Category: miscellaneous

I keep getting ads for Topaz up-scaling software, and have wondered if it is any good. Not that it matters, since I am running on Linux computers, and Topaz is Windows. But recently I found an open source up-scaler program names Upscayl, which runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac. So I installed it to do some testing. First thing I discovered is that my built in graphics card wasn’t powerful enough to run the software. So I had to buy a Nvidia GPU. I bought the least expensive one I could find, and it runs the software just fine.

My simple question is how does this software compare to scaling in Gimp. For example, if I take an image and scale it 400% in Gimp, how does that compare to scaling the image 400% in Upscayl.

So I took an image I have of a hummingbird.

I will upscale it and then crop it to the same dimensions, 1920×1080 pixels.

Here is the new image up-scaled by Gimp.

And here is the image up-scaled by Upscayl.

Upscayl did create a sharper image. Interestingly, the image it created is at a lower resolution, 300×300 ppi, where Gimp left the image at 350×350 ppi. But the Upscayl image is slightly larger, 1.3MB compared to 1.2MB

So let’s try 800%. Here is the file size before cropping.

Here is Gimp’s output cropped to 1920×1080.

Upscayl has a feature called “Double Upscayl” which runs the upscayl twice on the image. Running Upscayl takes longer that Gimp, especially if doing the double upscale. Here are it’s results. So first I left the scale factor at 4x and checked the “Double Upscayl” checkbox. This resulted in a much larger image, since it first did a 4x, and then another 4x. That is a 1600% scale factor. That isn’t what I wanted, but here is that result. First the uncropped image size.

And the cropped image. At this level of zoom you can see that the AI has sharpened the feathers too much.

Ok, now lets run Upscayl at 8x, without the doubling checkbox checked.

Here is the uncropped image size, it matches the 800% Gimp scaled image.

So what do I think? Well it certainly looks promising. Upscayl has different algorithms you can choose. I was using the ultrasharp. I also suspect that the image subject will make a difference. Does the image have blurry areas; how does it do with people; what about text in an image, etc.

Someone asked me if I could code the faro simulator as a stand-alone windows app, so they could use it without being on-line. So I did 🙂

You can download a zip file containing the file faroSetup.exe at http://robertjwallace.com/faro/faroSetup.zip

Download the zip and unzip the file to get the installer. Run the installer. It should work, but use it at your own risk. It doesn’t access anything on your computer or track anything. Note that when you run the installer you may get a “Windows protected your PC” message. That is just telling you that Microsoft sees me as an unknown publisher. If you get the message, click the more info link and then click the run anyway button.

This is an update to the Faro Game that I wrote. It allows for up to eight players to play the game. The basic gameplay is similar to the single-player mode with the following exceptions/additions. The instructions for the single-player game are here.

Continue reading “Multiple Player Faro Game”

See the book “Axtell Geneology“, my grandfather is listed on page 286.

Person	Birth year	Death year	Age
Jane Axtell (Mother)	1920	1995	75
Joseph Eugene Axtell	1889	1945	56
John Stockton Axtell	1845	1935	90
Rufus Dodd Axtell	1815	1847	32
Thomas Axtell	1780	1853	73
Daniel Axtell	1748	1826	78	Fought in Revolutionary War. Bio
Thomas Axtell	1727	1749	22
Daniel Axtell	1673	1735	62
Henry Axtell	1641	1676	35	Immigrated to US
Thomas Axtell	1619	1646	27
William Axtell	1587	1638	51
William Axtell	1561	unknown
William Axtell	1541	1568	27
John Axtell	1496	1553	57
Henrie Axtell	1474	1541	67
Henry Thomas Axtell	1435	1500	65
Thomas William Axtell	1381	1418	37

I am finally getting around to cataloging the books I own. Now that I am running Linux I found a free piece of software that does what I want: Tellico. While it is for KDE I had no problem installing and using it with a Gnome desktop. So far I have cataloged over 300 books, which has been very easy due to the internet search feature of the software.

Another feature of the software that I liked at first was the ability to output an HTML report. I wanted to post my book list on this site and I thought that would be the easiest way. It was easy, but didn’t have the format or features that I wanted. Fortunately, the software also exports to an XML file. So I exported the XML and wrote my own javascript program to display the list.

You can see the list here: robertjwallace.com/books