Customize Thumbnail.php layout

[dereksurfs]

I would like to create a more complex/varied pattern for the thumbnail image display in my custom theme.   Instead of every thumbnail looking exactly the same in the standard grid layout I would like to do something like this photographer/web designer did:
http://www.widerange.org/gallery.php?gallery=LargeFormat

This is a php template based layout.  If you examine the layout you will see a pattern emerge based around *two* thumbnail sizes.  This pattern consists of tables with varied rows, number of columns and sizes which repeats itself every ~15 images.  The three primary challenges in doing this are:
1.  Using two thumbnail sizes.
2.  Creating a more complex table based pattern (vs. standard grid layout) which repeats itself every ~15 images.
3.  Use this within the Coppermine framework/paradigm for laying out and displaying thumbnails.

As far as the first challenge, I could create the larger thumbnails myself if need be and place them in a different directory/sub directory. 

And for the second challenge, I have already examined the discovered the more complex table based pattern used. 

The third one is the larger challenge for me after examining CPG's current thumbnail template and function structure - The template_thumbnail_view is very simple.  It is just a template for a single cell in a table containing 1 thumbnail which will then repeat n times. 

My question is would it be possible in CPG to create a custom thumbnail template made up of *more* than one image like the one shown above and use that layout instead?  I think this would involve some database lookups which I am OK with.     I am just not sure how to lay things out within CPG.

Thanks for any tips you can provide,

Derek

[Gizmo]

Not sure about doing this directly within Coppermine for each album but if you want to make a splash page for your gallery take a look at cpmFetch. You could create the splash page and maybe even have it generate a random image layout.

[dereksurfs]

Thanks Gizmo,

I will take a look at cpmFetch to see if it can handle a varied cell pattern for layouts. 

I had a feeling this kind of layout of may go beyond standard CPG functionality.  I thought this may require a custom php page of some sort with a little looser structure.

- Derek