News from APP Helmond

January 2012
Mosaizer Pro 9 has been released! The new version of Mosaizer Pro has several exciting new features, while many small (and bigger) bugs have been solved. Some functions have been improved as well. This is the shortlist of what to expect from Mosaizer Pro 9:

New feature: smart cell sizes. With this feature the photo mosaic result will allow for different mosaic tile sizes.
Multiple masks: more than one mask can now be used in the same mosaic.
Wizard: to quickly start to make a photo mosaic only 3 steps are now needed with clear instructions what settings should be used.
Improvements in the tile editor, printing, transparent sources (.PNG files) and (again!) speed increase.
Optimization: fully redesigned tile distance and -distribution optimization algorithm, now a factor 50 faster.
Easy masks: also the well-known .PNG file type can now be used for transparent masks, practically replacing the difficult to make 32bit bitmaps.
Multi-masking: more than one mask can now be used in one phoso mosaic picture. Actually as much as you like.
Optimized for Windows 7. But it runs of course also on any other (modern) windows operating systems.
Four new languages, and more than 200 (new) masks.

November 2011
Wordaizer has another brand new feature: saving the result as a vector file. In this file format the result is not saved as pixels in a bitmap, but in so-called vectors. This way the output can be enlarged as big as you want. It is comparable with the way fonts work in windows: you can enlarge text as much as you like.

Like Wordaizer also Textaizer Pro has now this key feature on board: saving the result as a scaleable vector file. You can download version 4.2 from this website.

We keep on being published on covermounts: the October issue of 'ct Digitale Fotografie' has taken Mosaizer Pro on board as 'Foto-Tools', a select set of tools that is greatly supported by that Magazine. We are in good company like the Gimp, Microsoft ICE and ExifTool. Details of the Magazine can be found on their website.

September 2011
Wordaizer has a brand new feature: an educational mode. In this mode the interface is reduced to its bare essentials to make a great wordlet (as the word cloud is called in that mode). Next to this mode a few changes have been made 'under the hood':

A simpler interface, removing non-obvious effects and controls
Improved size matching engine
Improved help file, supporting you to understand the controls in depth
Brand new skins applied, like the other applications that have now the same look and feel of APP Helmond

August 2011
Our website has been hacked and altered. On July 29 we received an e-mail from Google that our website was classified as 'unsafe and contained malicious scripts'. As a consequence Google would not show the page, but only show a warning. In the meantime also the server provider closed the website.
The good thing is that we have guardian angels to protect our users (and show warnings or close websites). The bad news is HOW THE HELL COULD THIS HAPPEN?

We have searched for the root cause, and the only reason we could find is a trojan virus on the home computer, stealing FTP-passwords and allowing the index.htm files to be changed.

So, obviously, we have first removed the malicious scripts from the website, then re-installed Windows on the home computer, changed all the passwords in that safe newly installed environment, deleted the entire website from the server, then re-uploaded the entire website.
And now we are back in business!

Pattaizer underwent a major overhaul. The current version is now 1.5 (build 26), and has many improvements. Most efforts were focused to improve the stability, and some new features are now available. In short:

New: Projects to save and reload favourite pattern effects
Improvements: major debugging effort of some features was carried out (kaleidoscope, pinch, tubes)
Removed flickering when live-updating the drawn wire-frame pattern
Brand new skins applied, like the other applications that have now the same look and feel of APP Helmond
Improved interface for web-updates

March 2011
Good news for all users of APP Helmond's applications! All applications are now fully functional with no restrictions and no registration is required amymore for the Mosaizer software. Fully freeware. For the rest of your (computer's) life.
While making the application fully free, some small changes were made:

Skins: the applications Mosaizer Pro/Lite, Textaizer, Wordaizer and Pattaizer now have all the same look and feel.
Pattaizer underwent a major upgrade by improving its video functionality, which is now fully DirectShow compatible. This way all codecs in your systems are now applicable, so freedom of choice what kind of video you'd like to create.

