RE: HYB:AIS:Checklist

Bobby,

John is right more than he is wrong.  There are many varieties of iris that
are very close to one another in color and pattern. If images are supplied,
and they are not seen as they are meant to be seen, then that can lead to a
lot of misidentification of varieties, a problem already.  Why make it
worse.

OK, so you get a high quality image of an iris from film (John did not
mention variations in film) and when it is scanned in it makes a 30MB .TIF
file. Of course, if you convert it to a .JPG file, and compress it to 300KB,
you have already lost a lot of the image information.  On a CD, that means
you have increased your number of images from about 21 to about 2167.
However, now you are beginning to have problems. The blue in the .TIF may
not exactly match the blue in the .JPG, mainly because of the loosy
compression. Add to that the difference in video cards and monitors and the
way they process colors, and one iris could look to have the same exact blue
as a different one does in real life. Any manipulation you do with the
original file will result in changes to the colors in the file, whether or
not it is perceptible will depend on the person looking at it and the amount
of change (see below).

While it is true that one can do calibrations to make the colors look the
same from video card/monitor to video card/monitor, the process is not easy
and rather technical, so you know that people will not be doing that.

Colors are funny, too. People do not perceive color in the same way.  In a
fer instance, The back of my house is one shade and the front is another
shade of the same color. Now, most people think I am nuts, by my sweet other
half also saw the difference on her own. (Neither of us works much with
colors any more, but between us, we have over 30 years of experience with
color, she in printing, and me in coatings.) We have to live with it,
because we could not get the painters to see it, nor could we get the
contractor in charge to see it.

I don't know how much you have seen of the discussions here of the database
that is being worked on now, but it is a very labor intensive task, with a
lot of checking and rechecking to make sure the information is correct.  The
AIS is making the steps into the 21st century, but they are doing it
cautiously, and attempting to make sure it is done right.

From your address tag, I see that you live in an area where there is a lot
of technology available, and people are using it. Same here. However, when I
go back home, I get a dose of reality. Most of my friends do not own a
computer. Those that do, don't use them often. We get a lot of questions
about our cell phones, and people don't believe that we cannot live without
them. In this area, everyone I know has at least one computer. However,
their ability to use them varies all over the map, from novice level to
expert level. It is unknown how the membership of the AIS fits into this
schema, but it would probably be safe to say that the membership follows the
general population with regard to computer savvy. This must also be taken
into account.

\\Steve//
Northern VA, Zone 6/7

-----Original Message-----
From: Bobby Baxter - Wake Forest, NC [i*@daylily.net]
Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 7:38 PM
To: Iris Talk
Subject: Re: [iris-talk] HYB:AIS:Checklist


The following comments are from John Jones explaining why including images
on any possible Electronic Checklist CD-rom is a bad idea:

John Jones writes:

============
"Well that would definitely make the files bigger. My personal opinion...
Until video technology provides a good way to calibrate the various monitors
so that a picture looks the same way on evryone, pictures are not a good
idea, thought it has been in my mind since the beginning of the project.
(soap box time)

There are multiple problems with pictures:

Taking the picture (with either a conventional camera and scanning it, or
with a digital camera):

--Exposures can be way off (shadows, time of day type of light) Different
films impart different hues etc
--Digitizing has its own color accuracy issues, and each scanner is
different.
--Level of compression injects some inaccuracy
--Every monitor is different (unless you have *very* expensive ones) I have
two identical 21 inch color monitors that I use for work (and play). Because
I have two different interfaces, pictures look very different on each of
them. True that could be mitigated, but I would still have to calibrate them
to a standard.

The problem is that too many folks want to look at a picture on a screen and
compare it (by memory most often) to a bloom they saw in their
garden (minutes, hours, weeks ago) and say "Oh that must be Frazzeled Glory"
(or something).

Not a good idea (unless of course you have a limited list of names it might
be and they are all significantly differentiated)

(end of soap box)"
=============

I thought we defeated communism in this Country but I see it is alive and
well within AIS when John Jones writes, "Until video technology provides a
good way to calibrate the various monitors so that a picture looks the same
way on evryone, pictures are not a good idea,..."  Why does everyone have to
have the exact same quality of image on their computer monitor?  If this is
your standard, then it will be impossible to achieve and you should turn the
project over to someone who will put a CD in the hands of the AIS membership
this century.

Of course, first you need an Electronic Checklist CD-rom, then you can
provide pictures.  Since you are now discussing pictures on a CD-rom, do you
have a realistic date for delivery of the initial product?

This post is supposed to be about your picture comments...sorry for my
drifting.

I do not understand your arguments about the images.  Size of the images is
really unimportant unless they are are to be used on the web and if so then
compressed high quality, sharp images are very possible using a simple
graphics program like Macromedia Fireworks to prepare them.  A self
contained program for viewing the database could be loaded onto the user's
harddrive and then the image library could be accessed from one of more CD's
that contain only the images.  This really isn't a problem and can be done
with quite a few programs such as Visual Basic, Access, FoxPro or even with
some of the really high end programming languages.  I bet if you were to
explore contracting the services for AIS then you would be surprised by some
of the low bids you would receive and how soon it could be accomplished.
There are people right on Iris Talk and many more within AIS that are more
than capable and willing to do a worthwhile project if it is planned
appropriately.  The notion of recovering the cost for printed books before
even releasing the CD product should not even be a consideration.

The longer AIS waits to enter the digital and electronic arena, the longer a
disservice is being done to the AIS membership because these are all
commonalities in today's world.

Respectfully,

Bobby Baxter
Wake Forest, NC


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





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