C.A.P.E. - Computer Assisted Panel Extractor

C.A.P.E. is a smart editor to reduce the time taken to extract comic book panel information from comic books. This extracted information is then stored as part of the comic book digital file and can be used by reader applications to created a guided reading experience for the users. By leveraging the computer extrated information we can hope to reduce the overall time to extract the panels from a comic by a magnitude of what it would take for a human alone.

The Approach is divided in the following stages:

• Automated panel extraction using computer vision. (paneleextractor.py)
• Graphical editor capable of loading the generated metadata to allow for a human to verify the the output and make any needed corrections.
• Magic, because you can never have too much. See it in action here: https://youtu.be/MVm1ywoULko

Requirements

• The panel extractor uses OpenCV and Python so make sure to follow the installation steps here; https://opencv-python-tutroals.readthedocs.io/en/latest/py_tutorials/py_setup/py_setup_in_windows/py_setup_in_windows.html
• The editor is built using Electron so make sure you follow the installation steps here: https://electronjs.org/docs/tutorial/installation

Metadata Structure

After the first pass the panel recognizer outputs a metadata file for each of the comic pages analysed. This metadata is stored alongside each page with the same name as the comic page image file but with the extension '.cpanel'.

The structure of the metadata file is as follows: First Tab:

{
	"panels": [
	   {
		"box": {
			"y": 68,
			"x": 28,
			"w": 1073,
			"h": 521
		},
		"shape": [{"y": 90, "x": 48}]
	}, {
		"box": {
			"y": 620,
			"x": 28,
			"w": 521,
			"h": 521
		},
		"shape": []
	},
	"imagePath": "2013.06.01-Sloan_p01.jpg",
	"version": 2
}

• version: Current version of the format, used for tracking future changes.
• panels: List of panel information objects. Each object contains all the information for a given panel.
• box: This is the bounding box coordinates and dimensions of the panel. All the coordinates and dimensions are in source coordinates.
• shape: List of (x,y) coordinates of each point of the bounding shape of the panel. Used to support more unique panels that don't fit in a box. Not supported as of version 1.
• imagePath: Relative path to the image of the comic page this metadata is associated with. In metadata since version 2.

C.A.P.E. v0.1.2 - Automated Copping of Panels

Video demo of extraction of panels into separate image files.

C.A.P.E. v0.1.1 - Automated Panel Recognition.

Video demo of automated panel recognition

License

ISC