www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I've just been playing around with Google's neural networking programme, Deep Dream.

Here is a purple emperor supping minerals in a limestone quarry. By some transcendent magic, Deep Dream managed to transport the butterfly back to the days when all this was ocean and strange, prehistoric creatures drifted around in the waters ...



Perched on my hand, the same insect enjoyed a terrestrial, if somewhat disturbing, environment:



This is Agni, just after a skin change, lost in a threatening world where nothing is as it seems ...



The above picture is the reality - this is more what we would like to see:



Finally, that terrifying christi habitat as seen by Minnie:



Feel free to add more weid and wonderful pictures to this thread!

Guy

They are chillingly compelling images Guy ,
I presume the first two are of the famed Purple Emperor var lysergica?

Trev

I read that this software was originally developed to find patterns in photos. By turning up the sensitivity, it 'sees' patterns everywhere but, because it was trained to see dogs, these animals turn up rather often! I prefer playing with Dynamic Auto Painter.

Agni does not look at all out of place
Chris

Trev Sawyer wrote: I presume the first two are of the famed Purple Emperor var lysergica?

Yes - and all those legs make it so much easier to trip ...

I uploaded all the above pictures at low res, as prepared for the internet. This was so I could see what happened without waiting hours for long uploads. But actually you get much more interesting detail if you upload at high res.

Here is an ilia at 700px across, as posted in my diary:



When uploaded to the dream machine at that resolution (then resized to 800 afterwards), it transformed into this:



When uploaded at higher resolution (then similarly resized to 800 afterwards), it came out as this:



There are far more living creatures in the second version and at full size it looks quite spectacular. So the moral is, use high res originals.

Guy

PS - just seen your post, Chris - no, Agni looks quite at home in the deep, dark, dangerous woods ...

Sorry Mike - I missed your comment when I replied. Yes, it does find a lot of dogs - and what appear to be guinea pigs! I have had fun with DAP too - especially the Van Gogh settings, which can yield very striking night scenes. But being something of a dreamer (and a dog-lover) I enjoy the addition of hidden content that Google Deep Dream does so weirdly.

This is the purple emperor underside shot, prepared from a higher res original. There is a basket of puppies on the right, though one is playing Wittgenstein's rabbit, being a puppy facing right or a bird facing left:



And here a night-time glowworm shot, prepared from the low res, web version. The glowworm chariots are a novelty - but yes, there is a dog lurking in the shadows!!



Guy

Hey Guy,
I've just noticed that Gollum managed to "photobomb" the first image (he's hiding in the front right-hand corner) - the little devil!

Trev