GEP Layerblender

IBreeder

To learn C# programming I've been writing a piece of software which "breeds" images. The images are created from expression trees.  Tree nodes include things like usual math operators such as plus, minus, multiply etc. But there are also nodes which are noise functions, fractal calculations and the like.

The program creates random trees and evaluates them to produce an image. The user selects which images look interesting, and these are "bred" together to produce new expression trees which have properties of each parent. Hopefully (sometimes), over many generations, more pleasing images evolve through what the user finds interesting in each "parent".

The goal is to have an artificial neural network learn which images a user finds pleasing, and to select the parent images itself. Hopefully creating an "artificial artist" which will do all the image selection by itself and eventually create some cool abstract images.

More to say about this later...

Snapping the moon fantastic

Yeah I know it's not real good. But I was trying to get photos of the stars when the moon popped up above the neighbors house and I chucked the 300mm kit lens on and had a go.

I got one!

So I've had a Sony A200 dslr for a year now and have hardly used it. It's my first slr and I bought it coz it had fairly good reviews, and the price wasn't too steep for a beginner who'd end up using it as a paperweight (like I did, lol). Lately I've been getting the urge to use it a bit more though.

The other morning we had an excellent thunderstorm here. So half asleep I got out of bed and tried to get some lightning shots. Finally a use for the tripod I also bought last year and haven't used :)

Anyway, I was a bit too slow setting it all up, but managed to get a shot. Not very good composition, and I forgot to focus at infinity properly. But at least I know how to take these types of shots now :)

Introduction

Well, I've been procrastinating way too much about starting a blog. Just thinking of a name was bad enough. I guess this is a start, hey?