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November 17, 2009

Google Image Swirl

Google released a new Google Labs experiment related to image search: Google Image Swirl. The service "organizes image search results based on their visual and semantic similarities and presents them in an intuitive exploratory interface."

Google Image Swirl clusters the top image search results for more than 200,000 queries and it lets you explore the clusters and the relation between images.

"Once you find the group of images you're interested in, you can click on the thumbnail and a cluster of images will "swirl" into view. You can then further explore additional sub-groups within any cluster. Image Swirl expands on technologies developed for Similar Images and Picasa Face Recognition to discern how images should be grouped together and build hierarchies out of these groups. Each thumbnail on the initial results page represents an algorithmically-determined representative group of images with similar appearance and meaning. These aren't just the most relevant images — they are the most relevant groups of images," explains Google.

Try queries like: jaguar, flowers, van Gogh and keep in mind that this is an early demo, so not all the queries will return results.


Google has two other visualization tools: "wonder wheel" for exploring related searches and YouTube Warp, an interactive way to visualize related YouTube videos.
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20 comments:

  1. UnknownNovember 17, 2009 at 4:38 PM

    It would be cool if they incorporate a size option and pretty much all the other stuff that regular image search has already.

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  2. lifted trucksNovember 17, 2009 at 10:00 PM

    That's really amazing... this technology will help the regular G visitors to gain somewhat again more than the traditional one. Again, the image search will become more simpler than previous.

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  3. immaNovember 18, 2009 at 2:24 AM

    Pretty, but seems to hit dead ends more than the wonder wheel
    ps: YouTube Warp seems to be broken at the moment :-(

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  4. DanNovember 18, 2009 at 4:41 AM

    At the moment it looks like just a flashy (but very cool) interface. When I used it yesterday the "groups" of Eiffel Tower photos seemed incoherent - there was no one clear theme or visual element that clearly differentiated one group from another.

    That's not to say it won't improve over time though - Google will no doubt refine its algorithms between now and the end product (it is in Labs, after all).

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  5. ehsanNovember 18, 2009 at 4:54 AM

    Its really amazing technique . We can easily found the image we want .

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  6. Baby BNovember 18, 2009 at 6:15 AM

    It would be nice if they could display the relationship between the pics. That would be more helpful in the search, I think.

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  7. Simon KempNovember 19, 2009 at 2:33 PM

    There are some great plug in Visual Search tools by iBlick from http://Jemms www.jemms.co.uk at http://clicky.me/2a8 this css driven solution can be configured to visualise content any which way. The iBlick Visual Suite is a Visual Product Finder with modules - as used by global brands like Eizo and LG Electronics

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  8. KristannaNovember 20, 2009 at 2:11 AM

    Of course this cluster technology is just a hint of all the major improvement Google Images is experimenting lately. It is being revamped seriously. I think that we some secret goal. I wrote an article today on this topic. Thanks for the details and description you offer. Very well put...

    christmas presents

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  9. Jonathan FreiNovember 21, 2009 at 7:37 AM

    This will be a great tool for blogger looking for that "just right" image.

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  10. web design tipperaryNovember 22, 2009 at 6:00 AM

    cool..but is it really useful?

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  11. joystickNovember 23, 2009 at 8:09 PM

    Wow, talk about innovation, I always wondered if google images could be improved. The others can't even hope to imitate. Oh, and I also had fun searching. Now, google needs to spend a little more time building the database to keep up with all the images on the web.

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  12. Shekhar SahuDecember 2, 2009 at 11:04 AM

    That was great to know about it. As we get search options in websearch , that should be introduced.

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  13. AnonymousDecember 16, 2009 at 4:42 PM

    the images can be somewhat difficult to see

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  14. AnonymousFebruary 8, 2010 at 9:52 AM

    this new program is great! i found exactly what i was looking for in half the time it would of taken me to find it using regular google images

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  15. UnknownFebruary 19, 2010 at 7:31 AM

    this is awesome! probably my favorite thing to come out of google since gmail.

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  16. AnonymousJuly 4, 2010 at 2:06 PM

    its useless... no recommendations from me... swing and a miss

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  17. AnonymousNovember 1, 2011 at 4:23 PM

    Google swirl is soooooooooooooooo cool i luv it ao much more than the normal google images!!!! Sammi out :p

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  18. AnonymousJanuary 4, 2012 at 5:48 AM

    This Service Are outdated
    Error: Not Found
    The requested URL / was not found on this server.

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  19. UnknownJanuary 20, 2012 at 6:41 AM

    Don't be evil, ok? When you take down a service, which official Google pages are still linking to, then either explain why, or provide a redirect, or at least a 404 page.

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  20. AnonymousMarch 26, 2012 at 1:24 PM

    what happened to google swirl? it doesn't work anymore... :/

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