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From: eachus@aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)
Subject: Re: Multimedia database required
In-Reply-To: 852028e@aucs.AcadiaU.ca's message of 19 Mar 91 19:48:15 GMT
Message-ID: <EACHUS.91Mar19184937@aries.mitre.org>
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Date: 19 Mar 91 18:49:37


     There are two reasons for suggesting Amigas for this job. First,
there are several tools for the Amiga that support databases of
images.  microFicheFiler even allows you to scan through the images if
you want.  Second, not only are several (color and b&w) scanners
available and supported, and of course, video image capture is second
to none, but a lot of good image enhancement packages are available.

     ASDG is the company to talk to about scanners and "The Art
Department," a program which will convert just about any image format
to any other format.  If I was doing this sort of work, I would have
one "fully loaded" Amiga with a NewTek Video Toaster for image capture
and enhancement.  Stock Amiga 3000s would probably suffice for
accessing and using the database.

     One last note.  Disk is (relatively) cheap these days, but a
collection of thousands of images is going to be BIG.  Again, if I was
doing this, I would have a central database machine, probably running
Unix, where the primary considerations are amount of disk you can
attach, and ease of backup.  Then the "user" machines would use
Ethernet to remote mount the database and have "only" a 100 or 200 Meg
local disk.  The database machine could be whatever you have currently
such as a Sun or a MIPS or, if you want to stay a one-vendor
environment, an Amiga 3000U.  In any case 400 Meg disks are probably
the smallest you should consider.

     The most portable way to distribute the database would be as tar
files of GIF images on tape cartridges. If you are ambitious, it would
be possible to cut a CD-ROM or three when you are done.
--

					Robert I. Eachus

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