# "2001: A Space Odyssey" retold using Processing
**URL:** https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864
**Category:** Gallery
**Created:** [September 7, 2019, 11:54am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864 "2019-09-07T11:54:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@LoO93](https://discourse.processing.org/u/LoO93)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2019, 11:54am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/1 "2019-09-07T11:54:14Z")
Hello World and dear Processing community!
Here’s my first Processing project I’d like to share with you guys.
**The idea:**
- feed the program with a database of images
- calculate the average color of each image in the database
- feed the program with an input image
- rasterize/split the input image into several equal cells
- calculate the average color of each cell
- replace each cell with the next best color match from the database
I was looking for something like this:
That first milestone got reached pretty quick so I decided to explore some variations of it…
**Let’s make a video:**
I first wanted to try how this would look on an sequence of images.
- I first needed a way greater database of images since we would now have around 25fps to replace
- I searched the internet for a free database of images that would let me download these via an API
- I stumbled upon [pixabay.com](http://pixabay.com) which would let me download a reasonable amount of images simply by using a token in a http-request
- So now my little .pde would first download a new database of images on each run
I was pretty excited to see the first result, but unfortunately it turned out to look like a puree of wrong pixels rather than an interesting and pleasing mosaic look that I was looking for… But let’s not loose hope yet!
(I regrettably can’t show you the result since I deleted it (_#idiot_) and my .pde won’t run anymore since my access token at pixabay is expired… But trust me, you didn’t miss anything!)
**An infinite zoom ?**
Alright so what could be the next variation of our little mosaic programm since videos wouldn’t do it.
Well I have an image based on images, why not create something close to an infinite zoom ?
If we scale up one of the cells to fullscreen and so on, we could maybe get something interesting.
And so it was!
**But we need a story!**
Since I am also into filmmaking, I wanted a bit more than just an so called “effect”. Maybe we could use it to narrate something or even to _retell_ something.
So I needed a story, and a story that people would know.
**A Space Odyssey:**
My professor at uni came up with the idea of Kubrick’s classic “2001: A Space Odyssey” and I decided to give it a shot with an infinite **de** zoom!
- To get the database I exported every second of the movie to a an .jpg into a ‘frames’ folder
- Now I had around 9000 images
- I manually picked stills from the movie and exported these into a ‘keyframes’ folder
- The .pde would now first go trough the ‘frames’ folder and only save the images which differ enough from each other into an array list
- It’d reduce the amount from 9000 to around 400 images to play with
- Afterwards it’ll process the **n+1** still to a mosaic and place the **n** still into its center cell
- The **n+1** mosaic will then be drawn so that the centered **n** still is fullscreen
- It’ll then scale the **n+1** mosaic down on every draw call until the **n+1** still goes fullscreen
- And so on until the last still.
**See for yourself:**
[http://youtu.be/eeUTmjLwOJU](http://youtu.be/eeUTmjLwOJU)
It still got some issues like the moire that comes from the downscaling algorithm in Processing.
The next step would be to check if a picked image from the database was already picked to get more variance in the final mosaics.
I hope your guys enjoyed it and I’d be glad to get some feedback!
**Credits**
I really would like to thank my good friend Ole who really made this possible since he is the brain behind all the math here.
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### Author:  [@quark](https://discourse.processing.org/u/quark)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2019, 12:42pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/2 "2019-09-07T12:42:48Z")
Like most people I have watched many movies on the Internet but that was just the most amazing experience.
Congratulations on a truly remarkable piece of art.
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### Author:  [@jb4x](https://discourse.processing.org/u/jb4x)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/3 "2019-09-07T14:09:46Z")
Really mesmerizing! Well done 👍
I wonder if you could get enough “pixels” using only the still frame of the movie. Inception style =)
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### Author:  [@swmarks](https://discourse.processing.org/u/swmarks)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2019, 9:30pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/4 "2019-09-07T21:30:24Z")
Absolutely incredible! My favorite movie of all time and you encapsulate the experience. I particularly liked the reversals at approx. 6 minutes and 7 minutes, because that’s what would happen in a wormhole!
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### Author:  [@mcintyre](https://discourse.processing.org/u/mcintyre)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/5 "2019-09-07T23:42:23Z")
I love everything about this project–thank you for sharing 🤯
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### Author:  [@Hieronymus](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Hieronymus)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2019, 9:25pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/6 "2019-09-08T21:25:10Z")
One of the coolest Processing projects I’ve seen! Thanks for sharing.
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### Author:  [@Luno\_T](https://discourse.processing.org/u/Luno_T)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/7 "2019-09-14T20:38:56Z")
Awesome project…
Congratulations!
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### Author:  [@TTG](https://discourse.processing.org/u/TTG)
#### Post date: [September 15, 2019, 11:31am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/8 "2019-09-15T11:31:15Z")
great you shared and told the process of getting to the result. Inspires and gives confidence processing is a great tool to even create polished material above prototyping.
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### Author:  [@royal96](https://discourse.processing.org/u/royal96)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2019, 2:45pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/9 "2019-09-24T14:45:12Z")
Great Work ! Thank you for sharing (F)
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### Author:  [@needfulthing](https://discourse.processing.org/u/needfulthing)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2019, 1:02pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/10 "2019-09-30T13:02:25Z")
Love it but made the mistake to watch it while having a hangover 🤢
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### Author:  [@xenojimmy](https://discourse.processing.org/u/xenojimmy)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2020, 7:01pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/2001-a-space-odyssey-retold-using-processing/13864/11 "2020-04-04T19:01:44Z")
ncie stuff, congrats!
i’ve been trying to retrieve img search on pixabay too.
but I even can’t manage to get some img, I get this failure when I try to use loadimage with any pixabay link
java.io.IOException: Server returned HTTP response code: 403 for URL: [https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/04/19/08/32/rose-729509\_150.jpg](https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/04/19/08/32/rose-729509_150.jpg)
I can map all the hits in JSON objects and print them properly like “previewURL” and similars…
but it’s up to load images… ti fails. anybody tried something similar?