Hi(gh)!

Currently I'm trying to convince a friend of POV-Ray's outstanding 
landscape rendering capabilities by sending him examples from my private 
p.b.i image collection. While browsing through these currently about 
18,500 images stored on my harddisk since September 2000 when I first 
hit p.b.i, I started to think whether it would be reasonable to have all 
these images stored in a publicly accessible database on povray.org... 
images would be categorized by artist, publication date, graphic format, 
size, total number of pixels, x-y ratio, number of colours, color 
distribution and, mostly important a wide range of (possibly 
hierarchically organized) keywords describing image contents and used 
POV-Ray features and techniques. The images also would be logically 
connected to their scene scripts, as far as available.

What do you think about such an idea?

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

Now playing: Little Neutrino (Klaatu)

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On 13-4-2013 17:40, Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann wrote:
> Hi(gh)!
>
> Currently I'm trying to convince a friend of POV-Ray's outstanding
> landscape rendering capabilities by sending him examples from my private
> p.b.i image collection. While browsing through these currently about
> 18,500 images stored on my harddisk since September 2000 when I first
> hit p.b.i, I started to think whether it would be reasonable to have all
> these images stored in a publicly accessible database on povray.org...
> images would be categorized by artist, publication date, graphic format,
> size, total number of pixels, x-y ratio, number of colours, color
> distribution and, mostly important a wide range of (possibly
> hierarchically organized) keywords describing image contents and used
> POV-Ray features and techniques. The images also would be logically
> connected to their scene scripts, as far as available.
>
> What do you think about such an idea?

The idea is certainly interesting but it represents a lot of work to 
index and build a relational database like that, if I remember correctly 
my past implications with such a project. However, nowadays many things 
can be automated though.

Thomas

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Hi(gh)!

On 16.04.2013 08:56, Thomas de Groot wrote:

> The idea is certainly interesting but it represents a lot of work to
> index and build a relational database like that, if I remember correctly
> my past implications with such a project. However, nowadays many things
> can be automated though.

Most challenging would be to get permission from the 1300+ POVers who 
contributed to p.b.i since 1999 to copy their images into the 
database... this could be avoided if any POVer uploads his/her own 
images by himself, but then it probably would not be a database related 
exclusively to p.b.i anymore! But... why not?

Another difficult issue would be working out the keyword hierarchies... 
perhaps I should start with an experimental local database into which I 
enter my stored images file by file... the bigger it grows, the more 
elaborate the hierarchies become. At a certain stage of development I 
would present a mostly emptied (just the database structure contained 
the keyword hierarchies, but no other images and scripts than those of 
which I own the copyright, i. e. the images posted by me (some 350 
files)) version of the database for demonstration to the webmaster(s) of 
povray.org.

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

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On 16-4-2013 10:50, Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann wrote:
> Most challenging would be to get permission from the 1300+ POVers who
> contributed to p.b.i since 1999 to copy their images into the
> database... this could be avoided if any POVer uploads his/her own
> images by himself, but then it probably would not be a database related
> exclusively to p.b.i anymore! But... why not?

That would be indeed challenging as a (large?) number of authors is not 
active anymore and may have moved away, changed e-mails, etc. The second 
solution is away from p.b.i. and so less desirable.

For new images, there would be a need for a-priori permissions which 
might result in less postings to p.b.i. That would also be an 
undesirable effect.

>
> Another difficult issue would be working out the keyword hierarchies...
> perhaps I should start with an experimental local database into which I
> enter my stored images file by file... the bigger it grows, the more
> elaborate the hierarchies become. At a certain stage of development I
> would present a mostly emptied (just the database structure contained
> the keyword hierarchies, but no other images and scripts than those of
> which I own the copyright, i. e. the images posted by me (some 350
> files)) version of the database for demonstration to the webmaster(s) of
> povray.org.

It would be a good start as a proof of concept.

Thomas

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Hi(gh)!

On 16.04.2013 13:23, Thomas de Groot wrote:

> That would be indeed challenging as a (large?) number of authors is not
> active anymore and may have moved away,

...or even passed away - the oldest image files in my private collection 
date back to 1998! Who inherits the copyright if no explicit testamental 
provisions had been made? Depends on the country... I don't even know 
how the rules are in Germany...

> changed e-mails, etc. The second
> solution is away from p.b.i. and so less desirable.


> For new images, there would be a need for a-priori permissions which
> might result in less postings to p.b.i. That would also be an
> undesirable effect.

...unless a whole web-based forum solution is included! HUGE task!

> It would be a good start as a proof of concept.

