Symmetry explorer

August 3, 2008 2:40 PM

Symmetry explorer
Here's a little project I've been working on this week. It grabs photos from Flickr on any subject you like (e.g. kittens, or other fluffy things) and then presents them as pairs of mirrored halves. (If that makes no sense now, it will when you vist the site! :-) ) The results can end up quite weird and strange. :-) Here are a few of my favourites... (Thin/Fat cat) / (Fluffy dog thing) / (Seen my head(s)?)
posted by xlcus (23 comments total)

This project was posted to MetaFilter by Effigy2000 on August 4, 2008: Symmetry Explorer

Also, check out the owls! :-)
posted by xlcus at 4:24 PM on August 3, 2008

This is awesome fun. (Weird dophin creature) / (Penguins!) / (Shortly to be apparing in a nightmare...)
posted by xchmp at 4:38 PM on August 3, 2008

This is surprisingly mesmerizing. Fruit!
posted by ErWenn at 7:27 PM on August 3, 2008

I can't help but share a few more interesting searches: splash, Washington Monument, and my personal favorite: handshake (kiss is amusing for similar reasons, but doesn't have nearly as many interesting pics as handshake does). Symmetry is pleasingly dull.
posted by ErWenn at 7:50 PM on August 3, 2008

This is totally neat.
posted by cortex at 7:56 PM on August 3, 2008

Ha! It's an album cover that was waiting to happen.
posted by cortex at 8:05 PM on August 3, 2008

weirdly beautiful "City Flow"
posted by patricio at 3:56 AM on August 4, 2008

Here are some good ones I found.
posted by burnmp3s at 4:21 AM on August 4, 2008

Fat: Pretty bird, Flash Gordon, pregnant weightlifter and tiger paw butt. Yes, this could go on for hours.
posted by monocultured at 4:50 AM on August 4, 2008

It's like a Super Mario mushroom come to life. This is a little terrifying. And for some reason, I like this sign.

This is a fantastic toy.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:59 AM on August 4, 2008

Wow! France is lovely this time of year.

Thanks very much for this!
posted by Heretic at 1:32 PM on August 4, 2008

It crashed my Firefox 3.0 browser.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 2:02 PM on August 4, 2008

Sorry to hear that, The Light Fantastic.

I developed the site using Firefox 3.0.1 on Ubuntu, so could you give me some more details so I can try and work out what's wrong?

Which OS are you using? How much memory does your computer have? Do you have any add-ons installed? Could you try disabling your add-ons temporarily and see if the site still crashes the browser?

Cheers!
posted by xlcus at 2:13 PM on August 4, 2008

Yikes!
posted by bwanabetty at 2:14 PM on August 4, 2008

Can't stop: Riot, racecar, turtle, turtle, swoosh!
posted by monocultured at 2:22 PM on August 4, 2008

Which OS are you using? How much memory does your computer have? Do you have any add-ons installed? Could you try disabling your add-ons temporarily and see if the site still crashes the browser?

I tried viewing on my work computer. It's running Windows XP Professional version 2002 Service Pack 3. The machine is a bit underpowered, with a Celeron processor and 480MB of RAM. The crash occurred as I noticed that the images were taking a long time to load and I attempted to navigate away from the page. I kept getting the "program not responding" dialogue box, in which I selected "close." The script (or whatever it is you are running) would close (the images would disappear leaving a blank page) and then it would reload again. Finally, I had to go into the control panel and kill the application.

I don't think we're running a whole lot of add-ons over here, and we're behind a firewall.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 2:59 PM on August 4, 2008

Thanks for the info. I'll see if I can reproduce the problem.
posted by xlcus at 3:31 PM on August 4, 2008

Awesome, and so much fun to boot! I am so totally posting this.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:14 PM on August 4, 2008

Couldn't help it: breasts
posted by philosophistry at 7:09 PM on August 4, 2008

Beautiful Mutants
posted by The Light Fantastic at 8:14 PM on August 4, 2008

Very cool and loads of fun. I give it two thumbs up.
posted by Sailormom at 9:11 PM on August 4, 2008

Sailormom: your two thumbs up looks like either four thumbs up or a weird 8-fingered fist-thing.
posted by ErWenn at 9:50 PM on August 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

xlcus, this is great. Is there any way you could make it so that a person could view their own pictures done like this, just by using their Flickr user name? Also, could you possibly add a "more" button that would give further results rather than returning the user back to the search/start page? This would allow me to waste, I mean, spend a lot more time exploring symmetry with this awesome toy. Thanks!
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 1:50 PM on August 13, 2008