* Other types are going to be added in future. The goal is to be able to compare any two Blender data-blocks at both properties and data level in visual, user friendly way and to copy differences from each other. Support for other data-blocks will be added gradually. Stay tuned…
There are four modes available. Magnify with Loupe tool to quickly inspect magnified portions of image, Compare to identify differences between two images - show absolute Difference at pixel level, Map to mark areas with different pixel values and interactive Slider tool for slick before/after presentation with client behind your back or not, Overlay mode with Solar Curves and Detect Edges effects to analyse hard to see details like double shadows, noise, dust on lens or sensor, compression artifacts etc and Transform mode where you can rotate and flip image preview. Original image is never modified, everything is done on gpu with custom shaders and drawn on screen over Blender interface.
Because of Blender API, there are some limitations regarding image source and type. Supported are images loaded from files, image sequences from files and movies, generated images, Multilayer EXRs (only first View Layer and Combined pass) and Render Result image and its Slots (including slot to slot comparison) although its View Layer setting is not supported. Viewer Node image is not supported because it is used in many workarounds to get pixels from other image source and types. Tiled images are not supported at the moment, but might be in future. The same aplies on Multilayer EXR passes other than Combined. More info in documentation.
I jumped on this since I’ve been an extremely happy customer of the PCV addon for years. I have to say the timing on this is great, as I have to compare the render of two 3D scans of a wall taken a few months apart for a client. You won’t really understand much from this picture but the lines are the difference in pixels between the two renders. It’s great.
Small feature request : Is it possible to add an option to see which of the two pictures has the highest values ? Currently comparing Slot 1 with Slot 2 and Slot 2 with Slot 1 yield the same result if I’m not mistaken. Ideally some kind of Color ramp or an interface similar to the map range node would do great. I know you can’t go into negative RGB values but some way to visualize a signed rgb distance would be awesome.
I have to say I don’t really understand the Solar Curves overlay mode but it’s pretty. The Edge detection is great. In my case I can use it to display cracks in the wall. I feel like it’s the same feature as the compositor node but having it handy in the image editor is a plus.
I don’t have a use for the Loupe tool yet but I’m sure it will come in handy, working with high res images you often have to zoom in to see some random detail.
I also love the fact that you can import any raster image from disk, you don’t have to use rendered images from your blend file.
Edit : Feature request to be able to save the result image to disk
Difference boils down just to this abs(a - b). order doesn’t matter. i don’t think i am following what you mean. when you got a and b, they are not same in some area of interest. a is different from b in the same way as b is different from a. would you have some images as example?
i used that for many years as almost first thing in PS when i opened raw file. it makes much easier to see junk on lens and sensor for retouching, those slightly darker blurry spots. i also used it for finding anything weird after retouching, like repeated patterns from stamping etc…
that should be alright, noted, thought about it as well
