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Graphics Software

Clouds, The Collaborative Photo Mosiac 163

Posted by CmdrTaco from the its-art-or-something dept.
jaric writes "Over at peffis.com users post their cell phone photos to a shared photo blog. The creator of the open source site now has invented what he calls Clouds. It is a combination of all the posted photos into one cloud, or mosaic. The result is quite fascinating. You can see the current cloud."
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Clouds, The Collaborative Photo Mosiac More

Clouds, The Collaborative Photo Mosiac

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  • Huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:15AM (#10055666) Homepage
    I think I speak for everybody on Slashdot when I say...WHAT?!

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:16AM (#10055686)
      Nothing like taking a small image-based site and exposing it to a slashdotting, huh?
      • "Nothing like taking a small image-based site and exposing it to a slashdotting, huh?"

        That is just a good test to see if you have found just the right $5 a month provider or not.
      • From the site 2004-08-25:

        This site will be gone for some time due to the slashdot effect. The
        site was posted there and we got too much traffic. Things will be back as soon as
        things calm down. Sorry for any inconveniance. None of your images are lost,
        they are just removed temporarily until Slashdot leaves us alone.

        Those of you who post images from your phones - they are still stored,
        only not shown right now.

        See ya all again when the Slashdot people go away.

        Regards,
        Stefan
        Did we ever really plan to "go

    • Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cheesekeeper ( 649923 ) <keeper@mac . c om> on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:20AM (#10055741) Homepage Journal
      I also am missing the point here. Is this generated with some really cool function-based language? Is it being done on a beowulf cluster of Sony-Ericssons? I see about 30 photos slapped together with some alpha channels... ummm... GREAT! Now, I'm going to go read the white pages cover to cover, because it's more interesting.

  • Mirror image (Score:5, Informative)

    by Meostro ( 788797 ) * on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:15AM (#10055668) Homepage Journal
    This site looks like a meltdown waiting to happen...

    Current cloud temporary mirror [wetsexygirl.com]. Be aware that this won't update hourly as the site one does...

    • 2 things... (Score:4, Funny)

      by interactive_civilian ( 205158 ) <mamoru&gmail,com> on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:23AM (#10055801) Homepage Journal
      OT, but...

      1.) Thanks for the mirror. The cloud image wasn't so special, but it was nice to see it...

      2.) Why on EARTH (or off it) would you use the domain "www.wetsexygirl.com" only for mirroring an image for a /. story?!?! Yeah, so I'm a horn-dog and checked out the top of the domain, and what did I find?:

      Temporary mirror for http://peffis.com/cloud.jpg
      Cloud
      No offense, but man, that is just a tease...Don't tease us with "wetsexygirl.com" unless you are going to give us a Wet, Sexy Girl or two or ten or hundred...

      yes I have karma to burn and this OT, so mod me down if you please...

      • OH THE HUMANITY (Score:5, Funny)

        by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:50AM (#10056144) Homepage
        This cloud thing is just asking to end up where you get just enough opacity on a layer to recognize a boob, but it fades into a Peugot before the nipple!

      • Re:2 things... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Meostro ( 788797 ) * on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:50AM (#10056146) Homepage Journal
        Actually, it's mostly to keep hits down so I don't get slashdotted myself.

        The average business user can't justify clicking on a link for wetsexygirl.com, even if it really IS a mirror for slashdot (which they're not supposed to visit during work, anyway).

        If I posted with a "legitimate" site name then anyone in the universe could click and I'd be looking at a many-gig bill.

        Eventually there will be some wet, sexy girls there, but since my current hosting provide (Pair networks [pair.com]) doesn't allow pr0n, it'll have to be whenever I change hosts (at least another year).

        Also, it's just nice to be able to mess with y'all. Same thing here [slashdot.org] for Total Cost of 0wnership, but it's a temporary mirror, so that stuff is already gone.
        • Actually, that is a pretty clever strategy for keeping your bandwidth charges down...

          btw, obviously (and it seems some of the mods got it) I wasn't being seriously critical in my previous post. I just thought it was amusing to be going to www.wetsexygirls.com to see only a mirrored picture for a slashdot story...heh...with a domain like that, I was half expecting firefox's pop-up blocker to go crazy. ;-)

          Cheers. :-)

        • Re:2 things... (Score:3, Funny)

          by vena ( 318873 )
          The average business user can't justify clicking on a link for wetsexygirl.com

          good thing i run the gateway here. *delete*
        • Just a quick follow-up, yesterday I got 11k hits, and between /cloud.jpg, /favicon.ico and plain /, you leeches racked up 3.6GB in traffic. Congrats!

