Yes, everyone.

Even the experts.

In fact, especially the experts!

So, just for fun, we wanted to post some of the “bloopers” that happened during the development of the Glyphusion ambigram generator.  The strange output from the ambigram generator was captured along the way, and is being shared now for the first time, one year after the system officially went “live”.

Some of these are odd, some are fascinating, and some are downright beautiful, even if they didn’t come out exactly “as planned”.

Decorative parts growing their own appendages

There is a strange property of some Microsoft libraries that cause really odd behavior when you approach certain mathematical limits.  Everything will be fine right up to the limits, but right at the edge of those limits, the designs just explode with new “off shoots”. It’s like some sort of fractal sneeze.

This one bug came up over… and over… and over.  It happened in slightly different ways and slightly different places, but we recognized it every time.

The Tarantula ambigram!

Now, it’s just getting frightening!

Check out that "fur"!

The spidery renderings are only the beginning.  The ambigrams themselves didn’t always cooperate, either.

"Jenny - Brian" ambigram... where Brian seems to have a bad case of the shakes

Zoom out! Zoom out! (This is a picture of a T-shirt)

Could this next one be a sighting of the legendary Flying Spaghetti Monster?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster attacks an innocent ambigram

This next one is supposed to say “Mark / Laurie”.  Yeah, we can’t read it either.

Clear at first, this quickly degrades into nonsense

We had to intervene when the ambigram generator’s drinking habits became a problem.

At least it's symmetrical

Finally, there are the bloopers that are beautiful in their renderings, like this delicate flower of a flourish.

This one looks like clear acrylic (unintentional)

This next one was a test that was used to take all sorts of measurements.  You’ve just got to click this one to see the blown-up version in order to get the full effect.  Each color and shape is a clue to the aspect ratio, positioning and sizing for the design.

Measurements and Engineering

The final one is probably the best “clue” ever posted about how the Glyphusion ambigram generator works internally.  If you click the image to see the blown-up version, you’ll see the “blue print” lines that are used in character aspect ratio definition and inter-character spacing.  Study this one for a minute or two, and you’ll get a new respect for the magic that happens in those couple of seconds when you create an ambigram with the generator.

Ambigram Blue Prints (Click for Larger View)

There are lots more, but we’ll keep the rest secret for now.  If you liked these, let us know and perhaps someday we’ll post the others.