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.
2 diagrams c7141cb821
2 formation(s)
1990–1997
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams c81872020c
2 formation(s)
1992–1994
widest pair 0 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams c899920abc
2 formation(s)
2002
widest pair 2 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams cb423a7ba9
2 formation(s)
1993–2005
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams cc00aeb209
2 formation(s)
1997–2001
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams db232c6030
2 formation(s)
1991–1995
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams db52fd2608
2 formation(s)
2003–2004
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams e3b8e4ebca
2 formation(s)
2001
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams e7981e51fd
2 formation(s)
1992–2001
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams eacd60a2e0
2 formation(s)
1991
widest pair 2 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams eb03efccfb
2 formation(s)
1991
widest pair 2 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams f029719ffd
2 formation(s)
1994–1997
widest pair 0 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams f1081cdc23
2 formation(s)
1971–1997
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams f72e1120be
2 formation(s)
1982–1990
widest pair 4 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
2 diagrams f90a3698a0
2 formation(s)
1995–1996
widest pair 0 bit(s) apart
shape hash
the whole family
in the grid
