Just for interest, there is a tool that you can use to display images at
variable scales without users downloading either tiles or the high-res
image (though it wouldn't be invulnerable to screen-grabs). We display
some maps using ESRI ArcIMS (which is now called something else*), which
compiles maps on the fly from tiles, line and point data. A new image is
then sent out for each request. You could use a high res image split
into tiles within ArcIMS and the user would only receive the reassembled
image at the scale requested and cropped to fit the available area.
Whether anyone does this I don't know, but I've long wanted to try - not
to make it harder to access the source image file(s) but because you
could probably build quite a nice interactive picture like this. Having
said that, the alternatives are probably better, and if you don't
already run ArcGIS they'll certainly be cheaper!
Cheers, Jeremy
*and I'm not quite sure if the current version works in the same way
Jeremy Ottevanger
Web Developer, Museum Systems Team
Museum of London
46 Eagle Wharf Road
London. N1 7ED
Tel: 020 7410 2207
Fax: 020 7600 1058
Email: [log in to unmask]
www.museumoflondon.org.uk
Spectacular new ?20 million Galleries of Modern London opening at Museum of London in spring 2010.
Find out more at www.museumoflondon.org.uk
Before printing, please think about the environment
-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Frankie Roberto
Sent: 23 September 2009 09:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [MCG] BBC Desperate Romantics paintings
James is right - the wikipedia case used an automated tool (you'd have
to be
pretty patient to assemble the images from screengrabs). However, any
systems that displays high-res images by splitting them into tiles is
going
to be vulnerable to this kind of exploitation - stitching tiles back
together again automatically is fairly trivial, so long as you can
figure
out the naming scheme.
As an example, here's a particularly fetching bit of shoulder from
*Christ
in the House of His Parents*:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/desperateromantics/paintings/assets/zif/e50f7643ffe
a2bb8f12bb8b8708c6211-christ452895102/1/tile.4-5.jpg
It should be remembered, though, that the main reason for splitting
high-res
images into tiles is for usability/performance reasons (it'd take ages
to
download the whole image in high multiple zoom factors, and would
probably
run really slowly in most browsers, eating up system memory). The
security-by-obscurity is just a side effect (you wouldn't do this with
text!).
The main reason I gave -1 for using Flash over javascript though is
that,
whilst nearly all desktop browsers have some version of the Flash plugin
(and the latest version of Firefox helpfully encourages people to
upgrade),
some devices like the iPhone, small netbooks, and the One Laptop Per
Child
'xo' (of which over 1 million have been distributed to children in poor
areas) aren't Flash capable.
As for javascript-based solutions, there are a few around, and I think
there
was a discussion on this list about them only a few months back. The
one
I'm most familiar with is OpenLayers (http://openlayers.org/), which is
designed for map tiles, but works equally well with photo tiles (and is
free
and open source). It's also pretty stable and well documented, and has a
full javascript API - however there's a bit of a learning curve.
Anyway, well done to the BBC (and their museum collaborators) for making
such a nice, high-production-values site. I'm not normally a fan of old
oil
paintings, but the website (and the TV show) got me interested. It seems
that fiction (and dramatised history) loves to use museums and galleries
as
a setting (I'm thinking also of the Da Vinci Code, which is also used as
an
example of linked data at http://www.freebase.com/). I wonder if there
are
ways that museums and galleries could exploit this interest more (the
Louvre
does a nice line in Da Vinci Code tours: http://bit.ly/Y5s3e)?
Frankie
2009/9/23 James Morley <[log in to unmask]>
> From what I understand in the NPG case it was all accomplished using
an
> established, readily available, and totally automated tool to
reconstruct
> high-res images from Zoomify tiles, all using data that is visible in
the
> source code, and files in a named directory structure (and one I don't
think
> you can change).
>
> But if you did a more bespoke tool and/or hid your urls more cleverly
then
> that would have to be a major deterrent. Even though technically
someone
> would be able to grab them (either underlying files or screen grab),
the
> thought of manually doing this should be daunting enough to most
potential
> 'thieves', surely?
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> James Morley [log in to unmask]
> Website Manager Tel. +44 (0)20 8332 5759
> Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew www.kew.org
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ________________________________________
> From: Museums Computer Group [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dan
> Zambonini [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 23 September 2009 08:55
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: BBC Desperate Romantics paintings
>
> > As a side issue, you rate it 10 for not using Silverlight and -1 for
> > using Flash over JS.
> > But have you (or anyone) found a good JS solution for doing similar
> > things (progressive zoom)?
>
> The (bespoke) JS zoom tool we built for the National Gallery does
> progressive zoom, and is also fairly accessible (has keyboard
shortcuts,
> degrades gracefully):
>
>
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/vincent-van-gogh-sunflowers
>
> > My guess is that any tool of this kind will need access to a folder
> > where the images are - which are in this case open to exploitation,
> > unless they were stored as binaries objects in a DB.
>
> There is NO way of stopping the exploitation; if you have to display
the
> individual tiles to the end user, then they can screen-grab them and
> re-assemble them into the larger file (like in the Wikipedia case, as
far
> as
> I understand it), no matter how they are stored/transmitted/displayed.
> Putting any attempts at preventative measures into these tools, which
might
> aversely affect performance or usability for the vast majority of
'legal'
> users, seems (to me) to be a bad idea.
>
> Just my 2p.
>
> Dan
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Dan Zambonini
> Box UK
> Internet Development and Consultancy
>
> t: +44 (0)29 2022 8822
> f: +44 (0)29 2022 8820
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--
Frankie Roberto
Experience Designer, Rattle
0114 2706977
http://www.rattlecentral.com
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