Goal
To develop highly interactive, cool web application that allows users to quickly generate a range of collages of Fickr photos using Flickr tags and image features.
Idea
- Browser application in which user selects Flickr photos using tags, browsing etc.
- The images are laid out in a collage and displayed to the user using some simple rules e.g. images with 50% light sky should be at the top, images containing bright primaries should be at the front, images with similar Flickr tags.
- Simple effects should be occasionally applied to the images – e.g. sepia, blurring, distortions, hue adjustments etc.
- The user presses a “reshuffle” button and a new collage is produced.
- If the user presses the button quickly then the collage receives a low score, those that the user lingers on receive a high score.
- A genetic algorithm is used to generate new collages which are combinations of old (popular) collages.
- At any point the user may ‘drag’ images into new positions or ‘zoom’ them to new sizes. These actions cause automatic repositioning of surrounding images using simple dynamics to give the photographs ‘weight’.
Sources
- Flickr API http://www.flickr.com/services/api/ (note the ActionScript bit).
- http://www.flickr.com/services/
- O’Reilly’s Getting Started with Flex 3 book (see the Flickr viewer)
Skills required
Flex application so basic programming skills required.
Inspiration