the 36th annual meeting of editors of united nation periodicals image processing and the publishing...

The 36th Annual Meeting of Editors of United Nation Periodicals

Image Processing and the publishing process at CERN

Mick Draper, CERN ETT Division

2The 36th Annual Meeting of Editors of United Nations Periodicals

Contents

• Introduction

• The Past

• The Present

• The Future


I would like to introduce myself

• I studied particle physics and then moved, via the random walk of CERN since 1980, through – programming;

– network management;

– management information systems;

– scientific information systems

– publishing, especially electronic publishing.

• I started a web-based document server in 1993.


Introduction

Now, for my sins, I am responsible, for:

The CERN Printshop; The CERN Photographic service; The CERN Audio-video service; The CERN Document (or Information) Server; The CERN Desktop Publishing service

From all this, you can probably guess that I have more than a passing interest in CERN’s publications.


Introduction

• I could talk (all day) about the processes involved in the production of the wide variety of CERN publications.

• My patricular interest is how we can use new technologies like XML to make publication easier and make the re-use of published information more transparent.– This could be for another time.

• Today I will spend some time talking about how Image Processing contributes to the publishing process at CERN.


The Past

• CERN has been taking photographs since it was founded in 1954. The CERN photographers were keen to record the building of CERN - they continue this today !

• The technology has changed since then but not as dramatically as in other areas such as computers;

• The end product was a negative which could be later printed if so desired– (9cm by 12cm ) in black & white.

– 24x36 mm also black & white

Some examples:


1954


Recognise this from 1959?


No its not Trafalgar Square - its CERN in 1961


The Past

• These photographs are very interesting but ...

• The end result was cubic meters of negatives being stored. – Photographers, like librarians, have to be very careful to classify their

work, if they are ever to find it again.

• Today, we have an archive of more than 800,000 physical images.

• The problem with this rich archive is access - you only get to see if you go there !!

• The other problem is ……….


Where is that photo ?


Ah - There it is !


I know its in here somewhere !


The Present: Setting the Scene

• About 3 years ago, the CERN photographers joined my group.

• The group was focussed on information management and we had developed a database system for managing our Scientific Information.

• The use of the World-Wide Web to exchange images had become commonplace.

• The photographers had been using a FileMaker database,for their internal "housekeeping".

• We put two & two together and started a project to develop a photographic database.


The Present: The CERN Photo Database

• The underlying database engine is a commercial product called ALEPH, from Ex-Libris, one of the major suppliers of Library Automation systems.

• We had developed a customized web interface and some other tools, in particular, a submission module which allowed our principal users to upload documents to the server without us being involved.

• We realised that with little extra work, we could use the database for storing image information– Not the images themselves.

– We store references to images which are stored in the file system of Unix server.



• With all the basic parts in place, we started to digitize the images

• We bought a sophisticated film scanner which was adaptable for all of our old negatives and slides.

• We also bought a couple of smaller 35mm slide scanners.

• The Macintosh computers of the Photo Service were "beefed up" so that they could handle the large image files which would be produced.

• We also carried out quite a bit of in-house training for our photographers (2) in the use of image manipulating software and of the web.



• To get us started we uploaded, in one batch, all the information from FileMaker into the photo database.

• It is all very well to have lots of photographs, but you need good descriptive information (metadata) if you are going to be able to find them.

• The Photo Service was tasked with checking the data and completing it where (frequently) it was incomplete. – e.g. a description such as "A detector" is not very helpful, while "A

view of the DELPHI end-cap" together with the keyword "detector' means a lot more to a physicist.

– This is like painting the Forth Road Bridge (if you come from Scotland). It is an ongoing and, essentially, never-ending story.


The Present: Decisions

• When setting up the photo database, we had some important decisions to take:

What resolution (how many dpi) would we store;What format of images (compressed or not);What size of images would we offer;

• The answers to these questions depended on who were our clients. We identified the following:– CERN scientists and engineers who had asked for the photos in the

first place;

– Other laboratories;

– The press and other media;

– Physicists and other public speakers - not from CERN - looking for images for presentations;



• We tried to speak to as many of our potential clients as we could.

• In the end we decided on:– We decided to store images in JPEG format at 144 dpi for an A4-size

page. This is perfect for printing on transparencies for presentations. show picture

– So that the images can easily be viewed via WWW, we also offer "half-size" images which open easily in web browsers.

– The results of queries in the database are shown as small "thumbnail" GIF images.

• If someone wants a "high-resolution" version of an image, they can contact us via e-mail, from a clickable link on the web page. We can scan our 35 mm negatives at > 3000 dpi.



