Burnt Paper plugin for GIMP February 16th, 2010
Patrick Stein

Yesterday, I decided to make the images in my article look like they were on old, burnt paper. I did this manually in the GIMP.

I liked the effect, but I didn’t want the tedium of having to do all n steps manually next time I go to use it. So, I wrote a GIMP plugin script to do it.

Here is an example of the plugin script in action. As you can see, I started with a text layer and a selection that was bigger than the text layer. The plugin uses the selection size as original edge of the paper (original, as in before the paper was burned).

And, here is the resulting image:

Here is the Burnt Paper plugin script. Plop this in a directory that’s in your script search path and refresh GIMP’s scripting and then you’ll find it in the Filters > Decor menu. [You can see the script search path by going to Edit > Preferences and selecting Scripts under Folders in the left sidebar. And, you can refresh the scripts by going to Filters > Script-Fu > Refresh Scripts.]

Finding the Perfect Hyperbola February 15th, 2010
Patrick Stein

For an application that I’m working on, I needed a way to scale quantities that range (theoretically) over the real numbers (though practically are probably between plus and minus three) into positive numbers. I wanted the function to be everywhere increasing, I wanted f(0) = 1, and I wanted control of the derivative at x = 0.

The easy choice is: f(x) = e^{\alpha x}. This is monotonically increasing. f(0) = 1 and f^\prime(0) = \alpha.

I needed to scale three such quantities and mush them together. I thought it’d be spiffy then to have three different functions that satisfy my criteria. The next logical choice was f(x) = 1 + \mathrm{tanh} (\alpha x). It is everywhere positive and increasing. And, it has f^\prime(0) = \alpha.

Now, I needed third function that was always positive, always increasing, had f(0) = 1 and f^\prime(0) = \alpha. One choice was: f(x) = e^{e^{\alpha x} - 1}. But, that seemed like overkill. It also meant that I really had to keep my \alpha tiny if I didn’t want to scale things into the stratosphere.

Playing with hyperbolas

So, I thought… why don’t I make a hyperbola, rotate it, and shift it so that the apex of one side of the hyperbola is at (0,1). And, I can adjust the parameters of the hyperbola so that f'(0) = \alpha. After a variety of false starts where I tried to keep the hyperbola general until the very end (\frac{x^2}{a^2} - \frac{y^2}{b^2} = r^2, rotated by \theta degrees, and shifted by \beta), I quickly got bogged down in six or seven incredibly ugly equations in eight or nine variables.

So, it was time to start trying to make it easy from the beginning. I noticed that if was going to rotate it by an angle \theta in the clockwise direction, then I needed \phi = \frac{\pi}{2} - \theta to be such that \tan \phi = \alpha if my slope was going to work out right in the end. So, I’m looking at the basic triangle on the right then to determine all of my sines and cosines and such.

Based on that triangle, it was also obvious that the asymptote for my starting hyperbola had to have \frac{b}{a} = \frac{1}{\alpha}. I played around a bit then with making a = \alpha and b = 1. In the end, I found things simplified sooner if I started with a = 1 and b = \frac{1}{\alpha}.

I also needed r to be such that the point (-r,0) rotate up so that its y-coordinate was 1. This meant that r \sin \theta = 1 or r = \frac{1}{\sin \theta} = \sqrt{1 + \alpha^2}.

So, my starting hyperbola then was: x^2 - \alpha^2 y^2 = 1 + \alpha^2.