We will again be published in a major German magazine, as a 'Suite of creativity'. More news when the publication is made, and when we are proudly part of the covermount DVD.

January 2011
Jacques G. (he wishes to stay anonymous) has kindly translated the interface for Mosaizer Pro, Wordaizer and Pattaizer into the French language. Merci très, très bien Jacques!

In the Christmas period we have been working on a new application which will be released soon. It will be named "Collaizer", a versatile photo collage creator. "What? Another photo collage creator?" one might think. Perhaps yes, but we believe this photo collage creator combines many functionalities that are offered in several shareware applications (so: pay money for it) into just ONE application. And of course we offer this as freeware to the world. Collaizer is not only capable to create great photo collages from a series of pictures, but also creating collages in a user-defined shape. Some features:

Speed: Collaizer uses multiple processor cores in parallel, so hundreds of pictures are analyzed and placed on the collage in just seconds!
User interface: a very attractive and intuitive interface to select and use the many features of the application
Options: not just photo collages in a predefined template can be created, but also using multiple pictures that closely following a user-defined shape
Input: a mini explorer is added to quickly and intuitively select pictures from your hard disk, and add or remove these to and from the collage
Output: saving and printing in a very convenient and simple way, at precise formats and sizes
Projects: for picture libraries and result to repeat an earlier photo collage by simply saving the current project, then load and use this later on to modify or to continue with the collage

News from 2010

November 2010
Picture Frame Wizard has been updated with the German language. Version 1.0 build 30 is available from our website. Freeware of course!.

September 2010
It has been silent for a very long time. Main reason is that we have been working on an exciting project with PopNoggings to develop Flipbook Movie software. Here you can find more information. Planned improvements and feature development for Mosaizer, Textaizer and Wordaizer had to be postponed.

However, we have picked up improving our freeware again! To start with, we have added a new feature in Textaizer Pro called 'whole words'. When this option is selected, all words are kept as a whole during text Mosaic creation. This feature was requested from an enthousiast and loyal user. In case you want new features: let us know!

We have yet another a publication!
On September 14 a dutch magazinee published a workshop on photo mosaic creation, entirely based on the Mosaizer Pro 8 software. On these 4 pages a tutorial was given how to create 'mighty great mosaics' using our software. The magazine and the website can be found here.

April 2010
Wordaizer v1.0 build 15 now has an exciting new feature: words can now be printed at any angle between horizontal and vertical. We have added another 15 examples to show the effect of angled words. Check out the Wordaizer page.

March 2010
Textaizer Pro 4 is released! The interface is brand new, the application is very stable and a bit faster. Great new features have been added (Crazy Characters, new color match engines). It's still freeware and can be downloaded on the Textaizer web page.

A new application Wordaizer has been released. This brand new application is inspired by the Wordle java applet. Where Wordle stops, Wordaizer takes over (well, that's what we hope). These are the features of Wordaizer:

Create word clouds
Apply masks to create precise word cloud shapes
Be surprised: a random word cloud generator
Save and print the resulting picture
Save and load projects to repeat a word cloud

February 2010
Mosaizer 8 has been released! The new version has been thoroughly tested and found stable enough to go for the release. The old versions are NOT supported any more. Any possible issues in Pro 7 series will not be solved. Please upgrade to verion Pro 8.
PictureFrame Wizard has been updated several times to get rid of a few minor bugs. Users have been reporting about them and we have now solved all the major issues that were still found during (extreme) use.
The planned release of Textaizer Pro 4 has been postponed. We don't have much time to follow our ambitious schedule. The new version is now planned in Spring 2010. We expect to add a few exciting new functions and update/imprive on stability and quality. What you can expect in Textaizer Pro 4:

Stability: with increased functionality Textaizer Pro 3 sometimes gets stuck or got slower
Simplicity: a less crowded interface, with less buttons and less tabs
Functionality: only place characters when the color is not equal to a background color (keeping sentences complete)
Crazy Characters: a new functionality to draw characters with your mouse, incl. on-button effects and "surprise" options
Wordaizer: A variant of the popular Wordle applications

January 2010
Mosaizer 8 BETA has been released!