• Since we started, we have learned quite a lot (I think) about the difference between offering an image database and a database of papers on High Energy Physics.

• We had to make a better, i.e. easier to use, interface for searching:– The interface is much better than in the beginning

– We had to offer customised options for images which don't apply to other databases:

• portfolio format

• The use of the database for storing image data has given us a lot of added value:– cross-referencing between images and the publications in which they

appear.


The Present: the Results

We believe that we have been rather successful

• The database now contains some 2700 records– These can point to more than one image

• Typicial statistics are:– Total number of searches on photo database in September 2000

• 8,612 or about 280 /day

– Total number of photos (thumbnails + images) downloaded during September 2000

• 205,412

• of which 12,057 were full jpeg images


The Present: Moving Forward

• Recently we have started to investigate the use of digital photography.

• 2 years ago we purchased a professional digital camera, compatible with the existing 35mm cameras.

• At the time this was state of the art, now it is almost a museum piece. Nevertheless, this camera has enabled our photographers to be more productive in some specific areas.


The Present: Moving Forward

• In particular, for our in-house weekly newspaper, the CERN Bulletin, we now use only digital photographs.

• As a weekly publication the deadlines are very tight. – Using digital images, we save a lot of time and lose little in quality

– we print only in black & white.

– Show transparency of Bulletin 41.

– In fact the whole publication is now produced digitally

• We can now quickly produce our web-version – show web version http://bulletin.cern.ch/0041/Art3/Text_E.html

• For images which will not be printed in 'glossy' publications we are moving more and more to digital.– This will lead to a big reduction in costs

• Many photographs are never meant for publication


The Future: An Experiment

• We have just been able to test the latest Nikon Professional camera, the D1, in real life.– Earlier this week CERN staged the LEPFest.

– This was a major event for CERN where high ranking politicians from our member states attended a ceremony on the CERN site.

• On the request of the Press Office, we took digital images and put them on the web in "almost real time”– to give the instant access for their publications.

• We used 3 people, not including the photographer, to:– take the raw images from the camera, via small memory cards;

– filter them - throw away the poor shots;

– touch-up selected images and then submit them to the database.



• The photo taking started about 12:00

• First images probably got into the database by 12:50– we had the usual ‘first-day’ nerves and it took longer to get up to

speed than expected

• By the end of the event at 18:00, we had accumulated 138 acceptable images in the database.

• The amazing fact was the interest in the photos:– Times of first accesses:

• 12h58: inside CERN

• 12h59: inside CERN

• 13h01: first external access



• Searches:• 09/10/2000 : 3,459 (2,852 from CERN) - day of the event

• 10/10/2000 : 4,434 (3,676 from CERN)

• 11/10/2000 : 1,106 (944 from CERN)

• Number of thumbnails and photos downloaded:• 09/10/2000: 26,637

• 10/10/2000: 38,810

• 11/10/2000: 9,721

• what they were looking at...


Minister Gago (Portugal)


Speeches - Ogi (CH)


Unveiling


The Best Part - Ballet Bejart


The Future: An experiment

• This was an extremely interesting learning experience for us

• but, as a safety measure we also used film as a backup– about 20 rolls !


The Future is Digital - probably !

• You only have to look at any consumer electronics shop to see that digital photography is here to stay.

• At the top, or professional end, it is also here to stay– There are some instances where film is still better

– But these are very specialised

• I think that by 2002 digital photography will have taken over and traditional colour film will be like black & white today:– The traditionalists still swear by it

– You can still take B&W photographs

• but printing them is now more expensive than colour


The Future: Archiving

• One blot on the digital landscape is the problem of archiving digital information. – At present we keep the negatives and put a digitized version into the

database.

– We can go back to the original if we need to and make a new digital version.

• In the future, there will be no original as such.

• We will not easily be able to go back to a 144dpi image and make it into 300 dpi. – This can easily be seen when you take images off the web and try to

use them in publications.

– You can't do much with a small 72 dpi GIF image when you are trying to produce an A0 poster using QuarkXpress.


The Future: Archiving

• At the moment, I have no answer to this problem - which is the same as storing any kind of information electronically. – Do we know if we will be able to read the 'raw data' files in 10 years -

No !

– Can we afford to store images at the highest resolution - probably

– What format do we adopt - TIFF is best but expensive in storage.

• We also have to change the expectations of our customers– We need to sell them cost benefits against glossyness”

• The CERN photo service charges

• Digital photos will be free - if not printed and cheaper if printed in non-photo quality

– This will be OK for most of our customers

• but there are always the diehards !

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