Dredge Fish Species Notebook

Description

The process to create a physical version of the digital Fish Species Notebook from Dredge

Image Extraction

The Notebook is a single PDF file, so we will use PDF image extractor to get specific fish images out of it:

./extract_images.sh fish.pdf dredge

The script uses pdfimages tools and ImageMagick to apply transparent mask back to images. As a result, you will get one folder full of different images. You will notice that fish images Next, create the following directory structure:

📂 assets
├── 📂 aberration_bg
│   ├── horizontal_rect_abb.png
│   ├── square_abb.png
│   └── vertical_rect_abb.png
├── 📂 photos_aberrations
│   ├── image-xxx.png
│   └── ...
├── 📂 normal_bg
│   ├── horizontal_rect_normal.png
│   ├── square_normal.png
│   └── vertical_rect_normal.png
├── 📂 photos_normal
│   ├── image-xxx.png
│   └── ...

I have already added background directories to this repo:

The fish photos are not in this repo for potential copyright reasons. Just added a "basic and plentiful" cod as an example:

So you need to manually move extracted fish images to their respective folders.

Background Matching

Next, I prepared a python script that will accept background and raw image photo directories, and match the fish with background using the closest aspect ratio:

python3 dredge_bg_matcher.py assets/normal_bg assets/normal normal_fish_with_bg
python3 dredge_bg_matcher.py assets/aberration_bg assets/aberrations abb_fish_with_bg

The script is not perfect, and I have added a custom background matching for some images based on their extracted order sequence, so you might have to tweak it a bit if you get different results.

Fish Shadow

One thing I noticed is that the extracted images do not have shadow as in the PDF, so I added a method to generate a shadow to this script as well. I think it matches the original one pretty well:

Left - original, Right - My shadow

Final Results

After that, you should see the matched and combines photos in the output directories:

Photo Printing

I have used my local photo printing shops (in Switzerland: Migros or ALDI Photos) with the following specs:

• Square photos: 9cm for most, 10 cm for Grouper and Gnashing Perch
• Rectangle: 9x13cm
• Rare fish Close-ups: 10x15cm

First Results:

Total budget: XX$

Notebook

This is the most difficult part. I had imagined the following specifications:

• Hardcover
• Brown/Yellow/Orange cover
• 40 pages
• Liner or Blank
• Yellowish paper

This turned out to be extremely difficult. For trying things out, I have ordered this one from Amazon (in package of 3):

The cover is black and soft, but other parameters match well.

Otherwise I am considering a Personalised A4 Notebook from Etsy: