Techpiper.com

Google Image search is a wonderful utility which allows people to find out the best images suited for our Powerpoint presentations. Google image swirl is a feature which is interactive and fun.Usually in google image search a list of images is shown which can be further expanded to related images search. In Google image swirl the same thing happens but it is wonderful to see how it shows up.12 image thumbnails appear and on clicking on one of the images it becomes the center image surrounded by related images.

I searched for Eiffel tower and got the following images as results

Once you find the group of images you’re interested in, you can click on the thumbnail and a cluster of images will “swirl” into view. For example, here’s what you’ll see if you click the image of the Eiffel Tower:

You can then further explore additional sub-groups within any cluster. The interface may look familiar to those of you who have tried Google’s Wonder Wheel available in the Search Options panel, which enables you to explore related search queries.

Image Swirl expands on technologies developed for Similar Images and Picasa Face Recognition to discern how images should be grouped together and build hierarchies out of these groups. Each thumbnail on the initial results page represents an algorithmically-determined representative group of images with similar appearance and meaning. These aren’t just the most relevant images — they are the most relevant groups of images.

Image Swirl currently works for more than 200,000 queries and Google plans to include more queries in the future. Available queries will auto-complete as you start to type in the search box, similar to Google Suggest.