Google Image Swirl

Google Image Swirl (Google Labs) is a new way of searching for images on Google.

Being part of Google Labs means it is still in the development stage, but works.

Image swirl is a visual way to search for images and it shows their relationships to other images in groups.

Enter your search term and click enter and you get a screen like the one below (I searched "Physics").

As you can see, each image has a stack behind it. Click on an image and it brings up a circle of images. Click on another image in there, and it brings up another circle with that image and more that are related.

I like it because it is more visual than the basic image search and you can find related images much easier. It is great for helping students find images that are connected and exploring those connections.

Free Graphics Resources

Programs like Microsoft Word and OpenOffice have some drawing capabilities. I like both of them and have been able to do very simple shapes and layouts with them. But sometimes I want to create something more detailed and involved, or my students are looking for a way to create their own pictures and graphics.

I love free stuff, and I have found Inkscape to be a very capable graphics program, and it's free. In fact, it has a lot more capabilities and functions then I will ever be able to use. But, it is relatively easy to use for basic things and has article, tutorials, and documentation to help you.

Inkscape links to another great free graphics resource, the Open Clip Art Library. This site has thousands of images and clip art that are free to use. Most people don't realize that you can't just use any image you find on the internet without crediting it or paying for it. This site makes it easy to find free images. As a side note, Goolge Image Search also has an option for only displaying images that are available for public use.

Check these out and have some fun creating your own images and graphics.

Google Image search - Similar Images

Google has a new way to search for images. You can search for similar images instead of using words. The site is very easy to use and the results are very good.

You can do your own search or search for images similar to example images that Google provides.

On the start page, I clicked on a picture of the shuttle launching and got a huge number of results, including many that were exactly the same picture, but on different sites. There were also a lot of variations of a shuttle launch.

I did a search for "helicopter" and it came up with a large number of images. I then clicked on the similar images link under a picture of a helicopter that I liked and got a great return of images.

Google Similar Images is very easy to use and is a great new way to search the web for images.