ToonCamera Turns Your World Into A Cartoon In Real-Time
October 4, 2010
Tired of seeing the world through the same, yawn-inducing view? Then you have to check out Code Organa's new photography app, ToonCamera, which is able to add a little cartoon to your life in real-time.
ToonCamera is a new photography app that is able to turn your world into a live cartoon, stipple, or sketch by applying effects to your iPhone's live camera feed. It allows you to see just how your photo is going to turn out before you take it, effectively skipping the tiring process of applying effects to photos afterwards, only to realize it just didn't turn out the way you wanted it to.
The moment you launch the app you will start seeing the world in a whole new way. You can wave your device around, walk with it in front of you, and just enjoy the view since the app utilizes a form of automatic Rotoscoping, which is a technique used in animated films like A Scanner Darkly where video frames are painted over with artistic strokes.
The app contains three styles -- cartoon, sketch, and stipple -- and three line styles, totaling nine different combinations. Once you have found a scene you would like to capture, just tap the large camera button in the middle of the screen. From there you can save the image to your Camera Roll, email it, or upload it to Facebook or Twitter. ToonCamera is able to utilize both the front and back camera on your iDevice, so you can take a scenic picture or a self portrait. It can also utilize your device's LED to light up your subject if necessary.
I couldn't have been more pleased during my short time testing the app. Its ability to apply effects in real-time makes the process truly seamless, and the effects almost always turn out just as you would expect. The only real problem I have with the app is that it saves pictures in 480x320 resolution. That, and I think it would be absolutely fantastic if I could record video using the real-time effects. How great would it be to create your own animated film in minutes? Apparently this is something the team at Code Organa is looking into, and I can not wait for its implementation.
As it stands, ToonCamera is still easily worth the $1.99 asking price, especially if you are like me and don't have the patience to mess around with applying filters that just don't turn out the way you would have hoped. It's compatible with the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and the new 4th generation iPod touch.
Check out my mini gallery of images below to see what ToonCamera is capable of. I have also included Code Organa's promotional video below.
[gallery link="file" columns="4"]