          That was on a single 600k JPG. On one of at least two mirrors. With a pr0n server name.

          It almost hurts to think how much traffic other video / distro sites take when they get slashdotted...

          I think i'll plot some pretty graphs to illustrate the /. effect, maybe submit it as a story (with a non-pr0n site) and see how bad the real-deal is. Not 'till next mo

      • Re:2 things... (Score:3, Funny)

        by palad1 ( 571416 )
        Mod you down when requesting wet sexy girls?

        Up, up, up you go!!!
        +5, insightful
    • Oh great. I clicked on it before I read what the URL was.

      You owe me a new job since the 'net police here are probably going to visit me today...

      • My phone rang AS I CLICKED IT, but fortunately it was just my wife asking me to run by the store on the way home. Got my heart going though...
        • I remember a story from mainframe days where the sysop had carefully explained how to log in on a decwriter, feed labels, and run the mailing-list-printing program to some blonde several times, then shortly afterwards he noticed that she'd logged on, but wasn't running the program. Remembering the mistake she always made, he found the terminal's location on a site map, found the nearest telephone extension, rang up, waited a looong time for her to answer, then said "Hi, you need to do such-and-such" and was
      • I did too. Blah. I hope that they take a look at what the image was. That's really mean, putting a link to a site with a name like that on slashdot.
    • At least they are being a good sport. On the front page the center photo caption reads "Site may die soon". This image [peffis.com] explains why.
    • This Account Has Been Suspended

      Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.

      Cue Music: Another One Bytes The Dust

  • Kinda cool but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rwven ( 663186 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:16AM (#10055691)
    ...It almost looks like someone spent an hour making a website and 20 minutes in photoshop and went live with it. Sorta neat lookin' but hardly decent /. material...(IMHO of course)
  • Never has something so useless looked so cool... I now require some manner of OSS that can do this, and I needs it now!

  • Congrats (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ttsalo ( 126195 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:16AM (#10055697)
    This perhaps the ugliest digital image ever created.

    --

    • Not only is it ugly, its not in any way shape or form a "photomosaic [photomosaic.com]", its just a bunch of pictures with a little alpha channel in and between the pictures. For those that don't know a photomosaic is a bunch of pictures that are put together to make another new picture.

      Also, there are no up the skirt shots or thong shots [phun.org]. Next....
  • a dark grey cloud has taken peffis.com

  • /.ed (Score:2, Funny)

    by odaen ( 766778 )
    High resolution Photomontage posted on Slashdot. Now after 5 comments the site won't even load up at all. This has to be the evilist news post ever!

  • The current cloud (Score:5, Funny)

    by MacGod ( 320762 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:19AM (#10055729)

    You can see the current cloud.

    Not any more you can't. The Slashdot effect: It's like night-time, but for web servers!

    • Ironic that the server once producing the cloud image, is now producing a cloud of smoke

    • Re:The current cloud (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Now I understand why many slashdotters post comments without reading the article. It's not because they are too lazy to read it, but because they are too late to read it.

  • Site is down already, mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by Huogo ( 544272 ) <adam@thepeacock.EULERnet minus math_god> on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:19AM (#10055732) Homepage
    Mirror: 5light.com/cloud.jpg [5light.com]

  • Currently... (Score:4, Funny)

    by H0NGK0NGPH00EY ( 210370 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:20AM (#10055756) Homepage
    You can see the current cloud.

    No, no I don't think we can. Unless the current cloud looks a little something like a "Request to server timed out" window.

    • Re:Currently... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What you're missing:

      Geek with glasses. Geek with a rifle. Shot-up beer can. Retarded baby. Geek on lay-down bicycle. Motorcycle x2. Average Starbucks customers at a motorcycle rally pretending to be Hells Angels. Sewer grate. Flaming server.

