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ShareWare OnLine 2
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ShareWare OnLine Volume 2 (CMS Software)(1993).iso
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gndemo.zip
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WHAT.HLP
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1993-02-28
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Over the years, a growing community has become
increasingly familiar with quality firearms,
primarily here in the United States. Toward
this end, a plethora of published media has
appeared on paper form extolling the virtues, and
particulars of, said instruments. After spending
the past twenty years of my life anxiously
awaiting the latest pontification of "America's
leading authority" (usually a book), and buying
it, I now have a bulky, kludgy reference set that
usually takes considerable time to look up any
answer. Every decade or so I buy a new copy to
replace one "loaned out" or simply worn out. The
older books are growing very long in the tooth.
But my dilemna did not stop there. In
conjunction with my brother, many firearms
have passed through our hands, and usually with no
more tangible proof than a tattered Polaroid.
Details such as color, condition, action, unique
qualities, and what it looked like are by and
large forgotten. With larger dealers and
collectors, I suspect this issue is more severe.
I am probably naive in the belief that anyone
still cares about the firearms, and not just
the money. My intent is to provide a common
platform for the exchange and distribution of
information.
Books are a historical necessity, and text is
immortal. Most gun texts do cover a mountain of
data, and this research must provide a basis on
which to move forward upon. However, the pictures
usually lacking because they are black & white, or
very small. Further, printing large, color
pictures is expensive for both the publisher and
the consumer.
GUN is basically a picture application with no
real upper limits. The application currently has
only 30 full screen VGA, 256 color pictures in
varying resolutions. Picture qualities will only
increase in resolution and shrink in storage size.
The guts of this idea is in Still Video computer
images. This format has many advantages over
traditional photography, mainly that images can
be manipulated (larger, smaller, etc.), have an
indefinite life, and can be transmitted
electronically over telephone lines. The formats
used currently are GIF (Graphics Interchange
Format) for pictures and Patent scans.
The GIF images are generated from a Still Video
camera, digitized in a high resolution format,
usually 640 x 480 (rows and columns) and 256
colors. These files are between 150 and 250K each.
At this rate a 1000 picture application could take
over 200 Megabites of hard disk space. My solution
is to compress these files into 320 X 200, 256
color which keeps about 85% of the resolution in a
30K file. I have allowed that any portion of the
pictures can be used or deleted at any time to
allow for ever changing hard disk storage
priorities of the user. Currently, due to the small
number of pictures included, all pictures are
located, ( and looked for by the viewer ) in a
single GUN\PICS subdirectory. In other Arren-San
applications, each manufacturer has a discrete
picture directory.
The images are currently approximately 200,000
pixels, or data points. Still video equiptment is
available to double this resolution and capture
the data twice for extra resolution,
interpolation, and all around black magic.
However, this is necessary to ensure the data
captured today will be valid for generations to
come, even if the firearms are never to be
accessed again.
A problem somewhat unique to long guns is a
problem with the aspect ratio. Because the length
is many times the width of a rifle or shotgun, the
image of the entire object does not provide much
detail. Pistols are much easier subjects, and this
is why mainly pistol images have been included.
Picture libraries will be made available upon
request and as demand warrants.
At 199,000 pixels, a 640 X 480, 256 color
picture is roughly 200K. To adequately cover the
world of firearms, my estimation is that
about 10000 pictures will be required. This will
equate to about 2000 megabites, and compression
may reduce this to 1600 meg. Distribution will by
necessity be on CD ROM, which can handle about 660
megabites each. Don't groan - CD ROM readers are
about $300 and will be cheaper than any other
component of your computer system. The good news
is that CD's cost about $10 each to produce in
quintity, so $40 for CD's is far superior to $800
for the equivalent floppies. But, you will still
need many hundreds of megabites of hard disk space
to store / use that type of product of the future.
If we choose to generate a 640 x 480, 16.7
million color (24 bit format) file, the size would
be more like 907K with no compression. This would
be required for highly critical manipulations,
analysis, and color publishing. Yes, electronic
images can be used in publishing, so paste up is
history. But how can we get 24 bit images with
16.7 million (real) colors ?
A technology exists, while still evolving at the
speed of light, that writes the 24 bit images as
strings of fractal geometry. Yes, they write
pictures into sets of geometric functions. This
yields orders of magnatude more data into an
average 12K file. If true, the entire product of
the future can be published on 50 floppies and
only require the user to have 60 megabytes of hard
disk space to store 5000 pictures of guns. But
that ain't all: the image can then be written to
any size or resolution level desired, or
manipulated as desired. The fractals will also
"fill" in at any level as long as there is data.
For example, zoom in on that worn finish spot, and
if the data is available, the program will show
the layers of finish, or the level of pitting, etc.
Can you say electron microscope from a camera,
manipulated from any computer, from a 12K data
file ? If it really works ...