Stability: with increased functionality, the Pro 7 versions could still crash/freeze
Simplicity: a much simpler interface, with less buttons and tabs, and a very flat learning curve
Quality: a better resize and rendering engine is applied, with better quality results
Speed: higher quality slows down the rendering speed, but the mosaic rendering is still up to 2 times faster
One more language available: German

News from 2009

December 2009
It's been quiet the past months. The main reason is that we have been working on three projects simultaneously:

the posters for the Copenhagen festival (www.co2penhagen.com)
a brand new application for SNT Bruges (Belgium), called "Crazy Characters" (as an addition to Textaizer Pro, to be released soon)
a new application for EventMall USA (www.eventmallusa.com), called "Instant Mosaic" (dynamically flying mosaic pictures)
The new Mosaizer Pro 8 platform: 3-10 times faster, simpler interface, much bigger photo mosaics in one go, scheduled for release in Januari 2010

August 2009
Two brand new applications have been launched!

Pictureframe Wizard: a great support to store 10-100 times more pictures in your digital picture frame. The digital cameras easily produce 5 Mb pictures, so about 200 pictures would fit on a 1 Gb memory of the picture frame. With PictureFrame Wizard you not only increase this amount to 8-10,000 photo's on a Gb, it also adds a label and date in the photo. You'll always remember when the picture was taken, and where. Boring pictures? No worry, with PictureFrame Wizard you simply add a funny or pretty effect.
Interactive LiveMosaics!: a professional application to create mosaic video from a webcam source. The effect is not only vivid and alive, it's completely interactive. Like a mosaic mirror. Great for attracting people's attention for whatever reason: shops, advertisement, or just fun for children.

Mosaizer Lite underwent a turbo-size boost! The capacity of Mosaizer Lite now exceeds Mosaizer Pro with respect to speed and photo mosaic size.
We have tested the application (version 1.2) to generate a 660 Mb photo mosaic in just 26 seconds (a 400 Mb was generated in just 8 seconds!). This 660 Mb is equivalent to a 200 Megapixel camera...
Next to this size-boost we have added the possibility to select a preference to better distribute the same tiles on even colored surfaces (or keep to the randomly placed algorithm, which is in our opinion slightly more natural). July 2009
Mosaizer Pro has a new feature: cropping the source file, to only render what you are interested in. It saves the use of additional bitmap editor tools to first cut out the part you need for Mosaizer pro.
The size selection has also been updated with an improved setting: the default is now set as HighQuality 5 Megapixel picture as printed on an A4 paper. Changing the size is now more intuitive and better understood when size changes are made.

June 2009
All three applications of APP Helmond underwent a redesign of the web-update feature (Mosaizer Pro, Mosaizer Lite and Textaizer Pro). This feature is now consistent between the versions and is more user-friendly. The download progress can be seen and the update can be opened upon request to start updating the software.

May 2009
Mosaizer Lite 1.1b5 has been released:

to further improve our customer support, registration is now required after 30 days of unrestricted use (like Mosaizer Pro) .
the possibility to update from our website has been added
a little bug in the Colorize post-processing has now been solved (was only visible when changing source pictures)

Other news:

New skins have been made available. Look at the Goodies page to download the skins.
The rss feeds have been discontinued. It was fun when we started, but a pain to continue. The news page is sufficient.