      • You forgot to mention the kid in the sewer under the grate.

        Why anyone would take a picture of a kid in the sewer is beyond me, but posting it to a public website is just begging for attention from social services...

        I, of course, am assumming it's a set up shot, and they didn't just see a kid in the sewer, take a picture, then walk away...

        -Adam

  • What the hell was that? I interpreted "cell phone pictures" to mean a mosaic comprised of little images of Nokias & Sony Ericssons. Now that would've been cool.

    /Disappointed
  • there are many photos in that mosaic
    • Well, the ones that are there are really something... not really something good, just really something. I have some questions about them, does anyone know:
      1)who the balding guy is?
      2)what congenital defect that kid with the gun has? should he have a gun?
      3)what is up with the guy in the spandex and helmet?
      4)if all of these pictures are from the same town with bad water?

      thanks.

  • You have entirely too much free time on your hands (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    then again, I'm posting on slashdot.org...nevermind
  • I'm guessing the current image is looking like a giant /. symbol or a flaming server, since I'm already unable to get to it five minutes after the article post.

  • Yeeeeee! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:24AM (#10055806)
    My God, it's full of crap!

    That is, when it's not timing out from too many requests..

  • Slashdotter spotting (Score:5, Funny)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:25AM (#10055816) Journal
    OK guys, which of you is the dork in the top left corner?

    Come on, confess.

  • Hmmmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by bgackle ( 597616 )
    Does it look to anyone else like the kid with the shotgun is trying to kill off the baby?
    • It look a bit like he's fooling around with firearms in the top right. Definitely something I'd want to include on my conceptual mosiac thing.....
  • ... They Do Nothing!!!

  • Move along (Score:5, Funny)

    by iamdrscience ( 541136 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:28AM (#10055860) Homepage
    There are no boobies in the mosaic, people. Nothing to see here.

  • Bullshit? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I might be an AC, but is this article totally boring, and unoriginal, and just basically worthless? Why do dull low quality moblog photos suddenly become front page news when combined together into a mosaic with fadey edges? Is image blending really all that revolutionary?

    The probabilty of a decent story being posted to the front page of Slashdot obviously must decrease as the age of Slashdot increases.

  • Quick! Alert the cops... (Score:5, Funny)

    by telstar ( 236404 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:30AM (#10055891)
    That little boy is shooting that woman!

  • My Brain (Score:3, Interesting)

    by malia8888 ( 646496 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:31AM (#10055901)
    The pics in the "Cloud" reminded me of all the daily stuff that runs through my mind before I go to sleep. The only thing that was missing was a nice pic of my significant other and a shot of my incoming mail with the stack of windowed envelopes in it. :P

  • I want a photo mosaic of the cloud of smoke the slashdot effect just reduced their server to.

  • Quality? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bobthemuse ( 574400 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:33AM (#10055929)
    Looking at these pictures, they all look like they were taken with a 2+ megapixel camera. I've seen pics from a dozen camera phones, none of them were this good. What's the real source of these pictures?

  • It's a mosaic? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tuxguy ( 661325 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:33AM (#10055936) Homepage
    It might be nice if the cloud had more pcitures in it. As it is, it's not much of a mosaic. According to Dictionary.com, a Mosaic is:
    # A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface.

    I don't think it's much of a mosaic, as it doesn't form a large picture. I just don't get it.
  • It's like staring into the puke of a goat that broke into a photo lab...

  • That's NOT a photo mosaic! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schani ( 8889 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:35AM (#10055957) Homepage
    The image is not a photo mosaic, just a random collage of pictures. These are photo mosaics [metapixel.nix.at]. (I'm the author of that program [tuwien.ac.at].)

    bye
    Mark

    • Thats awesome... I love photomosaics... and I agree that the article pic is not a mosaic... I even find it suspicious that these are pics taken with cell phones... aren't pics taken with cell phones small and grainy and low quality? The source pics actually look pretty decent quality.

      Now, if they'd used some more source pics and made them a little smaller it would maybe become interesting... not such a gray/purple smudge of crap.

    • Re:That's NOT a photo mosaic! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Dracolytch ( 714699 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @10:20AM (#10056528) Homepage
      Interestingly, I've also written a photo mosaic program (currently in beta). So, curious about yours, I went and checked it out. I also checked out some of the more detailed output from your program.

