Story behind the Skoda Slavia runner-up camo design

I decided to not use the conventional apps, instead work with the programming language Python. While the result was brilliant, I did face a hiccup.

BHPian sbenstewart recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

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.

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 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 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 here, 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 lookout 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 is 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 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 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

• Democratizes digital image generation, as anyone with a web browser and internet can create it using this.
• Available for you to use/improve as an open-source project here.
• Yours truly can help first hand with getting you up to speed on the code.
• With a bit of prodding, Skoda can use the runner-up’s pattern to be the camo for the facelift in four years.
• 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

• Missed out the orange colour in the palette, as Skoda pushed with the new crossover.
• 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 is available.
• 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.
• As said, not a full Adobe file, so the people at Skoda had additional work to fit the design. Read the final hiccup.
• The 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 BHPian Sam Kapasi said, "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.

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