Yes, I think I will come up with a raw concept (tables and relations) 
the next few days and present it here... do you know of any people 
in/around the POV team or the webmasters of povray.org who could be 
interested in an image/script database?

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

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On Sat 13/04/13 16:40, Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann wrote:
> Hi(gh)!
>
> Currently I'm trying to convince a friend of POV-Ray's outstanding
> landscape rendering capabilities by sending him examples from my private
> p.b.i image collection. While browsing through these currently about
> 18,500 images stored on my harddisk since September 2000 when I first
> hit p.b.i, I started to think whether it would be reasonable to have all
> these images stored in a publicly accessible database on povray.org...
> images would be categorized by artist, publication date, graphic format,
> size, total number of pixels, x-y ratio, number of colours, color
> distribution and, mostly important a wide range of (possibly
> hierarchically organized) keywords describing image contents and used
> POV-Ray features and techniques. The images also would be logically
> connected to their scene scripts, as far as available.

You can use Google image search on p.b.i by prefixing your search term with

site:http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/

That allows you to choose date, pixel size, colour, and then even things 
like "find images like this" (which I think mainly looks for the colour 
distribution within the images).

If I use that with my name then it finds (I think) all the images I've 
submitted - plus all the ones I've commented on. Your idea would be 
better than this in some areas (eg rigidly finding images only by a 
certain author or linking to source code) but I wonder whether the huge 
amount of work would be worth it?

Also I don't think any additional permission would be needed from 
authors simply to index the images in a different way. By uploading to 
p.b.i you are accepting that the images will be accessible by the public 
and sites like Google will index them.

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Am 16.04.2013 18:21, schrieb Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann:
> Hi(gh)!
>
> On 16.04.2013 13:23, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>
>> That would be indeed challenging as a (large?) number of authors is not
>> active anymore and may have moved away,
>
> ....or even passed away - the oldest image files in my private
> collection date back to 1998! Who inherits the copyright if no explicit
> testamental provisions had been made? Depends on the country... I don't
> even know how the rules are in Germany...

IANAL, but the concept of copyright in the American sense does not exist 
in Germany. Instead, there is a set of author's rights ("Urheberrecht"), 
and the heirs do get to exercise and benefit from these until so-many 
years after the author's death (the duration depending on the type of 
work AFAIK), after which the work passes on into the public domain.

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:52:38 +0200, clipka wrote:

> Am 16.04.2013 18:21, schrieb Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann:
>> Hi(gh)!
>>
>> On 16.04.2013 13:23, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>>
>>> That would be indeed challenging as a (large?) number of authors is
>>> not active anymore and may have moved away,
>>
>> ....or even passed away - the oldest image files in my private
>> collection date back to 1998! Who inherits the copyright if no explicit
>> testamental provisions had been made? Depends on the country... I don't
>> even know how the rules are in Germany...
> 
> IANAL, but the concept of copyright in the American sense does not exist
> in Germany. Instead, there is a set of author's rights ("Urheberrecht"),
> and the heirs do get to exercise and benefit from these until so-many
> years after the author's death (the duration depending on the type of
> work AFAIK), after which the work passes on into the public domain.

That's pretty much the way it works in the US, too - copyright is for the 
author's life + 70 years IIRC, and the rights are given to the copyright 
holder or the rights assignee (in some cases the publication), and after 
that period lapses, the work passes into the public domain.

I'm not sure what's different between the German definition you gave and 
what I know of the US system (as a copyright holder).

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> That's pretty much the way it works in the US, too - copyright is for the
> author's life + 70 years IIRC, and the rights are given to the copyright
> holder or the rights assignee (in some cases the publication), and after
> that period lapses, the work passes into the public domain.

From the publicity over Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech, it
seems that the heirs inherit the copyright (for that 70 years).

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On Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:04:15 -0400, Cousin Ricky wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> That's pretty much the way it works in the US, too - copyright is for
>> the author's life + 70 years IIRC, and the rights are given to the
>> copyright holder or the rights assignee (in some cases the
>> publication), and after that period lapses, the work passes into the
>> public domain.
> 
> From the publicity over Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech,
> it seems that the heirs inherit the copyright (for that 70 years).

It depends on how the copyright is assigned.  I know from my own 
experience that copyright assignment is sometimes made to the publisher 
until the book is declared out of print, then it reverts to the author.

But Dr. King's speech was in 1963, so even 70 years from then would still 
be 2033 if he'd died at the speech.

So it doesn't even become an issue until 2038.

Jim

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scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> Also I don't think any additional permission would be needed from
> authors simply to index the images in a different way. By uploading to
> p.b.i you are accepting that the images will be accessible by the public
> and sites like Google will index them.

Sounds reasonable, although IANAL.  How ever, it must be noted (and this is as
true of p.b.i as it is of The Google) that an implied permission to index a work
does not imply permission to /use/ it.  I wouldn't think that I should have to
point this out, but many people seem to be under the delusion that posting a
work to the Internet puts it in the public domain.

Posters have often given explicit permission to use images as wallpapers, for
example, but this would seem to fall under Fair Use or Fair Dealing in many
countries, anyway.

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> But Dr. King's speech was in 1963, so even 70 years from then would still
> be 2033 if he'd died at the speech.
>
> So it doesn't even become an issue until 2038.

Actually, 2038 is when it /stops/ being an issue.  (Unless Congress extends the
term again.)

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Am 17.04.2013 20:49, schrieb Jim Henderson:

>> IANAL, but the concept of copyright in the American sense does not exist
>> in Germany. Instead, there is a set of author's rights ("Urheberrecht"),
>> and the heirs do get to exercise and benefit from these until so-many
>> years after the author's death (the duration depending on the type of
>> work AFAIK), after which the work passes on into the public domain.
>
> That's pretty much the way it works in the US, too - copyright is for the
> author's life + 70 years IIRC, and the rights are given to the copyright
> holder or the rights assignee (in some cases the publication), and after
> that period lapses, the work passes into the public domain.
>
> I'm not sure what's different between the German definition you gave and
> what I know of the US system (as a copyright holder).

One major difference is that German author's rights can't be sold or 
otherwise transferred to some other person or legal body.

Post a reply to this message

clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> Am 17.04.2013 20:49, schrieb Jim Henderson:
> > I'm not sure what's different between the German definition you gave and
> > what I know of the US system (as a copyright holder).
>
> One major difference is that German author's rights can't be sold or
> otherwise transferred to some other person or legal body.

Ooh, that would NEVER fly in the USA.

Post a reply to this message

On Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:13:47 -0400, Cousin Ricky wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> But Dr. King's speech was in 1963, so even 70 years from then would
>> still be 2033 if he'd died at the speech.
>>
>> So it doesn't even become an issue until 2038.
> 
> Actually, 2038 is when it /stops/ being an issue.  (Unless Congress
> extends the term again.)

Well, it's when it stops being an issue for that particular speech.

But I wouldn't hold my breath on the term not being extended again.  The 
public domain in the US is essentially dead.

Jim

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On Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:34:57 +0200, clipka wrote:

> Am 17.04.2013 20:49, schrieb Jim Henderson:
> 
>>> IANAL, but the concept of copyright in the American sense does not
>>> exist in Germany. Instead, there is a set of author's rights
>>> ("Urheberrecht"),
>>> and the heirs do get to exercise and benefit from these until so-many
>>> years after the author's death (the duration depending on the type of
>>> work AFAIK), after which the work passes on into the public domain.
>>
>> That's pretty much the way it works in the US, too - copyright is for
>> the author's life + 70 years IIRC, and the rights are given to the
>> copyright holder or the rights assignee (in some cases the
>> publication), and after that period lapses, the work passes into the
>> public domain.
>>
>> I'm not sure what's different between the German definition you gave
>> and what I know of the US system (as a copyright holder).
> 
> One major difference is that German author's rights can't be sold or
> otherwise transferred to some other person or legal body.

That's interesting, I didn't know that.

Jim

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Hi(gh)!

On 17.04.2013 09:40, scott wrote:

> You can use Google image search on p.b.i by prefixing your search term with
>
> site:http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/
>
> That allows you to choose date, pixel size, colour, and then even things
> like "find images like this" (which I think mainly looks for the colour
> distribution within the images).

I tried this for "Yadgar 
site:http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/" - and what I got 
was some 50 images in fact created by myself (should have been about 
350!), but most hits showed graphic files from other sources. So the 
Google search algorithm is badly unprecise - neither it finds all files 
with the requested properties nor only them! A true POV-Ray image 
database would be much more accurate...

> Also I don't think any additional permission would be needed from
> authors simply to index the images in a different way. By uploading to
> p.b.i you are accepting that the images will be accessible by the public
> and sites like Google will index them.

The images would also need to have assigned titles (rather than just 
filenames) too - this could constitute an infringement of copyright.

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

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Hi(gh)!