      So, tell me, is that your penis in some of the tile images, or someone else's?

      Just checking...
      ~D

    • Re:That's NOT a photo mosaic! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > The image is not a photo mosaic, just a random collage of pictures

      Of course not. Because, according to the /. article title, it is a MOSIAC !

      Would you think that CmdrTaco would post an article without researching if the term are correct ?
  • Looks like JWZ's WebCollage [jwz.org], but with cell phone pictures. And more ugly added.
  • Now see, when I think of a photo mosaic, I think of cool stuff like THIS [hubmed.org]...

    This "cloud" thing is kinda nifty, kinda goofy. Some of the images are crappy but the technique is interesting. Maybe it's a good idea that just needs expanding. You need better images to start with, if you want a better end result.

  • 15 minutes of fame (Score:5, Funny)

    by PMuse ( 320639 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:46AM (#10056092)
    Somebody go find an egg timer. As a requiem, we really should record the time it takes for the Cloud to be astroturfed, spammed, p0rned, and otherwise made to resemble the online equivalent of a univeristy-district telephone pole.

    Requiescat In Pace, Nebula.

  • Futurama (Score:3, Funny)

    by caitsith01 ( 606117 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:46AM (#10056100) Journal
    "It's like that drug trip in that movie I saw when I was on that drug trip."

    Seriously though, what is this p.o.s? My first photoshop day? Or have the olympics inspired a world record attempt for the destruction of a perfectly good web server in the shortest time possible by linking to a high resolution image directly in a ./ headline?

  • Mirror (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:47AM (#10056103)
    For those of you that haven't seen it:

    http://www.edit.ne.jp/~katsu/image/cloud.jpg [edit.ne.jp]

  • Sito (Score:5, Interesting)

    by captnitro ( 160231 ) * on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:47AM (#10056107)
    My girlfriend participates in something a little more structured than this, but similar. Sito [sito.org] has a number of projects such as (descriptions taken from Sito) -

    Hygrid [sito.org]: "This collaborative art project has been evolving since December 1995. The idea behind this project is to create a "hyperlinked grid of visually interlocked images". Each square on the grid is a small image created by a participating artist. Each square is adjacent to another artist's square in the structure, appearing on the top, right, bottom or left side."

    Gridcosm [sito.org]: "Gridcosm is a collaborative art project in which artists from around the world contribute images to a compounding series of graphical squares."

    Those are the two most active and interesting ones. For those that enjoy recursive acronyms, you'll definitely like Gridcosm (like a recursive acronym.. FOR YOUR MIND). Some of the levels can be outright beautiful, some are crappy.

    The way it works is this: after having an account, you "reserve" a piece to work on. You have a set time limit to turn your piece in before somebody else gets it. As an example -- and since she reads Slashdot, she's gonna kill my ass -- you [sito.org] can also view individual pieces and jump from there.

    The most interesting behavior I've seen, though, is that work breeds work -- when one or a few people decide to bounce in, the entire community picks up, contributing to an almost organic growth and decline of the various levels and sub-projects.

  • subliminal messages (Score:2, Interesting)

    by icegoddes5 ( 754487 )
    This is obviously a subliminal ad campaign promoting:
    A. Tommy Hilfiger (how else do you explain the random inclusion of the logo?)
    or
    B. guns and violence (who else saw images of guns, mobs, and some rather strange looking individuals?)

  • Cool! (Score:2, Funny)

    by johnny_sas ( 785125 )
    This cloud looks just like an HTTP error message! Amazing!

  • Nothing new here (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mateito ( 746185 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:52AM (#10056169) Homepage
    This site [heavenlyimages.com] has been putting submitters photos into clouds for years.

    We remember you, Whiskers [heavenlyimages.com]

    • So you're advertising your site, eh? Dang average slashdotters getting to meet Jesus. [heavenlyimages.com]

      Twins...One is with Jesus now.

      I wish I had mod points right now.
      • NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!

        Not my site. Its a bloody joke. Its like people who post photos of their dead cats on the internet with memorial poetry... except worse.

