An Engineer does (AI) Art - the beginning

I've been playing with automated image generation for a long time, starting with various bits of CGI for CAD in the day job, unglamorous things like dithering for 4-, 8- and 16-bit images, more interesting things like using depth maps to make line drawings out of architectural renders; and also using it for amateur art - for example, at least one cover of the Alarums and Excursions APAzine c1990.

When I stopped doing that for a day-job, it was rather more arm's length - seeing sites like "In 20 Years" (whose predictions must surely soon be testable), some site that would take a picture and render it in the style of El Greco - image above creation date 1-AUG-2009; then more recently (3 years ago) another face-to-portrait website, which rendered randomly in a variety of artists' styles

So when Stable Diffusion became available on HuggingFace last autumn, my first thoughts were "new profile pics using photos less than a decade old", but also "if this is intelligent, and takes pure text input, maybe I can illustrate the stories I wrote back in college days".

The former was quickly successful, as the image I adopted for my GitHub account shows

The latter was less successful - trying to prompt a character who on first glance looks like they stepped out of a black and white photograph seemed to be beyond its comprehension. But by the end of a second day trying, I had a limited proof of concept

Noodling around on HuggingFace, I was aiming for just one thing, a plausible cover illustration; but given the lack of control, it was a case of just rolling dem bones, until one day in early January, I got something so close, yet still so far.

soon after which I said enough is enough, and installed the Automatic1111 WebUI, in CPU only mode on the workstation I'd meant as a dev box in retirement. It might take 10 minutes for a single 512x512 or equivalent image, but finally I could start actually working with the tools.

To be continued...

Upcoming episode preview : how I'd render those last two pictures today

Q3 cycling

A ride every day, though either for some business, or on a few occasions, more than just a token couple of miles around the neighbourhood to make the every day happen.

A disappointing season, summer often wet, mostly cloudy and windy, at best sultry behind the wind, and few T-shirt days, only picking up with a belated spell of warn, clear, calm weather in September, so for most of the period the longest ride days are either multiple errands, or going to a moderately distant pub for lunch.

July was mostly a washout. Totals : winter bike reset to 0 (new odo), summer bike 3234.7 (up 371.4), folding bike 217.05 (up 41.1) and 13 off meter for 425.5 total, 2692 YTD.

August was not much better. Totals : winter bike still 0, summer bike 3610.3 (up 375.6), folding bike 234.44 (up 17.4) and 5.6 off meter for 398.6 total, 3090 YTD.

Birthday ride to new territory for a pub lunch

September brought belated summer, and rides to redo Little Cow Lane, and bits of the Ickneild Way, as well as long rides for pub lunches. Totals : summer bike 4121.8 (up 511.5), and 1.9 off meter for 513.4 total, 3604 YTD.