Repository of a generative art dataset by computer artist Andy Lomas.

This repository contains a collection of 1,774 images created by computational artist Andy Lomas. The images were created using a customised cell growth model developed by the Artist [1]. Forms were evolved using Lomas' Species Explorer software [2]. In addition to the images, a csv file contains information on the parameters used to generate each form, along with an artist-assigned aesthetic ranking (0-10) and categorisation.

This dataset is provided for research purposes under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.

For more information on the dataset, please see the following papers:

Jon McCormack and Andy Lomas, "Deep Learning of Individual Aesthetics", Neural Computing and Applications, (to appear), 2021.

Jon McCormack and Andy Lomas, Understanding Aesthetic Evaluation using Deep Learning, In: Romero J., et al.(eds) Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design. EvoMUSART 2020. LNCS vol 12103. Springer, Cham (2020), Paper on arxiv

Thank you

Jon McCormack and Andy Lomas

The database is supplied as a single csv file (Lomas Dataset.csv), the first line is the column labels, the remaining lines are the data. Here is an explanation of the labeled columns:

There are 8 artist-assigned categories, representing the general visual class discovered through exploration of the generative system. Each image has a single assigned category.

Here is a visual map of each category in phenotype space. The image is dimensionally reduced from 2048 features to the 2D point in the plot using the t-SNE algorithm:

The images are in the Image directory, the names correspond to those in the dataset csv file.

imageThumbs.tgz contains thumbnail (128x128) versions of all the images.

The original images are too big to be stored on Github so can be downloaded from this link.

[1] Lomas, A.: Cellular forms: An artistic exploration of morphogenesis. In: AISB 2014 - 50th Annual Convention of the AISB (2014)

[2] Lomas, A.: Species explorer: An interface for artistic exploration of multi-dimensional parameter spaces. In: J. Bowen, N. Lambert, G. Diprose (eds.) Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA2016), Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC). BCS Learning and Development Ltd., London (2016)