Webcam Pixelater App    

Building on the lessons provided in Pixels to Pictures, the Webcam Pixelater app enables students to visualize image processing concepts in real-time. In particular, the custom option (see below) allows you to apply your own custom image filter to a live webcam video feed!

Pixels to Pictures is free courseware authored by MathWorks® to help teach students "the basics of programming while they edit images, build GIFs, and create color filters and face masks that are applied in popular apps."

Getting Started  

Requires: MATLAB® R2024b (or newer)

Click the Pixelater (color camera) icon above to launch the app in MATLAB® Online™. This also installs the supporting functions and automatically opens the MATLAB Project.

Otherwise (and in general), to use the app you must first manually open the MATLAB Project by double-clicking on the PixelaterProject.prj file from the MATLAB File Panel. This sets everything up for you, and needs to be done each time you open MATLAB and want to run the app. The app can then be run using the "SHORTCUTS" on the "PROJECT" tab of toolstrip at the top of MATLAB.

Pixelater Effects

• chroma : isolate your favorite color in an otherwise grayscale image
• cloak : don a colored cloak and disappear into the background^#
• comic : create a cartoon-like, comic book effect
• ghost : leave a trail of yourself behind as you move
• gotham : mask-up to become the knight of a dark and gritty city (requires Computer Vision Toolbox™)
• hologram : create a 3D effect as you move (when wearing red-cyan 3D glasses)
• hyperspace : traveling through it ain't like dustin' crops... punch it!
• kaleidoscope : create symmetrical, mirrored patterns (of the lower right portion of the video frame)
• matrix : enter the digital realm of green code and raining pixels
• pixelate : apply a blocky pixelation effect to reduce the image resolution
• quantize : apply quantization to reduce the number of distinct colors in the image
• thermal : apply a color map to make the image look like an infrared thermogram
• custom : create and apply your own filters to the app video feed!

^# To set the cloak background to be an image from the webcam, select none from the drop-down (while the video is running) and then Pause the video. This image will then be used for the cloak background. Press Play to resume.

Pixelater Examples

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