How it works
The RSS feed brings in the latest live news, for a variety of subjects:
'News', 'Politics' and 'Showbiz'
The RSS feeds are currently:
  • UK news (BBC): http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/england/rss.xml
  • UK politics (BBC): http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/uk_politics/rss.xml
  • Showbiz (Sky): http://showbiz.sky.com/showbiz/rss/article/0,,50001-1-100,00.xml
The user comment is a Yahoo search. The results of the searches are transformed by the PHP script intocoordinates, and then used to plot lines and curves. The search result text is placed near the end of each line. Everything is subjected to randomness.
The process:
  • The user selects a story from the RSS, one they find interesting, or wish to respond to
  • They make a Yahoo search - brings back results
  • The PHP script assembles the text descriptions for each result, sticks all the sentences together, and then goes through measuring the number of letters in each word - add some random factors, and this gives us the coords. So each set of 4 words is X1, Y1, X2, Y2
  • The 'themes' apply different colour schemes, line widths and positions to the lines and arcs
  • The 'tightness' means how closely squashed up are the lines and arcs. This is defined by an algorithm applied to the values of the coordinates
  • The Yahoo search result words are then taken and sprinkled on top at random sizes, and placed in random positions
  • The selected RSS story is split into separate words, and the script looks for a match in the illustration database. If it finds one, it places the corresponding (ready-made) illustration into the cartoon
  • The result is a mix of illustrations, lines, curves, arcs, and text. The RSS title is placed at the top left, and the Yahoo search (user comment) is placed bottom right
  • The PHP GD library creates the illustration as a PNG file, to the dimensions 1000 x 750 px
  • An A4 print option is included, which is necessary for printing at 300dpi