From: "Hal E. Fulton" <hal9000@...>
Date: 2003-05-04T11:04:24+09:00
Subject: Re: "Collage" of images -- more pychological randomness

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Carrera" <dcarrera@math.umd.edu>
To: "ruby-talk ML" <ruby-talk@ruby-lang.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2003 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: "Collage" of images -- more pychological randomness


> The problem you wrote seems fairly specific -- you gave the size of the
> grid and images.  Are you interested in the specific solution for this
> problem, or a generic solution for generic grids and generic image sizes?

I'm flexible.

Two things I'd be interested in:
1. Better algorithm or coding idioms
2. A more general solution

> Is there any reason why you want the position of the 4x4 image randomized?
> Why can't it be (0,0) every time?

The whole point (in my mind) is to generate a
"random-looking" collage that will be pleasing
to the eye. The randomness should be apparent
both in space and time (e.g., suppose the
collage is re-generated every day).

One constraint I wouldn't necessarily want to
lose is the squareness of the images. That's
a big simplifying assumption. To allow images
of arbitrary shapes might lead to a much more
sophisticated problem.

As for the hardcoding of the numbers of images
of various sizes: I just wanted a distribution
such that
1. The larger the image, the fewer of that size;
2. The curve should be fairly "smooth"

Does that make my thoughts more clear? Or less? :)

Cheers,
Hal