Re: VMs: RE: Copyrighting VMS (was RE: Map scans now posted...)

["Chris 'Xenon' Hanson" <xenon@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

GC wrote:
> No one would be holding anyone else's money, and what you buy, you own.  No
> one is holding it for you or requesting donations.  For those of you who
> can't scan slides or color transparencies, I've been to a few copy and photo
> places that can do this for you rather on the cheap.  There's a bunch of us
> with a lot of webspace, and when you want to post it, just ask and you'll
> have everything you need.

  Amen.

  I know of a few web hosts that can supply 25Gb or so of space for a reasonable
rate.

> Meanwhile, some of the more computer savvy can come up with an idea of what
> consistutes a workable hi-res scan, taking into account disk space and
> "zoomability".  Something the quality of the sections posted earlier by
> (-forgot who, Rene?  Jorge?  Jacques?), where you can zoom way in on the
> text and picture detail.

  I would advocate scanning at 300-400dpi, and compressing the image in a format
like ECW ( http://www.ermapper.com ). ECW is a high-quality compression format
that gets very good compression ratios, allows rapid zooming and panning in their
viewer, and has a Photoshop plugin (among others) for reading and writing.

  The free read/write plugins can read any size image, but can only save an image
of less than 500Mb uncompressed size.  I believe that for 8 bit per pixel RGB
images, this is about 13,000 pixels by 13,000 pixels. At 400 dpi, we could store
up to 33" square documents without hitting the limit. I have compressed detailed
images at 10:1 ratio in ECW with not detectable degradation.

  The Library of Congress uses ECW's competitor, MrSID, to store many of their
large and detailed historical documents. MrSID is nice, but there is no free
saver available. :(

  My DPI calculations are relative to the original document size. Obviously when
scanning a photoreduced slide, you will scan a smaller area but at a much higher
DPI, ending up with the same number of pixels in the end.

> There's no doubt there will be certain people moving faster on this idea
> than others, which is the way things work in Flatland (my alma mater).  But
> it really starts with a list of available images and someone who can
> sweet-talk enough to get this list in short order.  After that, each person
> is responsible for how they handle copyright and intellectual property.
> [alternatively, you could all appoint me holder of all VMS intellectual
> property, sort of a bank, where I could divvy it up and out, and treat it
> all as if it was my own? :-)  Naw, didn't think that'd catch on!!!!
> Seriously, since we're acting as a group, there is no way to tell whose idea
> sparked another idea, even when the ideas appear to be contentious.  This is
> why anything I release is public domain material, my font, my transcription,
> my graphics, my ideas.  There are some things I do hold back, but only until
> they've "grown up" enough to venture out into the world on their own.

  I suspect there may be a few qualified individuals who could do the scanning
and compression for other who just wanted to be 'sponsors' and buy the slides.
I've never done slide scanning myself but apparently my scanner can do it.

> GC

Chris - Xenon
--
     Chris Hanson | Xenon@xxxxxxxxxxxx | Life is too short to fold socks!
   New World Construction Set 6 Demo Version!: http://www.3DNature.com/demo/
 "There is no Truth. There is only Perception. To Perceive is to Exist." - Xen

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