Firefox PicLens 3D Image Browser
May 23, 2008If you haven’t yet used the PicLens Plug-In for Firefox, then you are missing out on an excellent way to present and interact with images. I used it yesterday at our GCSE Art & Photography exhibition by projecting images through a SMART interactive whiteboard and viewed a Flickr set. Visitors were able to scroll and interact with the images using an impressive 3D interface. Well worth downloading and it’s free.
In terms of Photography, I would use this in conjunction with Flickr and get students to tag their work, which could then be searched in Flickr and presented using PicLens. Last year I did a project with a group of GCSE Photography students and invited Barry Lewis, a professional photographer, to come and run a 2-day workshop getting students to respond to his set of photos called ‘Visual Noise’.
We visited a local allotment and the students took hundreds of photos focusing on colour, texture, structure etc… They were then asked to make a selection of 10 favourite images and, as a group, we went through and collectively decided on the best 3 from each student ending up with a refined collection. This process took place by copying images from a central server and then viewing them using iView Media Pro. Below is a Flick badge of that work:
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In retrospect, I would now get students to tag all their photos with a special code i.e ‘GCSEVISUALNOISE’ and view it in PicLens and make a selection from there or just use it to discuss images. It is a great way to quickly identify and contrast images. I am waiting for them to create a pasteboard where you can drag images and create quick collections.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Thanks for the recommendation Zek. As it happens I did that yesterday and found it very useful. I am currently developing a Level 1 course for students in digital photography and using these interfaces is a great way of creating virtual exhibitions. By the way I have point Aquafadas at your blog, they made bannerzest and pulpmotion so that they can see what you are doing with the software. Please continue to put up your examples.
May 24th, 2008 at 12:15 am
I’ve just been in communication with CoolIris about the possibility of being able to flag and make selection of images – they are very keen to enable these functions along with saving as options. I’m going to be testing out their beta versions to give them feedback with a specific view to classroom resourcing. The great thing about these companies are that they are small teams of developers rather than a large, austere companies with thousands of employees, making communication quick and personal.