[volkman10]

Skoda India announces camouflage design contest for upcoming sedan:

[Venkatesh]

Did Skoda preview the new mid-size sedan front end styling with design sketch in the name of Camouflage with Skoda contest.

[Aditya]

Skoda India announces camouflage design contest for upcoming sedan - Posts moved to a new thread.

[pineapple_ameet]

Many thanks for sharing this. Always fun to participate in such competitions. It's such an interesting context. To design a camo - which is supposed to 'merge' the subject in the surroundings, but for enthusiasts and otherwise too, it actually becomes an attantion puller unlike any other

Would be keen to know fellow BHPian's views on what would they want to see on the camo.

For starters, it will be interesting to question what can it look like in an urban jungle? apart from the optical illusions which is effectively used to mask the clear lines, what could be the best way to make the car not reveal the details while still garner the attention in the traffic landscape?

[Black_Star]

For starters, it will be interesting to question what can it look like in an urban jungle? apart from the optical illusions which is effectively used to mask the clear lines, what could be the best way to make the car not reveal the details while still garner the attention in the traffic landscape?

You should be looking into dazzle camo pattern. Back when I used to play World of Warships, there were a lot of interesting camo pattern that the players could put on their ship.

[volkman10]

Here are the top 5 designs.

The 5 shortlisted entries will be tested on our upcoming premium mid-size sedan & the best one wins the chance to meet the Global Design Head.

[sbenstewart]

Hello Moderators!

I could not find a place to submit corrections, so this post.

My name is Ben Stewart from Tirunelveli. And, once the final results are out, will share in detail on how I used computer code in Python to generate the camo, along with the a bit higher resolution of the images and idea behind it along with my MY2020 Skoda too.

Just wanted you to update my name to 'Ben Stewart'.

And, have a great day

[TusharK]

Skoda announces the winner of the camouflage design contest

Shreyas Karambelkar of Badlapur, Maharashtra, has been named the winner of the 'Camouflage with Skoda' design contest.



The camouflage designed by Shreyas is a bled of Indian motifs - the Peacock and Lotus as well as Czech glass art and Cubism. The colours used in the design are warm and represent the Indian culture. The design will be applied to the prototype of the upcoming Slavia. In addition to that, Shreyas gets a chance to travel to Prague to meet Oliver Stefani, Head of Design, Skoda Auto.



Ben Stewart from Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, has been chosen as the runner-up. He will receive a design tablet. The other three finalists get Skoda gift bags.



Skoda had received over 200 entries from across India. Before announcing the winner, the top five shortlisted designs were passed through the production, durability, and applicability processes.

[DevilzzzzOwn]

Big Congratulations to Ben, a Team-BHPian!!

To be honest, I prefer the one that he designed as a winner since the one by Shreyas looks too flashy. An aspect of using Camo is to keep the vehicle discreet.

Nevertheless, congratulations once again to Ben. Hope you use your design tablet and keep on coming up with stunning designs like this.
Also, awaiting details on Python coding

[Guru_GPS]

Originally Posted by TusharK

Skoda announces the winner of the camouflage design contest

Shreyas Karambelkar of Badlapur, Maharashtra, has been named the winner of the 'Camouflage with Skoda' design contest.

Attachment 2217920

The camouflage designed by Shreyas is a bled of Indian motifs - the Peacock and Lotus as well as Czech glass art and Cubism. The colours used in the design are warm and represent the Indian culture. The design will be applied to the prototype of the upcoming Slavia. In addition to that, Shreyas gets a chance to travel to Prague to meet Oliver Stefani, Head of Design, Skoda Auto.

This looks a bit like the Laura VRS to my untrained eyes, as if the yellow paint is covered with the camouflage, except for the Rapid/Octy-like front fascia. I expect the Slavia to be identical in size and price to what Laura was.

[sbenstewart]

First things first, congrats Shreyas Karambelkar, the design really looks catchy and served its purpose well in the videos of the pre-production drive. And congrats once more to all the other finalists and those who participated in the competition.

If you are short on time, but can read and understand computer code - here it is https://colab.research.google.com/dr...9fixYEq7zhbpzx

Without any further ado, and being true to my word, here is the story behind how I rendered the camouflage, with a little bit of car and team-bhp lingo thrown in.

The find

Yours truly was scrolling down through the team-bhp threads, while he happened to come upon this very same thread which had the details of the camouflage competition being so and so. As a fan of sedans, I did note this down in my to-do list. How can I ever miss this, to attempt something for this new sedan from Skoda having the potential to be the true Octavia that the market and pocket needs.

The delays

Any attempt to start working on the camouflage was duly postponed, all thanks to the 2.0 TSI of my Skoda sedan over the weekends, the Superb of it all, while the better part of the week was consumed by work, but from home. It was just like the relentless pull of the DSG, with almost zero breaks in between. Work - play - work - play, the shifts went on seamlessly.

The setting

It was the Independence day weekend, just a few days left for the submission deadline, when I finally mustered the time for this task, albeit stolen from the family outdoor cooking time. I quickly grabbed my laptop and went to accompany the family alongside the warmth of the burning timber and the spices and the crockery. Yours truly needed to work on the camouflage, soon and fast.

