I created a system that collects images of the most popular search terms throughout the United States and then combines them into daily collage. It's an attempt to track what we're most interested in as a society at any particular moment, and to display that information in a series of compact, aesthetically pleasing images.

Some of the collages might look like they have "mistakes" or awkward placement of photos. That's because they're being put together completely by the computer without any human guidance. I built the best algorithm I could, utilizing face detection, region of interest (ROI) extraction, etc., but without supervision, the machine is bound to mess up occasionally. Still, more often than not, these images come across as very well organized, and some "problems" actually make for a more interesting composition. If you're interested in how I built this collage making program, here's a more detailed description of the process.

Statistical information is taken from Google Hot Trends. Image analysis, manipulation, and montage is done in Matlab.