4 ms·

Ernst Haeckel’s Jellyfish

41 points by mr_tyzic 8y ago

cardamomo 8y ago
There is a wonderful documentary about Ernst Haeckel's study of Radiolaria, which I highly recommend. The film is called Proteus: A 19th Century Vision (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391407/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391407/).
spython 8y ago
I found that Ernst Haeckel illustrations lend themselves perfectly to being used in artistic style transfer. Mainly because of high amount of details at all scales. Here are some contemporary scientific infographics with Ernst Haeckel style applied: https://rybakov.com/blog/visualizing_complexity/ https://rybakov.com/blog/visualizing_complexity/
- Y_Y 8y ago
  Those are astonishingly good. It's only a pity that there isn't yet a style-transfer type method to create real accurate diagrams.
  - spython 8y ago
    I guess with a bit of masking and applying different styles to different image regions - as well as carefully selecting style images - some accurate yet visually rich diagrams could be created.
MattBlissett 8y ago
You can read all of "Kunstformen der Natur" (Artforms of Nature) at the Biodiversity Heritage Library, along with lots of other beautifully illustrated natural science literature. Even though it's old, this is still useful scientific information, and digitizing it is very helpful to people without access to a 100-year-old zoological library. As you can see from selecting "Show OCR", there's still some work to be done to get the algorithms working on 19th century German blackletter fonts. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/182319#page/89/mode/1up https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/182319#page/89/mode...
mattkevan 8y ago
Haeckel's Art Forms of Nature are an astonishing achievement. High resolution public domain images can be downloaded from the Library of Congress here: https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=contributor:giltsch,+adolf https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=contributor:giltsch,+adolf Unfortunately he was also a terrible racist. The Nazi party not only used his quotes – 'Politics is applied biology' – but also his justifications for the hierarchy of races, nationalism and social Darwinism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel#Polygenism_and_racial_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel#Polygenism_and_r...

41 points by mr_tyzic 8y ago

There is a wonderful documentary about Ernst Haeckel's study of Radiolaria, which I highly recommend. The film is called Proteus: A 19th Century Vision (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391407/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391407/).

spython 8y ago

I found that Ernst Haeckel illustrations lend themselves perfectly to being used in artistic style transfer. Mainly because of high amount of details at all scales. Here are some contemporary scientific infographics with Ernst Haeckel style applied: https://rybakov.com/blog/visualizing_complexity/ https://rybakov.com/blog/visualizing_complexity/

Y_Y 8y ago
Those are astonishingly good. It's only a pity that there isn't yet a style-transfer type method to create real accurate diagrams.
- spython 8y ago
  I guess with a bit of masking and applying different styles to different image regions - as well as carefully selecting style images - some accurate yet visually rich diagrams could be created.

MattBlissett 8y ago

You can read all of "Kunstformen der Natur" (Artforms of Nature) at the Biodiversity Heritage Library, along with lots of other beautifully illustrated natural science literature. Even though it's old, this is still useful scientific information, and digitizing it is very helpful to people without access to a 100-year-old zoological library. As you can see from selecting "Show OCR", there's still some work to be done to get the algorithms working on 19th century German blackletter fonts. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/182319#page/89/mode/1up https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/182319#page/89/mode...

mattkevan 8y ago

Haeckel's Art Forms of Nature are an astonishing achievement. High resolution public domain images can be downloaded from the Library of Congress here: https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=contributor:giltsch,+adolf https://www.loc.gov/search/?fa=contributor:giltsch,+adolf Unfortunately he was also a terrible racist. The Nazi party not only used his quotes – 'Politics is applied biology' – but also his justifications for the hierarchy of races, nationalism and social Darwinism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel#Polygenism_and_racial_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel#Polygenism_and_r...