Message-Id: <mailto:199408242045.PAA10992@library.wustl.edu> Date: Wed, 24 Aug 1994 11:29:11 -0700 From: Robert MacKimmie <mailto:rm@CALIFHISTSOC.ORG> Subject: Re: Image database/ WWW---(plan and deploy carefully...respecting To: Multiple recipients of list IMAGELIB <mailto:IMAGELIB@ARIZVM1.BITNET>
Of the recent thread on Image Databases...from Kevin Bass: >>> a WWW server (Mosaic) ... several thousand images...
from Geoff Inglis: >This is a *great* question and great thread. Please anyone reply
We *!!!really!!!* need to be careful about making images available over the net---the main caution being if the images are anything more than compressed screen resolution (72 dpi LZW or JPEG for instance), we might become the immediate villians who bring the Internet grinding to a halt---the culprit being too many 300 dpi images clogging the entire system for hours and days. 72 dpi and 300 dpi look identical at screen resolution, it's only when you magnify the view that the 72 dpi pixelates and the 300 dpi version continues to look fine for several magnifications.
Our CHS project systematically scans photographs at high resolution, but we back those up off-line after having created a low resolution screen version for reference.
For folks nibbling at Mosaic sites, unknowingly double-clicking on a high resolution file (and having no response) usually results in more double-clicking, thus more file requests---and gridlock.
If we can understand this one caveat of our upcoming digitized visual cornucopia, the remainder of the issues are like politics and religion and can be debated with great gusto!!!! Let the thread begin...
Robert MacKimmie Curatorial Director of Photography California Historical Society, San Francisco mailto:rm@califhistsoc.org