From there, I had to rotate the x and y by \theta in the clockwise direction. This gave me:

(x\cos\theta - y\sin\theta)^2 - \alpha^2 (x\sin\theta + y\cos\theta)^2 = 1 + \alpha^2

A little multiplying out leads to:

(x^2\cos^2\theta - 2xy\sin\theta\cos\theta + y^2\sin^2\theta) \\ - \alpha^2(x^2\sin^2\theta + 2xy\sin\theta\cos\theta + y^2\cos^2\theta) = 1 + \alpha^2

From there, using cos^2\theta = \frac{\alpha^2}{1 + \alpha^2}, sin^2\theta = \frac{1}{1 + \alpha^2}, and \sin\theta\cos\theta = \frac{\alpha}{1 + \alpha^2}, we come to:

\frac{-2\alpha(1 + \alpha^2)xy + ( 1 - \alpha^4 )y^2}{1 + \alpha^2} = -2\alpha{}xy + (1 - \alpha^2)y^2 = 1 + \alpha^2

The only step remaining was to shift it all over so that when y = 1, we end up with x = 0. Plugging in y = 1, we see that -2x\alpha + 1 - \alpha^2 = 1 + \alpha. That equation balances when x = -\alpha. We want it to balance when x = 0, so we’re going to substitute (x - \alpha) in place of the x in the above equation to get:

-2\alpha(x - \alpha)y + (1 - \alpha^2)y^2 = 1 + \alpha^2

We can easily verify that the point (0,1) is on the curve. And, we can implicitly differentiate the above to get:

-2\alpha(x - \alpha)\frac{dy}{dx} - 2\alpha{}y + 2(1 - \alpha^2)y\frac{dy}{dx} = 0

Plopping x = 0 and y = 1 in there, we find that \frac{dy}{dx} = \alpha.

This is pretty good as it goes. The only step is to complete the square to find a nicer expression for y in terms of x. We start by adding \left[ \frac{\alpha}{\sqrt{1 - \alpha^2}} (x - \alpha) \right]^2 to both sides to get:

\left[ \sqrt(1 - \alpha^2)y - \frac{\alpha}{\sqrt{1 - \alpha^2}(x - \alpha)} \right]^2 = 1 + \alpha^2 + \frac{\alpha}{1 - \alpha^2} (x-\alpha)^2

This is easy enough to solve for y by taking the square root of both sides and shuffling some things about:

y = \frac{\alpha}{1 - \alpha^2}(x - \alpha) + \frac{1}{\sqrt{1 - \alpha^2}} \sqrt{1 + \alpha^2 + \frac{\alpha^2}{1 - \alpha^2}(x - \alpha)^2}

Here are all three curves with \alpha = \frac{1}{4}. The exponential is in black, the hyperbolic tangent is in red, and the hyperbola is in blue:

The first image on the page here was made with Zach’s Vecto library with some post-processing in the GIMP. (Here is the source file: hyperbola.lisp.) The second image was made entirely within the GIMP. And, the last image was made using Foo Plot and the GIMP.

Submitted small bug-fix to iPhone Spelling Toy February 10th, 2010
Patrick Stein

I just uploaded the first update to my iPhone Spelling Toy. The update includes two minor changes:

  • Corrected spelling of siete (Spanish for seven)
  • Corrected spelling of colores (Spanish for colors)

Today, I am working on adding animal drawings.

Spelling Toy iPhone App Released February 9th, 2010
Patrick Stein

I am pleased to announce, that my Spelling Toy for Kids is now available on the iTunes Store.

The first five respondents to this article will receive a Promotional Code to download the app for free! (Edit: all promo codes dished out… if you really want one and will publicly review my app in your blog, I’ll dig up another promo code for you.)

Features

  • Kid-friendly interface! Just pick the letters you want!
  • Guides your child to the proper spelling of each word.
  • Adapts to your child! Cards that consistently give your child trouble show up more often.
  • Support for English, Spanish, and French! (German and Japanese Kana coming soon)
  • Lots of words to learn (with more coming soon).
  • Three different skill levels to challenge your kid!
  • Exercise some or all of the categories: Numbers, Colors, Foods (with more coming soon).

iPhone App Submitted To The App Store February 4th, 2010
Patrick Stein

I just submitted my first my first iPhone app to the App Store. Once it is approved, I will announce it here.

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