Joe's Filters: Joe's Pixelizer

The Joe's Pixelizer plugin is a part of Joe's Filters, a shareware package of utility and image processing tools for Final Cut Pro.

What it does

Joe's Pixelizer brings the popular and useful mosaic pixelization effect to Final Cut Pro. Pixel elements can be square, round or diamond shaped (squares rotated 45°), and colored based on two available color sampling methods. The pixelated image can be applied onto the existing image, a colored background or with alpha transparency. Pixels can also be spaced evenly, randomly offset and made to "dance" between frames.

Rendering speed is directly proportional to the complexity of the resulting effect. Decreasing Block Size requires more calculations and longer render times.

Example Images

Original Image
square; center sampling blocksize: 30 normal, 100%	square; block averaging blocksize: 30 normal, 100%
circle; block averaging blocksize: 30 stagger: no Vspace: 1; Hspace: 1 blur: 0.5 normal, 100% background: BG Fill: 100	circle; block averaging blocksize: 30 stagger: yes Vspace: 1; Hspace: 1 blur: 0.5 normal, 100% background: BG Fill: 100
diamond; center sampling blocksize: 50 stagger: yes blur: 0.25 normal, 100%	square; center sampling blocksize: 50 stagger: yes Vspace: 15; Hspace: 15 Xscatter: 10; Yscatter: 10 background: BG Fill: 100
circle; block average blocksize: 100 stagger: no Vspace: 20; Hspace: 20 screen, 100%	diamond; center sampling blocksize: 100 stagger: no difference, 100% background: BG Fill: 50

The Controls

• Shape (square, circle, diamond)

  The shape of the mosiac/pixel element.

• Color (Center Point, Block Average)

  Determines how the color of each element will be selected. Centerpoint picks whatever color is exactly centered in the block. Block Averaging first blurs the image by half of the block's size then uses the resulting color from the center of the block. The extra step of blurring the image adds a small amount of rendering time, but the resulting colors seem closer to the original image.

• Block Size (5 - 100)

  The size of the mosiac/pixel element. The smaller the block the more time will be needed to render the effect. Blocks sizes below 5 are nearly impossible to see on interlaced video and would take an eternity to render.

• V Offset and H Offset (-50% - 50%)

  This setting nudges the origin point of each block within the space of defined by Block Size.

• Stagger

  Shifts odd rows of blocks by half of the current block size. Circles and Diamonds will also shift up slightly to nest more closely.

• V Space and H Space (-2 - 100)

  Sets the amount of space between blocks. Negative values overlap slightly.

• X Scatter and Y Scatter (0 - 100)

  Randomly shifts blocks from their origin point. Large values will cause blocks to overlap.

• Dancing Scatter

  Causes the scatter values to be recalculated for every frame.

• Blur (0 - 25)

  Blurs the dots before applying them onto the original or background image.

• Mode, Opacity

  Composite controls to specify how to apply the blurred image back onto the original.

• Background, BG Fill

  BG fill selects a color to composite over the background image before applying the dots.

• Transparent

  Generates an alpha channel instead of the original image or color for the spaces between blocks.

Building Joe's Pixelizer with FXScript

If you are curious about FXScripts and Final Cut Pro, I also wrote a page about the FXScript behind Joe's Pixelizer...