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ImageMonkey / imagemonkey-core

ImageMonkey is an attempt to create a free, public open source image dataset.
https://imagemonkey.io
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image galaxy #63

Open bbernhard opened 6 years ago

bbernhard commented 6 years ago

One thing that's on my mind for quite a long time is some sort of "image galaxy". Like as you are flying through space and exploring the dataset during that flight. (could also be a cool idea for a VR app)

Here is a small demo I created over the weekend:

image_galaxy

image_galaxy2

I am not happy yet with the user experience, but yeah ;-) It's lagging quite a lot in the GIF...it's not that bad in reality, but still not as smooth as I wish it would be (on my laptop i get ~40fps). The first GIF is x2 in terms of speed ;)

dobkeratops commented 6 years ago

Absolutely spot on! I'm interested in this too. SO much you could do with it, especially with links (imagine tendrils connecting related ones - or nearing one animating the whole thing toward a different priority (switching dimensions) .. or the images themselves being portals to parallel spaces where the spatial sort emphasises their locality better (think of the wormhole scene in interstellar.. or you could show that entries locality like a solar system that appears as you zoom on one, and you rescale the space or motion such that you're navigating in that instead

I presume you placed them in 3d space - maybe one could use a high-dimensional space but you figure out 3 dimensions that best capture the locality of connections for each specific entry, and as you move between points those dimensions 'rotate' .. but the "portal" idea would be more stable.

i imagine colour coding on the links, the images perhaps enclosed in bubbles, etc..

dobkeratops commented 6 years ago

... and this is why I thought about the thumbnail serving - your 'image galaxy' browser would get the thumbnails first, and read in the hi-res version of the examples you fly toward

dobkeratops commented 6 years ago

I am not happy yet with the user experience, but yeah ;-)

I'm sure even web-gl/JS would handle this fine once you arrange it right

dobkeratops commented 6 years ago

(could also be a cool idea for a VR app)

yes, absolutely

I can tell you another use case I have in mind for myself: bike-trainer (which could of course be VR or just on a screen) - motion tied to pedalling, but track your gaze (which VR would do best) to shift where you travel to - allowing exploring of a large dataset while you're sat pedalling on the indoor trainer. I'd also thought about trying that as an explorer for linked text, but i wasn't sure you'd be able to read so much with 3d motion going on.

dobkeratops commented 6 years ago

other ideas 'image forest', 'image city' - but the 'image galaxy' utilizes space better.

bbernhard commented 6 years ago

You are right, there are endless possibilities. ;) My main motivation was to give the famous three.js a try (always wanted to play with it a bit). Unfortunately I quickly realized that it's pretty far away from the technology (concepts) I am used to...the whole scene/geometry/camera thing is still giving me headaches :D

So I am really hoping that someone else will pick up the idea first, so that I finally can get myself VR glasses to browse the image gallery that way ;)

... and this is why I thought about the thumbnail serving - your 'image galaxy' browser would get the thumbnails first, and read in the hi-res version of the examples you fly toward

I did something similar for the test, I used the APIs width and height query parameter to scale the images down to ~ 100x100px. Although there is no caching in place, it performed pretty decent...to be honest I was expecting the performance to be far worse. So I think with some caching and further improvements it should perform even better.

dobkeratops commented 6 years ago

So I am really hoping that someone else will pick up the idea first, so that I finally can get myself VR glasses to browse the image gallery that way

I wonder if there are any general purpose 'VR graph browsers' (linked images+text).. if not I think we both agree on what it could do

I haven't personally jumped on VR as yet, because I prefer to spend time in the desktop or real world. still, the use case I have in mind ('something to keep you interested whilst on an indoor bike-trainer') would definitely benefit from head tracking.

I'm looking forward to the day when VR resolution is high enough that a VR virtual desktop setup can really replace desktop monitors for reading text .. at that point I would want to use VR all the time

bbernhard commented 6 years ago

I wonder if there are any general purpose 'VR graph browsers' (linked images+text).. if not I think we both agree on what it could do

Totally agreed. I already look a bit on the internet, but couldn't find anything useful. But I think I am still using the wrong search terms, as I can't imagine that there aren't such projects out there.

I haven't personally jumped on VR as yet, because I prefer to spend time in the desktop or real world. still, the use case I have in mind ('something to keep you interested whilst on an indoor bike-trainer') would definitely benefit from head tracking.

I'm looking forward to the day when VR resolution is high enough that a VR virtual desktop setup can really replace desktop monitors for reading text .. at that point I would want to use VR all the time

Yeah, me too!