April 2009
A new application has been launched: Mosaizer Lite ! This version is an extremely fast freeware photo mosaic creator. It is the simpler version of it's bigger brother Mosaizer Pro. This new application can be downloaded from the Download page. Additional libraries will be made available on the webite, but like Mosaizer Pro the user can make libraries her/himself. The major difference between a library for Mosaizer Pro and the Lite version is that the library for Lite is now one file and not a fixed link to pictures on the hard drive.
Mosaizer Lite has the following possibilities:

Creation of photo mosaic pictures
AutoMosaizing: cutting a bitmap into smaller parts, from which the application rebuilts the original
Automated picture library creation (incl. 2 readily available libraries of pictures)
Automated post-processing and picture enhancement
- blending with the original bitmap
- colorizing each individual cell
- anti-aliasing for a smooth result
- sharpening to create a fresh looking picture
Easy workflow: just 4 buttons and a few settings

A new feature to Textaizer Pro has been added, and a few bugs in Mosaizer Pro have been solved. This is the shortlist:

Textaizer Pro: the resulting bitmap can now be printed on multiple pages has been added (max. 100 pages)
Mosaizer Pro: a bug in square pattern with non-square library images has been corrected
Mosaizer Pro: 'floating point division error' message in printer menu has been debugged
Mosaizer Pro: picture library creation has new been improved with a better and easier to use interface

March 2009
To both Mosaizer Pro and Textaizer Pro a skin selector has been added. The user can now select his or her favourite skin for the graphical interface. At the moment 6 skins are available after installation. More skins will become available for download soon.

Mosaizer Pro 7.1 has been released. The major change is a brand new color matching engine. This new engine effectively analyzes also the interior of each tile and library picture. This is the overview of changes:

all color engines have been replaced with one new engine
library color match prediction has also greatly been enhanced
post-processing: blend en colorize have now a better user interface
pre-processing: all filter changes are updated in real-time to better evaluate the effect
source masks have been simplified: 'source mask as alpha' is not possible anymore
some minor bugs have been solved
minor language updates have been added and modified
Vista users: 'floating point division' error has now fully been resolved

February 2009
Some debugging was done and two new (small) feature have been added:

a bug in the color engine 'pixel comparison' was solved.
the cell can now be rotated as well (only in combination with an alpha mask).
the option to create a better color match with the Mosaizer's cut picture is now available (100% picture recovery when the pixel comparison engine is chosen).

On request of many users we have (finally) issued a series of tutorials. Currently there are 6 tutorials available:

Three on the creation of a picture library, to make a photo mosaic and how to use the mosaizer tool.
Three that describes how to create a specific effect with the provided tools of Mosaizer Pro.

Each tutorial includes an extensive walkthrough with lots of pictures to explain how it was done. The tutorials can be downloaded from the 'Goodies' page. And more to come ! We do requests on 'How to..', so suggestions are welcome....

January 2009
A number of problems have been solved in the latest versions of Mosaizer Pro:

On some systems the irritating error message 'Floating division by zero' with Mosaizer Pro can be avoided by running the application in administrator mode, by right-clicking 'run as administrator' in the windows explorer. Testing in Vista and Windows 7 solved this issue.
A bug in the pattern selector of Mosaizer Pro has been solved (build 7.0.30)

Mosaizer Pro, Textaizer Pro and Pattaizer all have built-in multi-language support.

Currently English and Dutch are supported (Pattaizer and Textaizer Pro also German)
We are currently working to translate in Spanish !
We would like to issue other languages. Anyone volunteering?

Textaizer Pro has two new features:

Spiralling text: in the previous versions the text always looped from left to right, from top to bottom. Now the text can also loop in a huge dense spiral.
Font Art: a picture is build from strings of (short) text, where the print density of the strings determine the grayscale impression.

News from 2008

December 2008
We have been working hard on the Textaizer Pro version. It has now been released ! A fully new designed interface and exiting new features are available with the new version.

a new GUI (Graphical User Interface) to fully meet the professional desk top publishing demands
major improvements of almost every function has been achieved
textures can now be applied to create a 3D surface effect
pre-sets are now available (saving, loading) to recreate that special effect (and forgot to remember how)
more intuitive menu structure, quick settings, improved workflow
Textaizer 2.x will not be supported from December onward (customer service remains of course)

Mosaizer (Pro) has been published in the December edition of the Dutch Fotomagazine.info.