On 17.04.2013 21:39, Cousin Ricky wrote:

> Sounds reasonable, although IANAL.  How ever, it must be noted (and this is as
> true of p.b.i as it is of The Google) that an implied permission to index a work
> does not imply permission to /use/ it.  I wouldn't think that I should have to
> point this out, but many people seem to be under the delusion that posting a
> work to the Internet puts it in the public domain.
>
> Posters have often given explicit permission to use images as wallpapers, for
> example, but this would seem to fall under Fair Use or Fair Dealing in many
> countries, anyway.

So then I have to delete my private p.b.i download collection 
accumulated since 2000?

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

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> Sounds reasonable, although IANAL.  How ever, it must be noted (and this is as
> true of p.b.i as it is of The Google) that an implied permission to index a work
> does not imply permission to /use/ it.

IANAL either, but common sense would dictate you area allowed to do 
certain things with it otherwise the internet wouldn't work. ie you have 
permission to retrieve the image data from the server, store it in 
various caches along the way (including locally), convert it to a format 
that is convenient for you to visualise (normally to raw bitmap data), 
optionally scale the image, and then send it to an electronic display 
device for a period of time.

> Posters have often given explicit permission to use images as wallpapers, for
> example, but this would seem to fall under Fair Use or Fair Dealing in many
> countries, anyway.

I don't think such explicit permission would be necessary, if it was 
then I'll just write an extension to Firefox to maximise the window, 
hides the toolbars, remains behind all other windows, starts on windows 
login and sets the homepage to the address of my "wallpaper" (which of 
course will be stored locally in my web cache). In fact I may write my 
own slimline web browser to accomplish this more efficiently. Maybe then 
MS will buy it and include it in all versions of Windows :-)

Post a reply to this message

Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann wrote:
>> Also I don't think any additional permission would be needed from
>> authors simply to index the images in a different way. By uploading
>> to p.b.i you are accepting that the images will be accessible by the
>> public and sites like Google will index them.
> 
> The images would also need to have assigned titles (rather than just
> filenames) too - this could constitute an infringement of copyright.

In which country? After all, I have been citing papers in my master 
thesis by indicating the name of the journal, the author and the title. 
This can hardly conflict with any sane law.

As a rule of thumb, you can assume that metadata is not protected by 
copyright. But I am not an american lawyer, just a swiss citizen. Where 
is the server of news.povray.org located again?

Post a reply to this message

Hi(gh)!

On 18.04.2013 08:47, Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann wrote:

> So then I have to delete my private p.b.i download collection
> accumulated since 2000?

Obviously not, at least as long as I run my computer in Germany - our 
copyright law includes the right of private copy, i. e. copies that are 
not used in a professional setting (and, of course, also not re-published).

But originally, I did not start this thread to discuss copyright, but 
rather to ask whether there is interest among the POV-Ray community in a 
precise, accurate database representation of the works accumulated on 
p.b.i during the last 15 years!

Such a database, also containing information about used POV-Ray features 
and techniques and as many scene scripts as available, also would serve 
didactical purposes for all POV-Ray beginners and not-yet-experts!

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

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Hi(gh)!

On 18.04.2013 13:19, Urs Holzer wrote:

> In which country? After all, I have been citing papers in my master
> thesis by indicating the name of the journal, the author and the title.
> This can hardly conflict with any sane law.
>
> As a rule of thumb, you can assume that metadata is not protected by
> copyright. But I am not an american lawyer, just a swiss citizen. Where
> is the server of news.povray.org located again?

The problem I thought of was not of simply citing a title already given, 
but rather to assign a new, more "speaking" title - many contributions 
on p.b.i came with no explicit title at all...

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

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On Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:53:59 +0100, scott wrote:

>> Posters have often given explicit permission to use images as
>> wallpapers, for example, but this would seem to fall under Fair Use or
>> Fair Dealing in many countries, anyway.
> 
> I don't think such explicit permission would be necessary,

Probably not, though IANAL, it seems that such use would be fair use, 
unless it were used to make money.

This is something that I ran into occasionally when teaching new 
instructors how to do presentations.  It's not acceptable, for example, 
to use a Dilbert cartoon in a public presentation without explicit 
permission to do so.  Not because Scott Adams is a jerk, but because that 
would constitute a commercial use (especially in a class that's paid 
attendance) and might even be seen as an endorsement of the class, 
depending on how it's used.

But as a wallpaper, or printed out and hanging on an office cubicle 
wall?  That'd be difficult to make a case for, I think.

Jim

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Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann wrote:
> The problem I thought of was not of simply citing a title already
> given, but rather to assign a new, more "speaking" title - many
> contributions on p.b.i came with no explicit title at all...

