    After that I'm out of ideas.

    Again any help would be appreciated.

    Community Expert
    July 25, 2017

    First, are you sure there is interlacing? Interlacing means the footage is broken up into even and odd fields with each field being a different moment in time. It was developed for Television so you could get a bigger picture using the same data rate.

    If your footage is truly interlaced you can find that out by first going to footage interpretation and separating fields, then create a new composition from your original footage using new composition from selected (file menu), opening the composition settings and doubling the frame rate (just type * 2 after the existing frame rate and press enter), and then step through the composition one frame at a time. If there are duplicate frames, no movement in pairs of frames, then your footage is not interlaced. If you get ping pong motion, something moves to the left then the right then farther to the left and to the right again you have the field order wrong. If the interlacing is somehow truly vertical you will probably get some weird one pixel high noise in the shot. If that is the case I'm not sure what you would do to fix the problem. I don't have time to run some tests. It would take some research to figure out if there was even a solution to the problem.

    EDIT: While I was explaining interlacing you posted additional information so here's my first suggestion.

    You don't want interlacing, you want to separate colors into individual layers and then combine them into the final image using some kind of animation. That is a whole different problem probably best easily handles using Colorama and multiple copies of your image. You can choose specific colors and eliminate them or make all other colors the same using the OutPut cycle. I'd suggest you start there.

    Sample an original color with Colroama turned off.

    Play with the output cycle to fill isolate your colors or combine them with others, animate and layer for each color. Then use blend modes or track mattes to create the animation.

    Depending on the look you want you may be able to do everything in one layer by animating the output cycle in Colorama.

    On the other hand, if the original file was created in Illustrator it may be easier just to duplicate a bunch of layers, make the appropriate selections and open as an After Effects composition and animate or sequence the layers.

    ericn1498365
    Participant
    July 25, 2017

    Rick thanks for the suggestion.  I'll work through what you've suggested.  I'm not sure it's applicable (I'm also not sure that it's not), but at the very least I'll learn something.

    In the meantime, here are a couple of images that may better illustrate the attempted function:

    Rather than colors, let's look at shapes this time.  Here's another simplified input:

    The output from that single, static (and vertically interlaced) image would be the following.

    Basically, I'm looking for After Effects to decode the above image.  I can do it in Photoshop with some effort, but anything larger than the above image becomes prohibitively time consuming.

    Dave_LaRonde
    Inspiring
    July 25, 2017

    Ain't no such thing as vertical interlacing.  Please describe in very simple terms what you're trying to accomplish, and leave the technical jargon out of it, because you probably don't understand it.  Also, that little square grab tells people nothing.  Please show us a screen shot of the complete user interface, revealing any properties you've modified on a typical problem layer.