Optimized for processing photographs, Segmation™ is a powerful tool that was 10 years in the making (heck, we’re still tweaking it even today!). It provides a novel approach to the complex problems typically associated with breaking an image into individual pieces.

Of course, the ability to segment images has many scientific and engineering applications. One common application is being able to separate a subject from its background in order to properly process or inspect it.
We take that same science and simplify the way it works for handling art resulting in beautiful patterns for you!

Getting Started

We start by analyzing an image’s color structure and calculating a set of non-overlapping pieces, ensuring we completely cover the original image, and that all segments contain similar colors and textures. Our approach is a modified region growing algorithm, a very popular approach to the problem

By using heavy-duty science as a tool in the pursuit of simple, non-scientific purposes, we’ve successfully created a well-tuned, optimized software engine that works wonderfully on images created from today’s digital photography as well as centuries-old art masterpieces.

More than just a color-by-number pattern generator, Segmation™ has helped artists, craftspeople, sign makers, cartoonists, illustrators, designers, architects, and photographers get to the essence of images quickly. This allows them to focus on their needs, leaving the hard, boring technology to us.

Math, Science, and Art Working Together

The algorithms we’ve perfected since founding Segmation build image segments starting from individual pixels in a digitized image. Similar pixels are joined based on a number of criteria involving color science, texturing, and input parameters. The segments are thus grown according to a specific formula. We do this in a color space a bit different from the standard red-green-blue world, where color differences between the pixels are a bit more uniform to the eye and result in a better-looking segmentation. When many segments are created, a subset of them is carefully joined together in a manner that preserves the original image’s structure and integrity.

Once created, line geometry is painstakingly extracted from the shared segment borders, creating a segmented pattern defined with non-intersecting Bezier curves. An optimal color palette is chosen based on the original artwork and applied to the segments. We further join the segments to make sure no adjoining segments have the same color. Finally, are segments are now considered the pattern pieces!

After the software has successfully converted an image into line art, our team of professionals and quality assurance folks reviews each completed patterns, making final tweaks and ensuring that the finished product actually looks like the original image.

Still, you can’t really appreciate how the Segmation technology fits together until you see it in action. We suggest you get the SegPlay® PC free download and actually try it. Once you’ve reviewed our SegPlay® PC Getting Started Guide and are satisfied with the quality of our work, contact us for ways to show off the beauty hidden away in your own art of digital photography.