The Sound of Fractals & Photographs

[adamboy7777]

I have a question: With this program you can turn image to sound, and sound to image. However, when you have one or the other, can you put it back how it was? Meaning, if I took a screen shot, ran it through this program and made it an audio file, could I put the audio I got into the program and make it the picture I had before?

[d0lphchrist]

nice idea :) are you applying an edge-detect filter to the image and then interpreting the colours of a pixelcolumn as amount of frequency, where the pixel-y-coordinate represents the frequency itself?

[Photosounder]

@d0lphchrist Yes, except no edge detection at all, and it's all levels of grey.

[JimmyGr90]

MINDFUCK

[mrespman]

I'd like to see this done with some of Alex Grey's paintings. That would be a mindfuck.

[Photosounder]

@mrespman yep, some of them would be quite good for that. The key would be merely to turn down their gamma, and try different rotations. You can try that yourself, with Photosounder's demo.

[kaoD]

lol first time I try this application and it crashes after closing the window

[Shinbahamut23]

Is there a way to do it backwards from sound to image?

[Photosounder]

@Shinbahamut23 yes, by opening a sound with Photosounder it is turned into an image, which is turned into a sound again. It allows you to do many many things at the image level that affect the sound that you couldn't do in any other way.

[09205479428]

This is geometry converted to sound, exactly how matter also responds to vibration. Eye opener once more. Great job.

[sammybounce]

you can actually see how the sound pretty much will sound if you look at the picture, 1:02 is a fine example, because the curves goes up and down the sound will change the tone up and down

[Photosounder]

@sammybounce that's right! And being able to guess how an image might sound helps a lot in picking potentially interesting sounding images too.

[Ihateuall95]

3:35 lol what the hell? XD

[IchDerComputerFreak]

nice sounds!

[faunflynn]

THis is so cool.

[leet512]

wow that spider web sounds divine! :)

[VannevarBush]

Sounds very eristic. Like Aphex Twin.

[alphamone]

many of these sound like old sci fi sound effects, and are quite interesting sounding.

[certifiedpet]

Very AFX like

[Neotails8762]

What would it sound like if the picture(s) (or any sound for that matter) was inverted? ie., the light areas were dark and vice-versa?

[SuckItLily]

@Neotails8762 exactly the opposite, since light indicates sound here.

[Neotails8762]

@SuckItLily So how would the "inverted sound" sound like? Like, If I was take a song and invert everything.

[SuckItLily]

@Neotails8762 i don't know what to do except get really, really specific... and obvious: instead of something in the middle you would hear both low and high notes, instead of the upper half you would hear the lower half etc.

watch a couple more of this kind of videos and you're gonna get a better idea of what image sounds which way. from there you just have to imagine the inverted picture and you'll know basically how it would sound.

i would be interested in actually hearing it, too btw.

[Nabo00o]

..... This is absolutely incredible!

And, I'm thinking..... if you can convert these images into that sound, what about converting sound into images that look something like these.....

[SuckItLily]

@Nabo00o the spectrograph is a tool to show a sound engineer what's actually being played by visualizing it. our sight is by far the superior sense to our hearing in terms of accuracy. it would be very hard to make music by painting pictures - the other way around is just about impossible. you would have to constantly try wether what instrumental tracks you are adding and what you're doing with them produces the picture you want to see or not, and in the end what would be the point?

[Nabo00o]

@SuckItLily

Hi, I'm not sure. Sight and hearing are two very different senses, though similar in aspects too. I think it for many would be very hard to accept that sight is more complex than hearing. I think both have their strengths and weaknesses.

For example, you could say sound exist in only one "dimension", with certain amplitudes and frequencies, while sight can have many more "dimensions" or "pixels" in addition to the frequencies and amplitudes, which is colors and contrasts.

[Nabo00o]

But while one sense can cover a much larger area than the other, it may also be less specific and accurate.

I think there is a rational relationship making both useful in their fields. But yeah, it might seem hard and pointless to convert between the two,

but I think there could be some very interesting applications, both scientific and artistic, if it could be done with good quality.

