Image Programming for the Internet

[Jeff Stevens]

Does anyone know a good book for image storage and retrieval programming
with SQL Server? I need to query the image and display it on a web page. I
would prefer to display it with an MIME type, but if I have to I will just
link to an image file.

I am also in need of a C or C++ product that can convert images. I would
prefer a source code product unless there is a good app for bulk
conversions.

Thanks,

--
Jeff Stevens
CMSystems
Vice President & Technical Director
18957 E Crestridge Cr
Aurora, CO 80015
jeff_w_...@bigfoot.com
Voice 303-221-1527
FAX 406-883-6972

[BJ Freeman]

for speed on the web I sugget linking images to a file on the server.
Are trying to convert images on the fly or as a batch job?

Jeff Stevens wrote in message <75oafs$g2s$1...@newman.pcisys.net>...

[Jeff Stevens]

These are bank check images stored on an imaging server. 6 days of checks
are on the hard drive and months on optical platters. The API I am using
will retrieve an image from the platters but of course the performance is
less than normal. The hard disk on the server can be increased to store
more data but the response time will probably still be an issue. It appears
at this time the images are in TIFF format so I will have to perform some
conversion to GIF or JPG.

Every night the system perfoms a batch update for the banking data. This
time would be ideal to retrieve (and convert if necessary) any new checks
that have been scanned. Either I stored encoded BLOBs or the image file
names and locations in SQL Server. Hard disk space on the NT machine with
SQL Server will also be an issue.

It all depends on the performance of the imaging API and if it can convert
the images to a native net format.. I will not know that until I can play
around with it more. On the fly retrieval and conversion will probably
require CGI.

With the financial and personal nature of the data, it also has to be
secure.

Thanks and any other ideas will be appreciated,
Jeff

BJ Freeman wrote in message ...

[Neil Pike]

Jeff,

If you use a product like Disk Extender from www.otgsoftware.com this will
make the optical look just like a disk share. (It uses SQL Server as an
index). This allows you to use any api/tool you like that works with normal NT
files. I use this on several systems exactly like the one you describe and it
works very well.

Neil Pike MVP/MCSE. Protech Computing Ltd
(Please post ALL replies to the newsgroup only unless indicated otherwise)
For SQL FAQ entries see www.ntfaq.com/sql.html
and http://www.swynk.com/faq/sql/sqlserverfaq.asp
and GO MSSQL Lib 1 on Compuserve

[BJ Freeman]

For security you can use procs that have execute permission for trusted or
only a webuser. On the IIS 4.0 web you can make it NT Challange only.

for image conversion source, I used software from
http://www.jpeg.org/public/jpeglinks.htm
or you can go to http://catenary.com/ and get there lib.
Jeff Stevens wrote in message <75oigt$k9l$1...@newman.pcisys.net>...

[Jeff Stevens]

Thanks for the info. I will check into this product. The only problem I
see is that the images are embedded in a Betrieve database.

thanks,

--
Jeff Stevens
CMSystems
Vice President & Technical Director
18957 E Crestridge Cr
Aurora, CO 80015
jeff_w_...@bigfoot.com
Voice 303-221-1527
FAX 406-883-6972

Neil Pike <10057...@compuserve.com> wrote in message ...

[Neil Pike]

You'd have to extract them and replace the btrieve database then.

> Thanks for the info. I will check into this product. The only problem I
> see is that the images are embedded in a Betrieve database.

Neil Pike MVP/MCSE. Protech Computing Ltd

[Jeff Stevens]

Neil,

Does this product do any conversion?

--
Jeff Stevens
CMSystems
Vice President & Technical Director
18957 E Crestridge Cr
Aurora, CO 80015
jeff_w_...@bigfoot.com
Voice 303-221-1527
FAX 406-883-6972
Neil Pike <10057...@compuserve.com> wrote in message ...

[Neil Pike]

Jeff - Nope

> Does this product do any conversion?

Neil Pike MVP/MCSE. Protech Computing Ltd

[Paul Vierhout]

Concerning the subject of converting images :
recently a colleague of mine reminded me of Micro$oft PowerPoint as a tool
for converting images, and to my surprise it satisfied my needs for that
moment very well. I would advise you to try it for that specific purpose.
But I'm not sure at all wether PowerPoint could be scripted. It is part of
Micro$oft Office, so my best guess would be that it could.
Greetings,
Paul J.J. Vierhout

Neil Pike <10057...@compuserve.com> wrote in message ...

[Steve Brown]

Jeff Stevens wrote in message <75oigt$k9l$1...@newman.pcisys.net>...

>These are bank check images stored on an imaging server. 6 days of checks
>are on the hard drive and months on optical platters. The API I am using
>will retrieve an image from the platters but of course the performance is
>less than normal. The hard disk on the server can be increased to store
>more data but the response time will probably still be an issue. It
appears
>at this time the images are in TIFF format so I will have to perform some
>conversion to GIF or JPG.

Hi Jeff,

I've been working in document imaging for some time now, and I'd recommend
that you look hard at the requirement for converting TIFF files into JPEG or
GIF.
The TIFF file specification produces extremely low file storage requirements
while the others, especially JPEG can consume 100, 200 even 300% more
space. Obviously, this is important not just for storage costs, but
bandwidth
as well.

If you're having a problem coming to terms with displaying these images via
a web page, there's a few things to do:

First, checkout the Microsoft/Wang viewer that comes with most Win95/98/NT
systems. It seems this can be integrated into a web page as an ActiveX
control.

Second, if you're interested in an interlaced image display where each
second
the "picture" gets clearer and clearer, checkout:
http://www.cartesianinc.com/

They have a control that does the same thing with TIFs that are commonly
seen with GIFs.

Another place to go is Kofax Imaging at:
http://www.kofax.com
IMO, they have the best document processing combination of hardware and
software around. I'm associated with this company, so if you need a little
help, just let me know :)

HTH.

Steve Brown
sjb...@AxDev.com
www.AxDev.com