Zap stands for 'Zapped Artificial Picture', a collage made from Internet images. A Zap translates a set of words or a text into an image which reflects the visual representation of the words on the Internet.
This web application, Zap Machine, needs a number of words as input. It then takes the most relevant image that search engine Yahoo comes up with. After having collected all images the Zap Machine creates a given number of different collages from those images.
## installation
First you need to run a server with PHP. Please do not use a Windows machine for this purpose, while Windows suck. ApFab recommends Linux or Mac;)
ApFab Zap Machine needs some PHP extensions:
- JSON (default installed)
- CUrl (default installed)
- Imagick (Image Magick image processing Class)
You need to acquire the following API key and put it into `conf/conf.php`:
1.**Brave Search API Key** - https://api.search.brave.com/
See `conf/conf.php` for the exact constant names to use.
Adjust permission (chmod 777) for Sessions folder, run index.html, fill in the form and voila.
# how it works
- index.html contains user interface
- user input put into Session variables in init.php
- display.inc.php dynamically displays two img tags that are loaded in turn with image data from zap.php using display.js
- zap.php downloads images one by one using imgSearch Class
- zap.php processes collages one by one using imgProcess Class
- All downloaded images, collage images and logfiles(feature is far from ready yet) are put in a folder named 'Session/zap'.date()
- the machine is ready when an error is loaded into img document class. (a weak point in our construction)
# yet to come
- Logfile also generated in imgProcess Class (0.9.2)
- Number and camera filename (virgin images) input (0.9.3)
- Proper stop meganism (0.9.1)
- better error handling: dead links give dynamicly generated image thats allso used in collage (0.9.3)
- visualisation of logfile, so viewers can see what is happening (0.9.1)
- replacing all 'random' image processing parameters (0.7)