November 2008
Textaizer has been upgraded with an additional feature: printing the bitmap. This was done on request of Ben.

Mosaizer Pro has been launched on Nov 16 !

a new GUI (Graphical User Interface) to fully meet the professional desk top publishing demands
major improvements of almost every function has been achieved
two new color matching methods has been added
three new patterns are now available (circles, spirals, hexagons)
the 'cell-edit' and 'mask rotation' features have been fully restored and improved
more intuitive menu structure, quick settings, improved workflow
printing functionality has been added (also to print the result on multiple pages to create home-made posters)
Mosaizer 6 will not be supported from November onward (customer service remains of course), and the serial number will not be valid for Mosaizer Pro

The 'goodies' page was started. The first application that has become available is called 'iPlay2'. This little app manages multiple music libraries in iTunes. In case you have two iPods (or more) and 1 PC, this is the app to use.

October 2008
Mosaizer 6 got a new skin (build 12-15)

a bug with non-blurring images has been solved
minor changes and improvements
some runtime bugs are now solved
the 'cell-edit' and 'mask rotation' features have been disabled due to errors in certain circumstances.
development of Mosaizer Pro was started: the cell-edit rotating masks will return !

August 2008
An interesting new feature in Mosaizer 6 was added: rotating masks (build 11)

rotating masks can be used to simulate brush strokes (new sidebar ->)
the brush mask was introduced as a special alpha mask

A new application called Pattaizer has been published (version 1.2 build 14)

Pattaizer is a playful tool to create great effects with patterns
9 different basic patterns are provided, and lots of additional controls and effects
create video footage from dynamically changing patterns, using scripts

June 2008
A major update of Textaizer 2 (builds 3-11) is published in which

the Videaizer underwent a major upgrade (thanks Carl for suggestions and testing!)
- the user has now two engines to choose from (ASCII art or Text Mosaic)
- the vid-window has now been improved (bitmaps are now managed internally)
- all filter, font-size and background settings for ASCII art and Text Mosaic also apply to Videaizer
- improved video/media player controls
- next to video footage, also a selection of multiple bitmaps can be taken as a source for Videaizer
- frame grabbing to port the frames directly to the Textaizer window
- script files to dynamically change font size, character rotation and -position
- Use of key frames to better control and define the special effects
a CPU priority selector has been added
some minor inconveniences have been solved

May 2008
An update of Mosaizer 6 (build 8) is published in which

an improvement in the blending feature has been introduced, by using the option to pre-blur the original prior to blending
minor bugs have been solved

March 2008
An update of Mosaizer 6 (build 5-7) is published in which

a major memory efficiency improvement has been implemented (the application now indicates the RAM usage, the 'split file size' can now be set)
a new functionality called 'minimum distance between similar cells' has been added
render time estimation added
jpg compression quality can be set and results can be stored as bmp or jpg file format
preference setting has been improved
minor bugs have been solved
available presets are now loaded when Mosaizer starts

Mosaizer 6 is published in a major Dutch computer magazine ComputerIdee.nl

February 2008
Mosaizer 6 is published, in which a Genuine Paintbrush has finally been added

the paintbrush paints with (library) pictures
the color of the 'paint' is determined by the underlying mosaic
the type of 'paint' is determined by the choice of graphic effect
masks can dynamically be changed during painting
versatile effects with ALL basic functionalities
the 'merge with background white' feature is added to improve color match impression

Textaizer 2.1 is published (build 1-11)

a major change was made to Textaizer 2: IntelliDraw capability was added
the application interface underwent a major upgrade for more intuitive user interaction
swapping between the different functional tabs without losing the results from the other tabs
background picture can now be hidden and shown again to improve result evaluation
improved version update control and version recognition via the web
extended ASCII characters ('block characters') are now available to create full-body ASCII art
block characters are in color (bitmap and HTML)
more settings are added to the ini-file to further ease the personal workflow and settings
some bugs were solved

An update of Textaizer 2 (builds 8-10) is published in which

a bug is fixed (when the free draw pencil moves 'out of the paper' an error message appeared)
a feature was added (easy choice of the draw key in free draw mode).