That's absolutely no problem at all. Think about book reviews that give 
additional information about the book's content. As long as you don't 
modify the post itself, you may call it anything you want.

Instead of focusing on copyright, it makes also sense to discuss what 
people posting in p.b.i whould actually be happy with. This might lead 
to more restrictions than copyright. But enough with that for now.

Post a reply to this message

Hi

Jörg 'Yadgar' Bleimann wrote:
> Currently I'm trying to convince a friend of POV-Ray's outstanding
> landscape rendering capabilities by sending him examples from my
> private p.b.i image collection. While browsing through these currently
> about 18,500 images stored on my harddisk since September 2000 when I
> first hit p.b.i, I started to think whether it would be reasonable to
> have all these images stored in a publicly accessible database on
> povray.org... images would be categorized by artist, publication date,
> graphic format, size, total number of pixels, x-y ratio, number of
> colours, color distribution and, mostly important a wide range of
> (possibly hierarchically organized) keywords describing image contents
> and used POV-Ray features and techniques. The images also would be
> logically connected to their scene scripts, as far as available.
> 
> What do you think about such an idea?

First of all, doing something like this is a huge amount of work never 
to be underestimated. I find the idea intriguing and I like to share a 
few ideas of my own regarding this.

Let me first extract some keywords from your post:
* publicly accessible database
* lots of metadata for every image/post
  - extractable from the images: 
    size, ratio, color distribution
  - extractable from the post:
    author, title
  - extractable from scene files:
    used features, POV-Ray version
  - not easily extractable:
    topics, keywords for objects shown in the image
* Connecting images to scene files (linking p.b.i posts to p.b.s-f 
  posts)

I would recommend the following strategy: Intertwine the metadata with 
the semantic web. This gives us a plethora of keywords. For example, 
look at DBPedia. It provides identifiers for everything described by an 
article on Wikipedia. Yes, POV-Ray too: 
http://dbpedia.org/resource/POV-Ray
For Flickr there is already such a database: If you follow this link, 
you will see that there is a photo collection at flickr:
http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/flickrwrappr/photos/POV-Ray
I imagine something similar for p.b.i. Every image could be linked with 
appropriate keywords from DBPedia (or other public databases).
Also, they could be linked with descriptions of their authors (name, 
website and so on).

To get back to the points above:
* Integrating the database into the semantic web allows people to make 
arbitrary queries and to combine it with other databases. This is what I 
call "publicly accessible".
* The semantic web has vocabularies for many things: describing images 
(size and so on), indicating the author and title of something, 
capturing metdata of newsgroupsposts, hierarchical keywords for every-
day objects and topics.
* Since the semantic web is all about linking stuff together, linking 
images to newsgroup posts and scene files comes naturally.

Clear drawback: The semantic web is kind of new territory while the 
usual relational database with a web interface is robust and proven.

More about the semantic web: http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/
Especially important is the part about "Linked Data":
http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/data
The integration of flickr metadata into the semantic web is described 
here:
http://wifo5-03.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/flickrwrappr/

Greetings
Urs

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Hi(gh)!

On 19.04.2013 00:04, Urs Holzer wrote:

> First of all, doing something like this is a huge amount of work never
> to be underestimated.

Yes, we speak of currently about 18,500 image files...

> I find the idea intriguing and I like to share a
> few ideas of my own regarding this.
>
> Let me first extract some keywords from your post:
> * publicly accessible database
> * lots of metadata for every image/post
>    - extractable from the images:
>      size, ratio, color distribution

I'm working on a small C program running on the console which will be 
able to do this - at least after having the image file converted to 
uncompressed TGA!

>    - extractable from scene files:
>      used features, POV-Ray version

...or, if no scripts are available, probably from the POVer's posting on 
p.b.i!

>    - not easily extractable:
>      topics, keywords for objects shown in the image
> * Connecting images to scene files (linking p.b.i posts to p.b.s-f
>    posts)
>
> I would recommend the following strategy: Intertwine the metadata with
> the semantic web. This gives us a plethora of keywords. For example,
> look at DBPedia. It provides identifiers for everything described by an
> article on Wikipedia. Yes, POV-Ray too:
> http://dbpedia.org/resource/POV-Ray

I looked it up... appears both vague and complicated to me! And as you 
say it was still in an experimental stage, I think a relational keyword 
table (or better, several tables making up a whole keyword hierarchy) 
would be far more reliable.

> Clear drawback: The semantic web is kind of new territory while the
> usual relational database with a web interface is robust and proven.

I think so!

See you in Khyberspace!

Yadgar

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