Mandala
a system for using thousands of web images to access and organize web information
Jonathan Helfman, 1999

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Jonathan Helfman


Multiple site maps created by grouping thumbnails of images by site of origin.


Recursive space-saving spiral layout of images from bookmarked pages.

Mandala is a general platform for using thousands of web images to access and organize Web information. Images are grouped automatically in a variety of ways and stored as client-side imagemaps. Any image may be selected to access the associated page in a web browser. Applications include visual bookmarks, visual site indexes, and visual session summaries. Groups of images are displayed in separate windows and may be edited by dragging images from one window to another.

Images are rated by how likely they are to contain relevant content (as opposed to decorations, ads, and navigation elements). Even fast and dirty ratings like "largest, squarest, and most colorful" yield good results. Groups of images are arranged in space-saving spirals with the highest-rated images near the center, making it possible to get the quick gist of a large image collection with very little eye movement. Multiple groups may be arranged in a super-spiral by recursive application of the layout algorithm.

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Copyright © Jonathan Helfman, ImageBeat Design, 2000-2004.