Van Gogh photomosaic

July 5, 2005 1:01 PM

Starry Night - Vincent Van Gogh's famous painting of carrots, seagulls, flowers, oranges, dolphins, and polar bears.
posted by Robot Johnny (28 comments total)

That just makes my head hurt. I mean, Van Gogh was messed up enough; why mess with his paintings further. Amazing technology. I just think it's misapplied in this case.
posted by Doohickie at 1:05 PM on July 5, 2005

Metafilter: Amazing technology. I just think it's misapplied in this case.
posted by OmieWise at 1:06 PM on July 5, 2005

This amazing technology, it vibrates?

Oh line up - who's next. One at a time, please.
posted by devbrain at 1:15 PM on July 5, 2005

Luv the photomosaic, but am kind of scared of Andrea:


I'm a 29 years old male but people don't guess me to be more than 25. So I have a young soul in me. I'm a very simple person, with a pure heart, a deep life and a mad mind. I am nothing and I love the void in myself.
I live in a lovely room wich is in chaos, like my long hair playing with the wind.
posted by selfmedicating at 1:28 PM on July 5, 2005

Done with Paint.
posted by pracowity at 1:30 PM on July 5, 2005

Will wonders never commence
posted by hal9k at 1:32 PM on July 5, 2005

There is a rather interesting thread on his forums about the patented nature of photomosaics...more interesting in where it led me per se, than the discussion on his forum, but still interesting....
posted by nomisxid at 2:03 PM on July 5, 2005

Oh, come on, you fuddyduddies. This is cool. Can't something just be cool?
posted by mkultra at 2:07 PM on July 5, 2005

It is quite nifty, mkultra, I would agree.
posted by teece at 2:11 PM on July 5, 2005

It's neat, but it's hard to really get an overall feel for the scope of the thing in the somewhat limited size window that pulls up. What would really be impressive is if this thing were printed out wall-sized and displayed somewhere, so you could see the minute details a little better in relation to one another.

I agree, it's definitely neat, but one of those things that is cramped a bit by being so small.
posted by almostcool at 2:23 PM on July 5, 2005

I don't know, I zoomed in and got pixelated. Then I zoomed out and saw the image again. Then I zoomed in again and got pixelated again. I never saw any of the 210,000 tiny images making up the main one.

Its a neat idea but what real use is it?

Unless this was done on a huge square somewhere and people could walk over it and look at the individual tiles and then go up in a skyscraper and see the whole image. But even then, I'm not sure I "get it".
posted by fenriq at 2:31 PM on July 5, 2005

Just returned a month ago from a vacation and have 1200 images waiting for something just like this. Marvelous, simply marvelous.
posted by fluffycreature at 2:34 PM on July 5, 2005

I don't know, I zoomed in and got pixelated. Then I zoomed out and saw the image again. Then I zoomed in again and got pixelated again. I never saw any of the 210,000 tiny images making up the main one.

It did that for me at first too. I let it hang for a few seconds and it suddenly refocused itself and I could see the smaller photos.

I think it's pretty neat although, as almostcool wrote, it's hard to get a real sense of scale.
posted by LeeJay at 2:40 PM on July 5, 2005

The enormous size of the image makes this much less impressive to me. Basically, the method here seems to be:

1. take a standard hi-res image of Starry Night,
2. to each pixel assign an image whose average color = the color of that pixel

Yawn.
posted by Zurishaddai at 2:41 PM on July 5, 2005

If it's really that simple, with no real artistic intervention required, I'm crestfallen.
posted by alumshubby at 2:56 PM on July 5, 2005

looks like he ripped of some of the code from GoogleMaps. When you get down to individual tiles you can drag them and new files will fill in the edges.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 2:58 PM on July 5, 2005

Does anyone remember the city-scape picture that was posted on metafilter awhile ago using the exact same (or very, very similar) zooming applet design? It was noteworthy because it was the first low-priced setup to capture an image of such resolution all at once.

Good post.

(In order to see the fine details, zoom in and wait for the pixelation to resolve.)
posted by odinsdream at 2:59 PM on July 5, 2005

? But the image we're seeing isn't a photomosaic at all.

When we zoom in, then we get to see the images, but zoomed out it's just pixels.

Agreed that it would only make sense on a wall somewhere.
posted by ODiV at 3:35 PM on July 5, 2005

this is done with a flash plugin called Zoomify. You drag your high res image onto the application and it makes a directory of different sizes. The flash plugin dynamically loads 'em as you zoom in and out. I've seen it used very effectively on scrolls and maps. This, eh.
posted by roue at 3:36 PM on July 5, 2005

The reason several people are not impressed by this is because many of us have seen this before. For example, you can go a novelties store in the mall and get posters of pot leaves or Darth Vader composed of tiny pictures of pot-related things and Darth Vadery stuff (respectively).

I like the interface of the image browser, but I wonder if the guy actually programmed the whole thing himself, or if he just found some utility that took a whole lot of stock photos and did it. That's an impressive amount of nature photos at any rate.
posted by redteam at 3:41 PM on July 5, 2005

There has got to be a nude somewhere. Keep on looking.

odinsdream, did you mean this. 2,5 gigapixels, and the GUI is exactly the same. I found it fascinating, just like looking at a miniature model of a city.

The Van Gogh is just one hell of a large mosaic. Not very new, or interesting in itself. And it is not 210000 different photographs. It's easy to spot repetive pics.
posted by hoskala at 3:58 PM on July 5, 2005

I just think it's misapplied in this case.

No - I think it's amazing. It doesn't detract from the original, as far as I'm concerned. Nice.
posted by dash_slot- at 4:05 PM on July 5, 2005

Yes it DOES detract from the original. So there. Nyah.
posted by Doohickie at 4:32 PM on July 5, 2005

What fenriq said. I zoomed in and saw bugger all. No images. Just increasingly granular nothing. Do you have to drop a tab to get this link?
posted by Decani at 5:19 PM on July 5, 2005

no, but feel free anyway.

You have to wait a little bit before the image un-fuzzes, so to speak.
posted by puke & cry at 7:30 PM on July 5, 2005 [1 favorite]

hoskala: That's what I was thinking of! I love looking around that thing, thanks!
posted by odinsdream at 7:49 PM on July 5, 2005

I zoomed in and saw bugger all.

Check LeeJay's comment again. After the first click or two, wait five seconds between clicks to let the images load. It maxes out at about 7 clicks, so just have a teensy bit of patience and you'll see the tiny pics.
posted by mediareport at 10:17 PM on July 5, 2005

What mkultra said. Neat!
posted by deborah at 10:56 AM on July 6, 2005