Talk:Wikimedia logo mosaic/ConstructionNotes

Automatically generated

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to automatically generate the mosaic instead of trying to painstakingly hand-assemble it? The result will be a lot more impressive if generated algorithmically as well.

From Commons:Village_pump#Wikimedia_logo_mosaic:

Instead of everyone changing images, why not list them on the color fields and have them random positioned? Or maybe using generic images instead of those good ones. If they're repeated, people won't know if the image they're replacing is still present anywhere else or not. Platonides 21:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The starting mosaic *was* automatically generated. If someone else wants to take a crack at it, the spreadsheet used is available. Inserting more images into it and generating another random version is quite easy, one would just need to have, or extract, a list of the images per color to add, and add them into a particular place in the spread and voila. Algorithmically generating using images to do "dithering" (what I think you meant) instead of randomly placing thme was considered but is beyond my Excel programming skills. If someone else wants to take a crack at it, be my guest. ++Lar: t/c 02:08, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Well I think having folk arrange images clearly came out really nicely. Many different folk participated and the final result is awesome. It may not be as "perfect" as if it had been machine dithered but it has tT, I think. ++Lar: t/c 15:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Aspect ratios

I'd like to point out that there are several images in the white section with bad aspect ratios. While this may look okay under normal circumestances, if anyone has a different skin on their wiki using background colors other than white, it will be completely messed up. Anything that is not exactly 3x4 should be removed. Cary "Bastiq▼e" Bass ^demandez 15:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

This is my feeling as well, but it is not universally held. See Talk:Wikimedia logo mosaic (in particular, the heading Image Sizes) for further discussion. Note that if the background color fix is put in place, as discussed there, the skin background will be overrridden. ++Lar: t/c 15:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Every cell of the table currently has a default white background, so it is OK to put it on some other background (even with thoose images that are not exactly 3x4). --Nux (talk··dyskusja) 01:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment

This is absolutely gorgious ! Anthere 21:04, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. It looks totally awesome! LuciferTiger (talk) 04:42, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Time-lapse image

Just a FYI, but an animation depicting this mosaic's construction can be found here if anyone thinks it's worth adding to this page. A scaled-down thumb of it:

Cheers, RandyWang 01:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

That is really cool. and we should feature it somewhere, for sure. Thanks for sharing! ++Lar: t/c 12:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Large version of the mosaic

Is it possible to create a large version of the mosaic? I'd like to print it in poster size. regards --Cyc 02:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

sure. make a copy of the page, and change the width parm default to each of the row templates to something larger (it's currently 24) and you'll have a larger one. In fact, you can invoke the whole page as if it were a template, I think, and just pass a larger size in (that was how I designed it to work) Hope that helps... Here:

<!----------------- row: 0 --------------------> {{Mosaic row generator|size={{{size|24}}}|rownum=0| 1=Actinoform OpenCell Clouds MODIS 30sep05.jpg| 2=Wildrose2Blütenstandweiß2 ArM.jpg| 3=Gniew1-1.jpg| 4=Jigokudani hotspring in Nagano Japan 001.jpg| 5=Sapphire02.jpg| 6=Zlacze centronics c.jpg| 7=Wheat in sack.jpg| 8=FRGElections.PNG| 9=Drafting line types.png| 10=D orbitals.svg| 11=FultonNautilus.jpg| 12=Schriftzug Fraktur.jpg| 13=Anemometer Etévé drawing.jpg| 14=Zeche Waltrop Info.jpg|14bk=#fff;vertical-align:bottom| 15=Cranberrys beim Ernten.jpeg|15bk=#933;vertical-align:top| 16=Citroën 2CV.jpg| 17=1962-SAAB96.jpg| 18=Füetzen Epfenhofenviadukt.jpg| 19=Villard de Honnecourt Tailles.png| 20=Saddle point.png| 21=Cilindro2.PNG| 22=HookeFlea01.jpg| 23=Ast Electro.png| 24=Lenteconv 4.png| 25=Turboshaft operation.png| 26=Close-Up lens Hoya 3 62 mm.jpg| 27=Haupt und Nebenpleuel BMW 132.jpg| 28=Beinecke Library 2.jpg| 29=Zwerchfellruptur Hund.jpg| 30=Samuel Hays marker.jpg }}

is the first row, change size|24 to something larger in this and every row.... ++Lar: t/c 04:29, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

In fact, I set up a redirect from Template:Wikimedia logo mosaic to the page and now you can just invoke with a different size... no need to copy the whole thing over. See User:Lar/Mosaic2 which invokes with size 40, like this: {{Wikimedia_logo_mosaic|size=40}}

Thanx, is it possible to generate a large png with this parameters?

Change and stasis

For some purposes, it would be better to limit the mosaic to non-animated images. Personally, I find the animations distracting to the effect. Other people might want a completely animated mosaic, or a mosaic that changes images on the fly (if that can be done in wiki).

Second, there was a note on the admin page about the problem with mosaic images that get superseded with copyvio images; images can also be superseded with images of a different color, or or other problems. The aspect ratio problem has also been mentioned. Having a large collection of each image color would allow a bot to fix up the mosaic automatically. The color, animation, and aspect ratio sorting could even be done automatically with the right software. Whether the importance of the images (quality or featured) should be calculated from the image tags or edited by hand is another issue.

To say the mosaic is finished is at best an aspiration. As long as the underlying images can be replaced, it's going to need maintenance. It would be nice for that maintenance to be automatic, and would allow people to variant mosaics with their favorite features. --Dan Hoey 14:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It's done, finished and let's just not mess with it unless it is necessary. And as for the maintenance... Well, if you have that kind of software I'm sure there will be no one to stop you ;). Sorry to be pointy, but by saying what you said, you seem to say that what we've done was easy. I'm sure some automated script could've done something similar, but someone would have to write it first and that wasn't the point really. --Nux (talk··dyskusja) 22:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)