        Really, man.. what the hell do you think I am? The person behind that site probably regards slashdot as spawn of the devil... possibly for promoting that most deadly of sins: "Sloth".

        Oh.. and remember
        Crashing planes into buildings makes Baby Jesus cry. [heavenlyimages.com]

        • Oh, I get it. Now you're covering up so hordes of slashdotters (angry) don't get pissed. There can't be sloth if they're drawn out of their house (twice).

          "Dear Heavenly Images,

          Thank you so much for the joy that my grandmom got when she got the photo of my dad (her son). She cried (happy tears). The photo seemed to have brought her out of her shell. She was so withdrawn, but since receiving her photo of my dad & Jesus she has come out of the house twice...I give all praises to God."

          That sites made m

      • Re:Nothing new here (Score:4, Funny)

        by bhima ( 46039 ) <Bhima...Pandava@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @10:23AM (#10056598) Journal
        Wow, That's amazing after browsing the internet for so many years, I can still be stuned... at how lame some people can be.
  • If you want a more controlled mosaic image, check out tiles.ice.org [ice.org]. It's a collection of images created by artists where each artist bases their work given only the edges of the adjacent tiles on which to base their creation. They've come up with some pretty amazing finished pieces.
  • Mmmmm yep.

    Site might die soon...
    From Peffis
    2004-08-24 16:39:22

    [ 0 comments ]

  • /.'ing dose it again... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sjwt ( 161428 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @09:58AM (#10056231)
    Who would of though chaos theory at its best..
    a collection of random images, arranged and displayed and it looks exactly like a 404.

  • Looks like Debris (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bagels ( 676159 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @10:07AM (#10056363)
    This looks an awful lot like Debris, a program from the guys at Nullsoft that creates a very similar collage from random pictures pulled off of the net. I'll get a link here in a sec...
    • Right... Sorry about replying to myself, but here's the link [badmofo.org]. Looks exactly like the "cloud" they're talking about. Also, I was incorrect to say that it was made by Nullsoft - just by one of the Nullsoft programmers, Brennan Underdwood.
  • I'd take a picture of the Cloud, then post it on the site. Recursion rocks. Would you get one of those weird tunnel effects?

    My brain hurts. It's lunchtime.
  • After first reading the title, I thought he was getting as many people as possible to photograph a single point in the sky from as many view points as possible, then doing a Matrix style spin-around of the resulting set of images.

  • I mean, judging by the previous posts, it sounds like everyone else thinks it's garbage.

    I think it's actually kind of an interesting concept, though. What if this "cloud" were actually randomly composed of your childhood photos? Or maybe the daily scenes of life on a farm? Or still frames from a movie?

    The fact that this cloud was composed of random cell phone shots makes it look seemingly... well, random. However, I think one could take this concept and actually apply some interesting things to it.

  • You can see the current cloud.

    Now you see it, now you don't...
  • If you go to the website now, you'll see that the user's account has been suspended. Ahh, the power of slashdot ... messing up everything it links to.
  • " Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible."

    omg, someone`s moving to a low cost rental trailer one of these days.. :)
    seriously, i kinda feel sorry for the guy, it`s actually a pretty nasty thing to do, post this site on the /. frontpage, I would be pretty pissed of if I were him...

  • That pixcloud looks like the "memory glasses" kids make at bar mitzvahs and sweet 16 parties. We'd fill a large goblet with small, emblematic items from the party, like matchbooks with the birthday kid's name, ribbons, centerpiece ingredients. Then we'd top off the glass with water, and seal it with a thick coating of wax from some candles. The murky depths would trigger memories for months later.

  • In the words of Bart Simpson... (Score:3, Funny)

    by LodCrappo ( 705968 ) on Tuesday August 24, 2004 @11:14AM (#10057362)
    "It's craptacular"

  • poor guy (Score:2, Funny)

    by hamishmorgan ( 652803 )
    "The result is quite fascinating."... *click* "Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible." Hmm, it always facinates me when other peoples bank accounts are soon going to be in as much difficulty as mine is.
  • That montage is incredible!
    I mean.. what are the chances of so many people seperately posting identical blank grey square images, and one person posting one that looks like a "509 - Bandwidth Exceeded", and them compositing together in just the right way like that!

    Oh.. wait...

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