Shape families
90families
290diagrams in them
37largest family
4joined within, bits
A family is a set of diagrams whose shape hashes lie within 4 bits of one
another, joined by single linkage: if A is within 4 bits of B and B of C, all three are one family,
so each family prints the widest distance inside it as well as its size. Families are built on the shape
hash — the hash of the ink alone — and therefore over cropcirclecenter.com's diagrams, which are the only ones
measured that way. Why the other two sites have no families.
These are similarities between drawings, not between crop formations. Three sites drew them, to three conventions: cropcirclecenter.com redraws every formation in one editor's house style at one size, and the other two publish scans and photographs of many hands. Two diagrams that hash together may be one design published twice, one editor's habit, or the same drawing reused — the archive cannot tell you which, and a family here is never evidence that two formations are related.
The biggest families are the simplest designs. Two circles, three circles in a triangle, a ring inside a ring: a plain design has few ways of being drawn and every editor draws it much the same, so it gathers a large family. Size here measures how ordinary a shape is, not how surprising the repeat is — a family of two rare designs is the more interesting find, and it sits at the bottom of the list.
The shape numbers are experimental. M3-6b graded the element count right to within one on 97.5 % of a hand-labelled sample and the rotational order right on 88.8 % against a gate of 90 %, which the extractor did not meet; the ring count agrees with a reader on 35.9 % and is not calibrated at all. Read any number here beside the picture, not instead of it.
3 diagrams d701c7fc60
3 formation(s)
1983–1988
widest pair 6 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
3 diagrams ed2a7b5bc2
3 formation(s)
1980–1981
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 01ab9be22a
2 formation(s)
1996–1999
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 02f8431fa4
2 formation(s)
1992–1994
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 03e0bf6e66
2 formation(s)
1991–1994
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 0de6a449f0
2 formation(s)
1991
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 14ed2de9ac
2 formation(s)
1989–1998
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 1cb7d16736
2 formation(s)
1994–2001
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 211ac32462
2 formation(s)
1999–2006
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 245a42b132
2 formation(s)
2003
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 2af74d44d1
2 formation(s)
1996–2006
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 2edb8c6e67
2 formation(s)
1996
widest pair 2 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 31d02c21ab
2 formation(s)
1993–1995
widest pair 2 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 34ec4de607
2 formation(s)
1973–1974
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 35d1aadfc5
2 formation(s)
1993–2002
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 3b920cec07
2 formation(s)
1970–1973
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 3c6b199b33
2 formation(s)
2005–2009
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 44fb9ab397
2 formation(s)
2000
widest pair 0 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 466118c015
2 formation(s)
1971–2018
widest pair 2 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 46d99d7204
2 formation(s)
1990–1995
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 4928b60fe1
2 formation(s)
1998–2002
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 4d4389b1dc
2 formation(s)
1991–2014
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 5e93553caa
2 formation(s)
2004–2006
widest pair 2 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 6d414e5e2a
2 formation(s)
2004–2008
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams 6e2029caee
2 formation(s)
2006
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
