hey blprnt,

  I was wondering if you could email me that source. I’m doing this for a project for class and it is due here in about a week. So I was wondering if I could get that from you so I can get started. I really appreciate it! Talk to you soon.

aaron
avermeda@niu.edu

Hi Aaron, Thanks for the kind words. Your project sounds interesting. From a technical perspective, it's quite similar to what I have done with Plumage. Specifically, I am using Kevin Luck's Flashr API to connect to Flickr and retrieve images. Once the images arrive, I'm using Flash's BitmapData object to retrieve colour information. It would be very easy to get the first pixel row of color information (in my case, I'm retrieving the whole colour array, reducing the array and sorting it to get the colour bands that you see in the feathers). I'd be happy to send you the source for Plumage, so that you can see how it is all put together. It's not commented very well at the moment, but I can point you to parts of it that would be useful to have a look at. The one 'trick' in the whole process is that Flash won't let you access the BitmapData information of images loaded from outside of your server domain. To get around this, Plumage uses a very simple PHP proxy which 'fools' Flash into thinking that the images come from blprnt.com instead of flickr.com. I can send you that as well. It should be noted that this project was inspired heavily by Mario Klingmann's work over at Quasimondo.com. Mario's work with Flickr is nothing short of astounding. The idea for the PHP proxy came directly from him.

Dear blprnt, 

My name is Aaron and I am a senior Art major at Northern Illinois University. I have a focus in digital media art or what they call, Time Arts. Currently I am taking an advanced interactivity class and my idea for my next piece ironically uses a very similar process as "Plumage". 

My instructor e-mailed me this link after stumbling across it knowing I may find it of some interest. I ended it up finding it phenomenal; I think this piece is really great. I actually registered for this blog for the soul purpose of commenting on it; I have never blogged before so this is a first. I have always loved the idea of utilizing the web using data processing to come up with random, dynamic information which is used to create a piece. This piece will constantly change and the opportunities to branch of work like this are endless. 

However, I am having a bit of trouble starting out this piece, I don't really know where to start; I wasn't even sure it was possible. However seeing this piece of yours gave me some new hope and drive. I was wondering if you could give me any advice/information to help me along my way. Let me explain my piece. 

The plan is to use Flash and Dreamwaever to develop a web space where the user can enter a word. The program takes this word and fishes through flickr to get back some images. It then takes one row of pixels from each image and adds it to a new image that is produces live. This new image is now a mosaic of the object, emotion, term, word, ect. This piece will be a non-representational way to illustrate a social commentary on how society views these words/phrases by how they name their personal photographs. This piece will then be open to opportunities for works in series; putting together mosaics of a certain genre of word, seeing how the views of society of these words change over a few days, weeks, ect  I feel this piece could be very strong and is a great way to polish more of my skills of these programs.

My only problem is, I don't really know where to start. If you could give me any advice I would really appreciate your time. Thanks blprnt, I will hopefully talk to you soon.

Aaron