Remember Wonder Wheel ? No but Of course you remember Google Search right!. Google Search has an option called as Wonder Wheel which shows up when you click on More Options. Idea of Wonder Wheel is to relate results with results which ultimately forms a tree like hierarchy.
Google might bring the same concept for Images too but in much better way. Image Swirl is a new Labs project of Google which out runs Google Image search now itself. Instead of displaying boring thumbnails, Swirl displays stacks of related images which when clicked starts the wonder wheel.
Like you can see in the image above, start by selecting any of the stack which will open up a wheel containing related images. Click again and you will see more. This will eventually lead to one single image.
Comparing it with current Google Search its better. Not only you can find more images in less page views but relating to each other makes more sense to users. It gives them understanding of how the images are related and how they can search better.
Image Swirl is using both java script and flash. So make sure you don’t have them disabled. Also if you want to open up any image directly, juts hover your mouse over it and use the blue link that pops up there. Check out Image Swirl @ Google Labs ( Service Discontinued, Find more details on Official Google Blog
This concept of Image swirls I have seen years ago, and research was done with it at the technical university of Twente, Holland. I have been intrigued with it ever since.
As it is Javascript and Flash, will source code or instructions how to design such gallery yourself, be available?
Thanks