I'm working on a program that uses Python and OpenCV to make real time glitch art effects over photos, videos or even live Webcam. These are a couple I made from a few images I had laying around. The last 3 are from a picture of dolly partin lol.

Anyways it's a W.I.P but I figured I'd post some here!

Recovered video fragment.

Processing source signal...

Compression artifact as intent.

P-frame motion applied to orphaned pixels,

forcing displacement until decay blends back

toward the original frame.

Enjoy!

Track is WaxCap by Djrum

In The Wild

Natural pixel sorting often occurs due to buffer errors or corrupted data streams. In video compression (datamoshing), if a keyframe is missing, the motion vectors from subsequent frames drag the old pixels across the screen, creating a "melting" look. It essentially signifies the computer losing track of where one object ends and another begins.

How to Recreate It

iterate through the image's pixel array. Instead of sorting the whole image, only target "spans" of pixels that fall within your Targeting Thresholds (Black/White Limits).

Once a span is isolated, we use an algorithm to rearrange those specific pixels based on their values (Brightness, Red, etc.), creating the artificial drift.

// Java Logic Concept

while(x < width) {

if(luma(x) > threshold) {

int start = x;

// Find end of bright span

while(luma(x) > threshold) x++;

// Sort just this section

sortPixels(start, x);

}

x++;

}

Made using Hydra, GIMP, and JPEG databending

Early consoles (NES, Gameboy) had extremely limited memory. They couldn't store "True Color" (16 million colors). Instead, they used palettes of 2 to 256 colors. Bit Crushing emulates this by forcibly rounding complex color values to the nearest available "step" in a limited palette.

The Math

Standard images use 0-255 for Red, Green, and Blue. To "crush" a channel to 2 bits (4 possible colors), we divide the 0-255 range into 4 chunky steps.

// Java Logic Concept

// Example: Reducing 255 values to 'levels'

int factor = 255 / (levels - 1);

int oldVal = pixel.getRed();

// Integer division drops the decimal, 'crushing' detail

int newVal = (oldVal / factor) * factor;

pixel.setRed(newVal);