[SuckItLily]

@Nabo00o sound and light both have their place in the universe. i was meaning to say: among humans sight is a more important sense. it is also the most advanced one we have. proof: the deaf have it easier than the blind. when you don't hear you miss part of what's happening, but when you don't see you don't even know WHERE it's all happening to begin with. socially blindness might be the lesser problem but make no mistake, in terms of survival without your eyes you're done for.

[gtbtone]

me and my cousin stayed up all night playing with this!!!!

if you have a picture of stars it sounds cool!!!!

[TheChemistMan]

In reality, this is nothing new. The original idea belongs to Xenakis who made the UPIC in 1977. One of his works is on youtube; it's called "Mycenae Alpha" and it's based on Xenakis' drawings. (well the drawings are not very good, so the sound is not so pleasant!) Although, I must say this looks definately more user-friendly! (if you want to learn more search "UPIC" on Wikipedia and "Mycenae Alpha" on youtube)

[Photosounder]

@TheChemistMan Oh yeah? And what ever was new? What was new about the first car? What was the first airplane but a glider + a propeller? What was the Internet but computers + the telegraph network? Nothing is ever entirely new, so keep the 'first!' and 'not first!' to yourself. Case in point, you are wrong, the UPIC was preceded by the ANS synth. But it doesn't matter, because none of those two can do a 10th of what you can do with Photosounder. (sry for replying many times, it was acting up)

[TheChemistMan]

@Photosounder Hey man, calm down please.. Has the "youtube erristic commenting virus" gotten into you? Sorry if I've insulted you, but I was just sharing some knowledge I had on this, in case somebody is interested in this stuff.. And I added "Although, I must say this looks definately more user-friendly!", to point out that this is certainly an improvement. Well, sorry if my comment sounded hostile to you, but this wasn't my intention..

[Photosounder]

It's like, if Christopher Columbus lived now, for the rest of his life he'd have to hear "Leif Ericson was first!!", when actually Ericson didn't matter, cause what he did didn't amount to shit, it didn't change history, it didn't even influence Columbus (just like the UPIC or whatever else didn't influence me), whereas what Colombus did kickstarted the colonisation of the Americas and changed the face of Earth and history.

[TheChemistMan]

@Photosounder Hey man, calm down please.. Has the "youtube erristic commenting virus" gotten into you? Sorry if I've insulted you, but I was just sharing some knowledge I had on this, in case somebody is interested in this stuff.. That's why I added "Although, I must say this looks definately more user-friendly!", to point out that this is certainly an improvement. Well, sorry if my comment sounded hostile to you, but this wasn't my intention..

[Photosounder]

@TheChemistMan lol it's fine, I'm just getting tired of always hearing "Aphex Twin/ANS/UPIC/Metasynth/Coagul­a/BeepMap did it first!!". It's like the more you innovate the more people who never innovated try to prove you invented nothing. I now truly believe that you just cannot do something novel without getting a flood of "X did it first!"

Not sure what erristic means, but YouTube wasn't showing my comments so I kept pressing the post button but it seemed to do nothing.. oops! lol

[TheChemistMan]

@Photosounder Well, think about it, it's really your fault.. because you keep giving a F about what everyone says about you or your work! If someone has something to say that you believe it can improve you in any way, then listen, but in any other case just IGNORE them! Do not reply at all and do not give a F! Especially, on youtube! Just keep enjoying your life and your work the way YOU want. Nobody has to prove anything to noone and if your work has true value, it will stand out by itself.

[faunflynn]

@Photosounder Erristic is from Eris, goddess of chaos. So I gues it means chaotic or random, but I'm guessing it's a nelogism and not in a dictionary as a proper adjective unless meaning pertaining to Eris.

[Tubeuserthefirst]

Its funny how much it sounds like the old Stockhausen compositions , like Gesang der Junglinge. He used completely different ways to generate sounds.

