Thanks for the compliment. To answer your query: Yes, it follows the first link until it finds a page that has no links. Following multiple threads made the image too dense, which I wasn’t a fan of.

I have to say this is some of the most beautifull and intriguing work I’ve ever seen. Does the program only follow the first link on a webpage, or does it run multiple threads, following every link?

But to answer your first query: how it works. The app that I wrote visits a website and downloads the source text. It parses the text, looking for links to other web pages, links to itself, links to other file types, email addresses, etc. Based on how many links it finds, it creates a “star”. The number of links found equals the number of spines on the “star”. Thus, if it finds no links, it draws a circle.

It then goes to the first link on the page and does the same thing. Then it iterates over thousands of pages. E-mail addresses are drawn as a plus-sign, errors are an ‘x’, non-html files are squares, and a line follows the path the program took.

Another caveat: The first instance of a web page is a unique star. Anytime the app finds that same page linked to by another page, it draws a line back to the originating star instead of another star.

Hope this helps. There’s a much longer explanation I’m sure…