Gallery edit

Here's a display of most extant versions of Image:Pi-unrolled.gif. Warning: This page will not just load slowly; it may slow down your whole machine while it's open in your browser.

I never uploaded V.1; it just plain stunk. My first upload to this filename was V.2; that was, properly, an optimized version of V.3 -- doesn't seem to display properly.


  Image:Pi-unrolled-old3.gif V.3: I didn't like this one much myself. The gray background is too drab, the unrolled paint too thin and dark. V.1 had the expanding rectangle shaded, sort of like a neon effect; I went to a solid color for the sake of the palette.
  Image:Pi-unrolled-old4.gif V.4: A few comments were made on V.3. I thought I'd addressed all concerns raised with the notable exception of the request for a distinguished spoke. I did flip over the wheel so that it begins with one spoke touching the baseline. The rectangle does not have an area equal to π square units; its sides are in the ratio of π. What always annoyed me most about this version is "jumping billy", the need to show the measure circle jump up and to the left to become the wheel.
  Image:Pi-unrolled.gif V.5: I didn't want to do this one at all; I'd moved on. But V.4 picked up a (highly optimistic, IMO) FP nom; I felt an obligation. The workshop was a big help here; I strongly advise anybody creating a complex graphic to solicit comments. The biggest change here is dropping the final rectangle; now π appears in the same frame that the wheel completes its revolution and when the wheel is out of frame, the show's over. A more subtle change is the drop of the baseline; this reduces "jumping billy" to a simple shift left which I didn't bother to animate or justify.
  Image:Pi-unrolled-720.gif V.6: I swore V.5 would be the last and indeed it looked like winning FP but demands for anti-aliasing were strident and widespread. I think it's a waste of bandwidth and looks blurry but the community rules. I expect this will eventually replace Image:Pi-unrolled.gif. Note that this is not merely anti-aliased in production; it is 200% oversize and displayed as a 360px thumb, which has the effect of additional anti-aliasing.
  Image:Diameter and Pi 1.gif ja:132: This actually seems to predate all other versions, at least on Japanese Wikipedia. If I'd seen it before I got started, I probably wouldn't have. But it's way too minimal for me. Original is 409px wide.