January 2008
We are happy to blog some major achievements in this month:

The new website is launched
Textaizer 2 is published on the covermount of a leading computer magazine Computerbild.de
Mosaizer 5 is published on the covermount of a major Italian computer magazine PC Open.it
Textaizer 2 is also published on the covermount of a major Japanese computer magazine IP! (March 2008)

Updates of Mosaizer 5 (build 22-25) are issued in which new features are introduced.

a different background picture can be chosen to replace the source picture (from which the mosaic picture is derived) or to replace the colored background
the random settings have been improved:
- a change of settings is now immediately visible
- the random range is now bigger
now the limit of 4 Mio sub-pictures has correctly been set
improved Windows Vista compatibility
preset functionality is added to quickly make a mosaic with your favorite settings
video frames can now be saved to create true mosaic animations
an automatic web-updater has been added to allow regular checks for updates of Mosaizer 5

Updates of Mosaizer 5 (build 18-21) are issued. Apart from minor fixes, some new features are introduced.

now libraries be made from (picture) folders and its sub-directories as well
all special settings combined now into a new tab
now libraries can be added to other libraries
improved help file
a bug in working with regional settings has now been solved
some minor typing errors in user-dialogs corrected
now the 'Combine library' feature is available

Updates of Textaizer 2 (build 3-7) are issued. The following fixes were made and features were introduced:

the multi-regional settings are now correctly taken care of
font size can be 'fixed', 'dynamic' or 'following the luminance of the source picture'
now the line spacing and dynamic font size are effectively aligned
the screensaver feature is now documented and available

News from 2007

November 2007
The website breaks a new record of 20 GB of downloads. Thousands of downloads of Mosaizer and Textaizer are recorded and over half a million hits on Google were seen for both applications.

October 2007
Mosaizer 5 is introduced. This version is now fully freeware, with one restriction of the 30-day anonymous use. Apart from minor bug fixes, the following features were introduced:

added the Pre-Processing functionality
visual library color matching with source picture
pre-filtering the source picture to enhance the color match
the library quality indicator calculation has been improved to better reflect the color match
anonymous use: time restriction limitation of 30 days, after that a serial number is required to keep using Mosaizer for free (e-mail registration required)

Textaizer 2 is introduced. Apart from minor bug fixes, the following features were introduced:

the quality of the dynamic font size feature has been improved
avoid Quick Text limitations on the number of lines
new engine for color management

June 2007
First release of version Mosaizer 4.5 with some fixes, improvements and new features:

improved pre- and post-processing workflow
introduction of 3 different color matching algorithms (still in beta phase)
better visibility of the effect of post-processing filters
introduction of a library match indicator

May 2007
First release of version Mosaizer 4.4 with some bugs fixed and new features:

with 'delete temp directory' the program doesn't crash anymore
with 'buttonize circle' amount = 0 does not generate 'divide by zero' error anymore
the sourcemasks now also work with split files for large bitmaps

Textaizer 1b23 is enriched with a video functionality, called 'Videaizer'.

April 2007 Textaizer is introduced. Builds 1-22 were gradually released next months. Some of these are:

now ASCII text also work with italic text
build-in a new limitation: max 255 characters for the ASCII text string

March 2007
Mosaizer 4.3 is introduced on the internet. This version is the first that was made available to a wider audience. Earlier versions were only used in the small circle of friends, collegues and relatives.