The background

Needing the camouflage to be innovative amongst the many other factors, it was quickly decided that rather than using the conventional applications for creating digital art, computer code using Python the programming language will be used for the same.

The camo background

A few of the terminology and concepts out of the way. Just like atoms are the smallest blocks of matter, pixels are the smallest blocks of digital images. To support colour rather than just plain black and white, each pixel has red, green and blue abbreviated as RGB. If we zoom hard enough onto this very screen you are looking at, you will have some version of very small set light bulbs glowing RGB.

Going through my parts bin, I came across one https://github.com/sbenstewart/pi-art that I had created earlier to do some operations on the pixel level of the image. Yours truly was going to reuse this, to save development time. This is just like how the same MQB-A0-IN, TSI powertrains, interior trim and the same cost cutting measures are being used in both the VAG’s now old crossovers and upcoming sedans. A quick update to the colour scheme to match the Skoda ethos that we love from https://www.schemecolor.com/skoda-auto-logo-colors.php and the background was ready.

The camo foreground

All I had done for this was to draw at random 200 circles, 200 rectangles and 200 equilateral triangles - the triangles with all three sides having the same length. I had used the functionality to draw shapes on images provided by OpenCV - short for Open Source Computer Vision Library. This is akin to using Android Auto and/or Apple Carplay to mask the shortcomings of your car’s music system.

Here is the version submitted for the shortlisting. Do look out for the ragged edges on the curves and even the slanted lines, as they are not that sharp on the limit.

The waiting period

Once this was done, yours truly used Python again to save the image in the exact format needed, and submitted the same. Closed the laptop, just as the outdoor dinner was fully prepped, ate to my fullest and then the wait began. A long wait, but a pleasant one. A wait that had a mid-cycle refresh, to give out the shortlists, and then once more for the final results.

The final hiccup

Once shortlisted, Skoda had asked yours truly to submit a file in the format of the Adobe Illustrator, which is the default app that most might use, while I had gleefully made use of Python. The car being huge as it is, and to cover it as a whole, they would have to enlarge the pattern to fit it, and a low resolution version would just pixelate. So, I had to refactor the code to make sure we could save the output as large as possible. A 100X size increase was made possible, but above that, the memory constraints held it up. This is where the Adobe Illustrator and similar apps shine, they do not store the pixels, but only the shapes, like for a circle, Adobe stores the center coordinates, the radius, the thickness, the colour and other such parameters, and is able to scale seamlessly. Yes, I had gone too far with this pixel based idea, and cannot go back and draw those exact same shapes, and thus the CAT fix to the smoking TDI at hand, for those who know.

Here is the final upgraded camouflage pattern with the smoother curves and edges. The fit and finish levels have improved a notch in the newer one, but still not up to the levels of using the Adobe software.

The advantages

1. Democratizes digital image generation, as anyone with a web browser and internet can create it using https://colab.research.google.com/dr...9fixYEq7zhbpzx
2. Available for you to use/improve as an open source project on https://github.com/sbenstewart/the-skoda-camo
3. Yours truly can help first hand with getting you up to speed on the code.
4. With a bit of prodding, Skoda can use the runner-up’s pattern to be the camo for the facelift in four years time.
5. Having already received a gift bag last year with the purchase of a Skoda, having something different in a design tablet is thoughtful and refreshing.

The disadvantages

1. Missed out the orange colour in the palette, like Skoda pushed with the new crossover.
2. Does not have an intuitive digital user interface to tinker with the pattern, as one needs to know Python just like VCDS, but tons of online support available.
3. The render quality of the shapes are a bit low, as OpenCV is not specifically designed to draw shapes, so camouflage is pixelated when enlarged.
4. As said, not a full Adobe file, so the people at Skoda had additional work to fit the design. Read the final hiccup.
5. Judging panel made sure to give a design tablet to someone who clearly did not use any of the conventional ways to create the camo, but hurray, I will learn in the near future.

The closing thoughts

Will cherish the few uneventful hours that I spent coding this, a few more hours fixing, and then a couple more on this post, and for the coming decade, whenever a Slavia passes on the road I can point towards it and smile to myself that I tried something at the very beginning of the Slavia. Might be I could try what Sam said.

Originally Posted by Sam Kapasi

Stick your tongue out as far as it will go, flick it back in and out 3 times, roll your eyes round and round, stick both your thumbs into your armpits and sing loudly "I am a disco dancer" as you swing your crotch back and forth like Mithun.

I guess it should not be too much of an ask for team-bhp to get us a shirt for the three box sedans with this camouflage incorporated into its design. Anyways, signing off till I post next.

[volkman10]

Originally Posted by sbenstewart

--.

If you are short on time, but can read and understand computer code - here it is --

Thanks Ben for all the insights and handwork that has gone creating this gorgeous camouflage and Congrats once again on winning the contest.

[batladanny]

Awesome! Thanks so much for sharing. As a designer + car nut, reading this is really enjoyable. I've always wanted to learn more about generative art and creating designs/patterns/textures through code.

Will go through your process and code and try to understand in detail. Will DM you if I have doubts.