Blog Post #10
​4/30/19

I made some changes to my project to help finish up. I added some little things so the user can change generations or the elite percentage. I made the font size larger since it was small before. There are now some text boxes that briefly describe what the number inputs are for. I managed to fix some errors, like saving over the source image. Keeping my file path for the source image came in handy there. I made a simple How To guide that tells the user how to use the program. The guide will be updated if something comes up. There has been a new page added called "Files" that holds the files for the program and a folder with everything. The exe file is in there rather than the whole project since not everyone will have Visual Studios or want to open it in Visual Studios and run it there.

Blog Post #9
4/27/19

Presentations are officially finished with some unexpected results (Way to go Dr. Pankratz). I regretfully did not post anything before because I was caught up making the algorithm that I forgot that I should have made a post. Good news was that I made a class and a successful algorithm with the help of Dr. Pankratz and Dr. McVey. It does not work 100% as I want it to, but I am claiming it is because of there are three colors being added together which may be causing a slight issue. With boring solid colors, like red, works well, but it take a lot of generations. Friends have told me my presentation was good. I, on the other hand, know I should have spoke more about the algorithm and not have my hand in my pocket while presenting. Right now, I will be getting everything ready for my defense by cleaning up my code and by wrapping things up to hand it all in.

Blog Post #8
4/10/19

I am still going through the genetic algorithm. I found some C++ code online that goes through a string using the algorithm. This is helping me a lot with understanding since I can see how it is working rather than reading about how it works. Seeing it in action helps me understand how I will go about making the algorithm with images rather than text. Honestly, I feel less lost on the algorithm now compared to earlier in the semester.

Blog Post # 7
​4/3/19

My issue having my "tile" images being smaller than what they are supposed to be has been resolved. I am ashamed to say for how simple it was after spending more than enough time figuring it out. I was grabbing the picture box's width and height and not the source images. With that sorted, I have the images becoming the correct size now. I will admit, I am behind on where I wanted to be at. With this image thing down, I finally can say that I can start the Genetic Algorithm, which is why I am doing some refreshing research on it to help.

Blog Post #6
​3/25/19

Over the break, I managed to find a way to cut the image up without Photoshop. Rather than getting singular pixels in the corners and center, I am grabbing a chunk of pixels in the corners an center to make comparing and finding better like images to hopefully go more smoothly. I have also successfully "stitched" the cut up images back together and display them onto a Picture Box. Saving the image works well and I am not getting a singular image.

Blog Post #5
​3/4/19

It has been a bit of a slow week for me. I have successfully cut an image up into tiles, but it was with Photoshop as suggested. With that, I will be able to start coding the algorithm. This Thursday, I have asked for a meeting with Dr.McVey to make sure my idea for going about this algorithm will work. Currently, I am thinking about having three 2-D arrays, grandparent, parent, and child. There if the parent and the grandparent have a good selection, they can merge into the child. The child will then be copied into the parent for the next generation and so on. This'll be a big step that will get the algorithm moving.

Blog Post #4
2/18/19

To get started, I got the source image to save to see what the quality will be like. Image is fine when saved, same quality. Currently, I am trying to cut up an image into at least 4 squares to keep it simple and work my way up. There will be 4^n squares, where
4^n <= total pixels, that will be mixed up. The algorithm that I will be using is the Genetic algorithm. My interpretation on it is the images or slices are randomized. Then, it takes the slices that have the best average compared to the source block of pixels. After getting the best slices, it "throws away" the bad slices and repeats until it either finds one piece or there is no change in pieces. Attached can help illustrate the mutating, where the 9-block on the right has 2, 3, and 7 as a good chunk, and then the 9-block on its left has 8, 5, and 7 as a good chunk. Those to chunks will merge together and mutate to have those two good chunks while the rest randomizes again. This, to me, is the meat and potatoes of the project. There are some good suggestions that have been suggested during our small poster board presentations.

Blog Post #3
​2/11/19

​Making some progress with what I put in my timeline. I managed to upload an image and made it fit to the image box, the stretching will possibly change when I get to the meat and potatoes of the project. I am looking into the Image class to help with other image manipulation to help, like change images to bitmap files. I plan to start big to have less "tiles" to begin with and work my way down with smaller images/tiles. When my poster board presentation comes about this Thursday, I can ask some more important questions, like when to stop my algorithm. Or ask for how to describe average when cutting the picture up, maybe ask about matching sides on the mosaic that is being made. After these big questions get answered, and if there is time left, I will ask if the UI is in user friendly. All in all, I think that the presentations this Thursday will be a great help to some questions that came up with my meeting with Dr. Pankratz.

Blog Post #2
​2/4/2019

Before I go about making the UI for this, I am drawing out and idea. So far There is an area for the source image, where the mosaic will be, an upload source image, save button if the user likes the mosaic, and radio buttons that decide how many images will be used in the mosaic. I am undecided on the blank space on the bottom of my design. I am still trying to get used to C#. Picking it up, so far, feels familiar because of the similarities with Java. Once I have more confidence with C#, I will start adding onto my project.

Blog Post #1
1/28/2019

Things are going swimmingly. I am learning the basics of C# and getting more comfortable with it. I was given a C# textbook to help start learning how it works. So far, it feels a lot like Java, with the difference of no xml. Even though it seems like little progress has been made on my project, I feel as if learning how C# works will help benefit my project greatly in the future. There will be periodic updates to this website regarding Resume, About Me, and the blog posts because of me doing a slight change here or there or someone suggested something that can improve upon one of these.