NANY 2012 Idea Suggestion: Picture Grid Arranger

[mouser]

This is an idea i've been meaning to code for a long time but as it's not really my area of expertise I thought i would put it out there in case anyone else was interested.

The idea is for a program that would let you drop in a bunch of photos and would let you move around their thumbnails to arrange them in some kind of grid, and then save the full sized montage.

An important aspect would be snapping behavior.  If you have ever used the windows multiple-monitors settings dialog, that is what i had in mind:


This would let users easily arrange photos in a horizontal strip, vertical strip, grid, etc.

I can see some additional nice flourish options such as a function to autofit a grid, options for some kind of automatic bordering feature, resizing options, and ability to drag and adjust relative sizes of images.

This is a program that is 90% user interface.

[Ath]

Is the idea to present all pictures unaltered, or do you have some sort of collage-/merge-effect(s) in mind?

[mouser]

i wasn't particularly interested in any effects -- the main goal is to make one new image that combines them all, by letting user easily and quickly arrange the thumbnails.

[kyrathaba]

Nice idea.  I could definitely find a use for such a program

[vlastimil]

My entry in the last NANY ( the Card Creator - http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=24837.0 ) can do part of what you have described. While all the built-in templates have some kind of fancy borders, it is possible to create simple templates to just arrange images in rows, columns or tables. The number and sizes of the individual images are controlled by the template - this may be a problem if you need flexibility. But it may also be an advantage if you want to publish on web and have consistent results.

[kyrathaba]

vlastimil, it sounds like it wouldn't take a whole lot of work to modify your Card Creator to fit this idea.  Sounds like a Pledge with your name on it 

[doctorfrog]

I know this isn't what you have in mind, but:

Picasa does this very well, handling things like pictures of different sizes and resolutions, randomly shuffling the images, or setting some pictures at a larger size than others, like centerpieces. If you just want a bunch of pictures in a row like a film strip, FastStone Image Viewer has an "Image Strip Builder." Both are free.