Monthly Archives: November 2009

Tools to create photomosaics and tilemosaics

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Photomosaics are image montages which consist of small pictures called cell images. When viewed from a distance, you see the source image. Standard photo mosaic applications are based on similar processes. Applications are different in implemented recognition/selection algorithms and built-in functions for control/enhance mosaic rendering process.

The following tools are available :

The developer of Mosaic Creator published a comparison table of most available photo- and tile creation applications. A list of more tools is available in the Google directory.

Photo Mosaic

Photo Mosaic

Google & Open Directory: the organized web

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Last update : July 2, 2013
The Google Web Directory integrates Google’s sophisticated search technology with Open Directory pages to create the most useful tool for finding information on the web. Key improvements include the following:

  • Importance ranking
  • Smarter search within directory categories
  • Web search integration
  • Clean, uncluttered user interface
Open Directory Banner

Open Directory

The Open Directory Project (ODP) is a large public directory managed by Netscape. The ODP is maintained by a group of volunteer editors from around the world who evaluate sites for inclusion in the directory. The web pages selected by these editors are organized into a number of broad categories under which are many more specific subcategories. Google uses this hierarchy as the basis for its directory.

Extract images, links and other data from webpages

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There are a few tools available to download all the links and images contained in a webpage. Some freeware and open-source applications are listed herafter :

DownThemAll is a fast, reliable and easy-to-use add-on for Fireofx! It allows you to refine your downloads by fully customizable criteria to get only what you really want!

OutWit Hub is an all-in-one application for extracting and organizing data from online sources. It offers a wealth of data recognition features to simplify Web searches and operates as a free Firefox Add-on compatible with Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

Zoomify : zoomable web images

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Zoomify makes high-quality images zoom-and-pan for fast, interactive viewing on the web with just HTML, JPEGs, and Flash! Zoomify’s products meet the high-resolution imaging needs of creative professionals, image-centric businesses, and digital appliance companies. Zoomify is revolutionizing digital imaging in science, business, entertainment, education, and security.

Led by David Urbanic, President & CEO, Zoomify’s founders include top technologists and business staff from companies including Apple, Borland, Adobe and other leading firms.

There are four products available : Zoomify Express (free), Zoomify Design (29 US$), Zoomify Flash (129 US$) and Zoomify Enterprise (795 US$).

A detailed FAQ section is available at the website of Zoomify.

TinEye, PixID, Piximilar : advanced image software by Idée Inc.

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The canadian company Idée Inc. was founded by Leila Boujnane (CEO) and Paul Bloore (CTO). The company develops advanced image identification and visual search software.

PixID is an innovative video and still–image identification system that analyzes each client’s visual assets and actively tracks where their images have appeared, both in print publications and on the Internet. Idée’s proprietary software creates a digital fingerprint for each client image and compares it to images scanned from publications and crawled from the web.

Piximilar allows users to analyze, index and search quickly and efficiently through vast image and video collections based on visual similarity. Piximilar’s visual similarity technology uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze hundreds of image attributes such as colour, shape, texture, luminosity, complexity, objects and regions. These attributes form a unique visual signature.

With the Multicolr Search Lab, you can browse through 10 million of Flickr’s most ‘interesting’ Creative Commons images, and find ones that share the same colours. Choose up to 10 colours from our palette of 120 different shades.

TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology. Given an image to search for, TinEye tells you where and how that image appears all over the web—even if it has been modified. Just as you are familiar with entering text in a regular search engine such as Google to find web pages that contain that text, TinEye lets you submit an image to find web pages that contain that image. A beta version of TinEye is operationel.

TinEye Mobile allows you to search for products using your mobile phone’s camera.

The Idée Labs offer two other applications : Visual Search Lab and BYO Image Search Lab, both from the Alamy Stock Photos.

MapLib : Turn any image into a Google Map

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MapLib is an application created by Xiao Yisheng that allows you to upload a large image and instantly apply the Google Maps interface to it for easy viewing. Upload an image as large as 6000 x 6000 and embed it on a website with the Google Maps viewing interface. Large images with abundant depth and detail can be annotated. Detailed business related product photos can be described by owners or other visitors to the image. A large photo with many people or places can be annotated like a Google Map.

MapLib API is still in beta stage. There may be some unexpected bugs. MapLib offers free accounts with limited features, pro accounts for 35 US$ per year with enhanced features and super accounts (call for price) with unlimited features. MapLib.net provides a javascript API to embed generated pictures in a user’s own webpage, with full flexibility.

MapLib offers also a solution called Integrator to let you host the generated maps on your own server, which means, all the generated information, including pictures, php files, javascript files, html files and markers. This allows to make the maps running without connecting to MapLib.net every time. The prices without full sources are 120 US$ for the advanced single site solution (maximum 10 maps) and 300 US$ for the premium single site solution (unlimited number of maps). For the solutions with full sources, to customize the presentation, the prices are 200 US$ and 500 US$.