Style Space: How to compare image sets and follow their evolution
Excerpt:
A style space is a projection of quantified visual properties of images into a 2D plane. A "style space" representation is a tool for exploring image sets. (It is particularly effective for large sets.) It allows us compare all images in a set (or sets) according to their visual values. For instance, the two visualizations above compare van Gogh's Paris and Arles paintings according to their average brightness and average saturation.
Separating a "style" into distinct visual dimensions and organizing images according to their values on these dimensions allows us to see more clearly how differences between the images in a set. Visual differences are translated into spatial distances. Images which are visually similar will be close; images which are different will be further away.