Tag Archives: AI image creation

The corner staircase

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I’ve always had this vision of building my own house. I have no experience with architecture, I struggle to build IKEA furniture, and lack basic handyman skills… but I’ve always wanted to design my own dream home. One feature I envision is a staircase in an all-glass corner of the house. It’s kind of a double spiral staircase, and it is designed such that both at the top and the bottom, you walk towards the corner to go both up and down the stairs, and they turn at the halfway point. At the top, you just walk towards the corner and then have a choice of turning either to the left or right. Essentially, you go down about 5 or six steps to a landing where the spiral splits both ways, going away from the corner and along the side walls.

At the bottom of the steps, the first 2 steps create a half circle or crescent, going completely across the corner. Then the stairs spiral left or right with a railing that is only about 6 inches above and behind the second step at the center, and then spirals up with the steps to railing hight by the 4th or 5th step. This creates an empty space on the inside of the spiral, behind the first 2 steps. In this space, underneath the stairs that are coming  down from the floor above, there is a waterfall and then a fish pond in the void behind the spirals.

One more feature is that the wall behind the waterfall has 2 possible positions, one is just less than 90º and the other is just a bit more than 90º. This allows the waterfall to either be a true falls, with water splashing as it lands in the pond, or it can be subtle with water silently sliding down the wall into the pond. So, it’s a wonderful, natural background noise when you want it, but also a subtle trickle when you’d like quiet.

I’ve tried drawing it, but can’t seem to get it right. The AI image I created here is a start of the idea, although not completely what I envision. I’ve tried many times to tweak this image, or use other tools, but I lack the descriptive skills to really get what I want. Still, this would be one feature I’d love to have if I was ever given the chance to design my own house.

AI image woes

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A few years ago I switched from looking for royalty free images to add to my Daily-Ink blog posts to using AI. The main reason for this is that I found myself spending almost as much time searching for images as I was spending writing my blog post. This was not efficient.

While I’ve had a few challenges along the way, for the most part, I got image creation consistently down around 3-5 minutes. This is great, and so much less stressful… except for when it isn’t. The past few days have been a struggle. I couldn’t get the AI to give me what I wanted. Even when I asked for clarification, and a description of my image was recited ack to me in incredible detail, the end product did not match what I hoped for.

Three of the last four days I was at the gym, walking on the treadmill and I was still trying to get my post published, delayed by failed attempts to get the image I hoped for. In all 3 cases I settled for something close. Actually 2 out of 3, for the other one I used a sample Wikipedia image the AI found for me. I can’t believe how hard it is to get AI to create the image of a clock showing the time 5 o’clock!?!

I was tempted to say that AI image creation is getting dummer, but I think what’s happening is that I’ve just started to expect a lot more. The clock is a bad example, but in many cases I’m expecting a level of sophistication I haven’t asked for previously. I want specific perspectives. I’m asking for complex scenarios, and I’m challenging the AI to create ‘unnatural’ situations, like a teacher in a circle of desks with the students all sitting looking out and away from the teacher.

That’s sounds like an easy request but in millions of reference images of teachers, the AI has been trained to have students face the teacher. So despite continued attempts, with the AI actually describing in detail what I’m asking for before giving it to me, I still got an image of the students facing inward, towards the teacher. Again, and again, and again.

So I’m going to dumb it down. I’m going to ask for less complex images. I’m going to settle for an image that might not be perfect, and most importantly I’m going to spend less time on images and more time writing.

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Post script: My one and only image request for this post – ‘Create a stylized, abstract watercolour image that looks like an AI image gone wrong, with an uncanny valley styled mishmash of items.’