Order Matters

When we discuss the basics of digital media, we consider the pixel (as defined in the 1970’s by Alvy Ray Smith et al.) as a basic unit. Once an image is sampled into pixels, all other digital operations can follow, from simple display to full AI image generation. In this code example, we sort pixels according to their color values to get a nice gradient where once there used to be an image. The data is exactly the same, it is just organized in a different order.

Before sorting by value

The code for this blasphemy is linked here.

After sorting by value