This suite of pages, which is under development, is the jumping-off point for an experimental series of images of classical sculpture and architecture. There are currently 945 records in this first group of pages, set out with 35 records per page:
(b) by site, with thumbnail images;, (b) by site, without thumbnail images;, (b) by type of object, with thumbnail images;, (b) by type of object, without thumbnail images;. The datarecords underlying the scheme are the same, with these choices simply dicing the material in different ways.
You might also want to look at the full database, which contains 3,281 records set out with 50 records per page: (b) by site, with thumbnail images;(b) or by site, without thumbnail images; - but be warned that this is very messy indeed, and needs a lot of work. This complete database will continue to grow, and will eventually be reworked into all the above categories.
The setup is experimental because it tests the viability of the laserdisk as a high-capacity (36,000 frames per platter side) storage device, clearly in competition with a computer hard disk. The beauty of the laserdisk (apart from its archival quality) is that it orders the images in a fixed series, and is accessible to the computer in under .5 seconds.
All the images have therefore been recorded onto laserdisk from slide or negative (with details where needed), and records written. Scripts are then used to write the images in clutches of 100 GIF and 100 JPEG to the hard disk, according to a logical numbering system. Directory 0123, for example, holds 200 images, GIF and JPEG, from 12300 to 12399. With simple filemanes such nas "1234.GIF" or "2345.JPG", the files and their directories are ready to be written direct to a CDROM, which is the point of the exercise - namely to keep the hard disk uncluttered, and to avoid the pain of backing up large numbers of images onto tape.
Because this is an exercise in bulk-imaging, the images have been left just as they came off the laserdisk. Thus, when the image has been put on its side to get a full-frame, this is how it appears in the Web display.
Please let me have any comments about the usability or otherwise of this setup. Once again, I confess to an inferior datafile which needs a lot of work, and to some poor-quality images. All this will change when somebody gives me a Research Assistant!
What will happen when the number of records in the database gets too large conteniently to manage them on hard disk or on CDROM, and hence to serve them across the network? Software is already in place which will serve the large JPEG images directly from the laserdisk, via a framegrabber, with the small and therefore less space-hungrey GIF images residing on the computer hard disk.
From here you may go to