“Man’s triumph over nature.” I completely agree with Misato after having ac problems at my house in Florida (x_x;)
I’ve been walking almost every morning for over a month now. At first I could only walk slow and for a short distance, but I’m currently able to do a little over a mile and at a decent speed. Walking outdoors with my current health is more challenging than just being out of shape. If I look straight ahead, the whole world is turning clockwise as I move forward. An impossible (as well as frightening and nauseating) sight to behold. I find it best to keep my gaze down and try to divert attention to my legs burning to a crampy crisp ^^
Not much to report on MangAI. Latest version (v1.12) has been running strong. I haven’t received a single bug report. In the mean time, the difficult research I have mentioned in previous posts is currently at a standstill. That feature is automatic panel detection. Besides from the obvious crazy difficulty this entails, there are a few things keeping me from pushing harder:
- The processing time for panel detection is ridiculous. It requires multiple passes of pixel-by-pixel analysis per image. Even on a fast computer, this will severely increase processing time.
- With MangAI, the idea would be to break each page into individual panel images ordered by reading direction. To me, it seems like this would only really be useful on tiny screens like phones to make text more legible. Current gen phones, however, have amazing screens. I find manga on my iPhone 5 to be perfectly legible and easy to read by zooming and panning. Not that I ever want to read manga on my phone when I have a tablet or laptop.
- Manga was designed for full pages. Breaking each page into pieces may negatively affect the experience.
- There are many instances where a single panel takes up so much space that you have to zoom to read anyway.
I’ll probably halt automatic panel detection research for now. If I were programming this for use with a comic reader rather than a processor, panel detection would be a lot more alluring since you could still have the full page shown to you but have each panel highlighted as you read. Try the Marvel Comics app to see what I’m talking about (of course, their panels are manually detected by Marvel staff).
Let me know what you think about MangAI having automatic panel detection. Is it something you would use if available? I don’t even know if it’s possible, but if enough people want it I can continue research. Also please let me know if you have any other requests for MangAI.
New to version 1.12:
-Bug fix: Incorrect resize geometry
MangAI was calculating the resize geometry incorrectly, allowing some images to resize larger than the user settings (maximal area using @width or @height but should be using minimal).
Furthermore, adding a border to one of these images would instead remove image outskirts to shrink the image to the target size.
This has been fixed.
-New feature: Ignore folder
Simply add “MANGAI_IGNORE” to a folder’s filename and its contents will not be processed. Useful if you don’t want the latest scans (not in tankobon yet) or extra works (like special releases and fanart) to be processed with the main series.
-New setting: @check_free_space
If enabled, then MangAI will check disk free space before processing.
Estimation of required free space is based on user settings and source size.
If there is not enough free space, you are given a warning and asked if you would like to continue. This is useful since MangAI may quit unexpectedly if it runs out of space while processing.
-New setting: @jpeg_quality
Integer value between 1 and 100, inclusive, of percentage quality of output jpeg images.
100 is highest quality, while 1 is lowest quality. Lower quality should reduce file size but may also decrease readability (lossy compression).
Set to -1 for default quality which is determined per image based on a quick analysis. Average default quality is around 92.
Acceptable values: -1 (for default quality), an integer between 1 and 100 inclusive
-New setting: @sharpen
Sharpening can help increase readability of blurry text.
Integer value between 1 and 100, inclusive, of percentage to sharpen images.
100 is the most sharpening, while 1 is lowest sharpening.
Acceptable values: -1 (to disable), an integer between 1 and 100 to sharpen
New setting: @imagemagick_ops
Warning: FOR ADVANCED USERS ONLY! This can freeze, crash, or ruin the output if used incorrectly, and you will not receive any error messages.
Additional operations for ImageMagick to perform on each image.
This allows the user to use ImageMagick convert options not already utilized by MangAI.
Example: -despeckle -level 0%,100%,1.2
See -Specifying Other ImageMagick Ops- in Help->Contents or README.txt for details.
-Added more ereader .properties setting profiles
Settings profiles now available for:
- koboaurahd (Kobo Aura HD)
- koboglo (Kobo Glo)
- kobomini (Kobo Mini)
- kobotouch (Kobo Touch)
-AI improvements to MPM interpretation
When there are multiple chapter delimiters in a filename, start with best one (i.e. prefer ch to c).
Better handling of special chapter numbering.
-GUI improvements
Double-click to load job from table.
GUI remembers last selected device when creating .properties settings file.
Buttons for Apply and Reload settings should now be easier to read.
-Various fixes and improvements
Fixed description of setting @adjust_contrast. Negative value increases contrast, while positive value decreases contrast.
Fixed warning of unrar program not detected even though 7zip was found.
*phew* That was a big update. A lot of this update was user requested, so thanks to the community for your great feedback!
Download the latest version from the MangAI project page.
As someone who spends almost all day every day in house, video games are important to me. I have a ton of games, along with an ever growing backlog, for pretty much every platform. Portable games are especially nice since they don’t tie me down to a TV. I’m currently playing Soul Sacrifice on Vita and Monster Hunter 3 on 3DS. A surprising new portable contender has emerged: video pinball. I’ve never given pinball a second thought, but Zen Pinball for iOS is unexpectedly awesome. Before I thought you just randomly tap the flippers and hope for points; now I know to aim my shots and complete various objectives. Epic Quest and Moon Knight are my favorite tables. Come June though, all other gaming will be put on hold when Animal Crossing 3DS devours my free time <3
I've been researching a new feature for MangAI. It's crazy difficult and I'm not sure if it's even possible, but it is something a lot of users would enjoy. It will be a while before I know anything concrete. For now I have some minor improvements already coded and am currently working on AI tweaks. Expect an update within the next week.
I’m big on user feedback so you should contact me if you have any problems or suggestions for MangAI. And if you enjoy MangAI, please be my advertiser and spread the word :3
Not much has been going on lately. MangAI v1.09 is running strong. I’ve been mostly vegging lately, working on my bedroom that has been a mess for far too long. Still thinking about my next iOS app and enjoying having an iPhone for the first time.
A new section has been added to bitcake called Articles. This will be a random collection of things I find interesting. The first article will be a writeup of my current health condition. It’s… really weird. If you like medical stuff, mysteries, strangeness, and/or falling, look forward to reading about “Earth Axis Syndrome” (I got to name it since it doesn’t have one :P).
Murray 2013 everyone!
So I finally got to upgrade from my 5+ year old Samsung flip-style unsmart phone to an iPhone 5 (quite the step up ^^). Of course one of the first things I tried out was manga on a phone screen. The experience is better than expected. I’ve only tested a few series so far, but vertical scrolling in landscape mode (i.e. hold phone in landscape, width of page fills full height of screen and you scroll down to read) seems to be the way to go. The extra height on the new iPhone 5 screen is a big help for manga.
Please leave a comment if you are interested in reading manga on your phone. I can look into adding default profile settings in the next MangAI update.
Speaking of MangAI, I’m working on an update right now to fix a very weird bug. Apparently, when I pass my code through an obfuscator for final packaging, something is getting messed up. I noticed while processing some test manga for my new iPhone that some string chapters (e.g. chapter b1) were not being properly recognized. The unobfuscated code, on the other hand, works perfectly. This probably won’t be the easiest problem to track down, but I’ll release a fix as soon as its ready.