[Photosounder]

@Tubeuserthefirst just checked it out, those short bubbly sounds are indeed awfully reminiscent of sounds heard in this video. Any idea how they were made?

[ZClipze]

Try it with sheet music lol

[Photosounder]

@ZClipze I tried it, doesn't work too well. First of all you have to remove a lot of things, like bars, vertical "tails" that notes have, and then what's left is short notes that aren't even very precise because they're somewhat thick.

[ZClipze]

@Photosounder Thanks for letting me know, I see what you mean. It seems the abstract patterns have best results. It would be nice if someday it could also translate colours. There must be lot's of variations and sequences that can work with this

[eliotzz]

This was featured on a documentary where a blind person carried around a laptop and was able to point a device toward anything and tell what it was in front of them or describe it from the sound. The idea was that any blind person could learn to see with their hearing. Amazing stuff and it works as well as a baby learning to see for the first time.

[10thdim]

Brilliant stuff! We just discovered your channel this morning here at my studio and it's been fun looking at all your demonstration videos. I'm definitely going to be spreading the word about this powerful creativity tool, well done!

[TenshihanQuinn]

The potential in this concept is far more than many people realize.

You could, for example, create hidden coded messages insides pictures/fractals, and/or DECODE incredible secrets of the Universe with very little modification. ;)

Brilliant work!

[TenshihanQuinn]

PS: I want to hear what DNA sounds like.  ;)

[Photosounder]

1:36

[Jacobomo]

unreal how much potential this has. like i cant even believe it

[RedSuit1]

All I see is some amazing samples for a song, but you definitely brought up an interesting concept.

[ezfoshez1]

i wonder what kind of noise a picture of my face would make

[SirNails]

Mine would play bach :-P

[faunflynn]

This is cool. Very cool.

[xOnyxTheHedgehogx]

2:42

THE ALIENS ARE COMING!!!

[shevegen]

Very interesting. My personal complaint is th at the sound created is not very harmonic - do you think there is an option to create sound fractals which are more harmonic?

It feels a bit strange to scan in a very beautiful picture and listen to very strange noise :/ it is cool, yes, but it would be even cooler if the sound would be less disruptive.

Btw 1:47 rocked! That was really cool, even without it being harmonic... complex photos seem kinda crazy!

[penlem80]

It would be interesting to hear whether electronic voice phenomena (EVP) could be detected in these complex sounds.

[xinaesthetic]

@penlem80 I'm sure all sorts of supernatural artefacts can be detected in any complex signal, provided the observer is sufficiently motivated to detect them :-p

Lookup 'Rorschach audio'.

[sirmontag]

Beautiful work! How did the software come about?

[Photosounder]

Well originally it was a FOSS command line tool called ARSS that was my pet project for over 3 years, then I needed to make money so I created Photosounder out of this and here we are.

[mousey1234567]

1:37 is the best

[TwinbeeUK]

Glad your comment on slashdot got 4 star, because i could then visit the link and find your curious program. Nice work!

[OneEyeProductions]

Ditto

[sorteasul]

A lot of OVNIs coming!

[hostilel7]

In b4 "What does it do for XXX photos?"

[Photosounder]

Works best on fishnets

[maydaymosley]

I have a program on my phone (G1) called spectralview Analysis. and it reproduced the original image from the sound. FUCKIN AWESOME!!!!

[Photosounder]

Pretty cool! You know what, you should film your phone doing that with your computer showing the video in the background, and post the video as a reply to this video!

[TacticalHobo]

lol at 1:36

[Photosounder]

Hehe, yeah, that's some DNA gel.

[MockEmpire]

something like this could help blind people "see"

[Photosounder]

Indeed! Actually there's something alone those lines called vOICe, but the algorithm they use is unfortunately not as good as mine. Not to mention I thought of some great ways this could be used (better than that vOICe thing), unfortunately I'm no researcher or anything...

[Foret777]

amazing stuff, would like to try this on a few of my photos hehe

[ortatherox]

this is cool

[aargri]

ah, the wonderful world of fourier transforms

[MDirtyInc]

Amazing!