Show HN: Soot, a tool for visualizing and searching sets of images

[LukeSolomon]

https://play.soot.com/d75f4237-bdf4-44ad-bddd-878172f4e0e1

Hey everyone,

I’m excited to share a project I’ve been working on: a tool for visualizing and searching massive sets of images. To demonstrate its capabilities, I decided to upload the 5000 best Magic: The Gathering cards into it.

Here’s what you can do with it:

Advanced Search: Find images based on any criteria you desire Image tagging and metadata: Cluster your images based on attributes Interactive Filters: Narrow down your search with various filters and categories Generative Content: Based on your content, generate similar images with Dall-E 3

Check it out and let me know what you think! Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[latexr]

> SOOT lets you visualize and organize your files in a beautiful and intuitive way.

Can’t really say I agree. It is interesting for sure, maybe even intriguing, but I don’t see myself using this at all. It’s a nice gimmick and demo but doesn’t seem that practical.

Still, thumbs up on the choice of data set. That and the uncommon navigation style still made me share the link with a couple of people. One of them did call it beautiful (unprompted), so there’s that.

[LukeSolomon → latexr]

Well the goal is to replace the traditional file structure of just having tons and tons of nested folders, and eventually support more file types.

Imagine putting every photo you have into this, then being able to quickly sort them into categories, and even by visual similarities. Then you can do the same thing with text files, video files, audio files, games - you name it.

[latexr → LukeSolomon]

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking the goal was. It is with that in mind that I say I don‘t think it’s practical. I would never want to navigate files in this manner. It’s too disjointed and fluid, and consumes more CPU than I’d like. It’s hard to pin down something.

Then again, it’s perfectly valid that I’m not the target user. There are plenty of people who don’t understand traditional file systems. I wouldn’t use it, but if you like it then there’s bound to be more people who will.

It’s certainly original and you’ve got my upvote anyway. I wish you the best of luck!