World Texture Repository

[DeathTwister]

Hay guys,


I was on another of my posts with Seerblue and he gave me an idea I thought I would share and see what might transpire. I started telling my Programmer Associate what Seerblue had said about some of the textures I have been making here in Klamath, Ca, and after he said he lived in the black Hills, so I asked if he had textures we could use, his response was-

Thanks DT, and sure thing on the sandstone textures, I am in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and the Badlands are just down the road, so sand stone abounds. Everything from white to red to orange. It will be the weekend before I get out again with my Canon, full time Dad job keeps me busy during the week. SeerBlue

Well it got My associate and I thinking and we have an idea. With all the terrains and GIS date we can use here in L3DT both for real planet projects and fantasy, why not create a user data base of textures from around the world.

If we all took shots of our area we could upload our textures and post data that would go with it like:
City-Location-state, country
Latitude and longitude
elevation if possible
Photographer and personal info credits.

That way we could build a world wide data base for people amongst us terraforming nuts. My programmer Associate has graciously said he would be more then happy to run and build the MYSQL data base so that it is dynamic and searchable for people, and we can do this on our site and link it to Aaron's or however we people decide to get it to work.

However if we use good at least 4 pixel camera sizes and high quality, it will take a bit more server space then we can handle at this time until we can get our own, hopefully in the very near future. However if someone has a few gigs they could donate that we can link to that would be far-farging-out. I personally like my raw photo files I work with as big and best quality as I can get and will assume that others are of like mind. I cut them up and make em tileable on my own, part of the fun and that way each one of us can use the same file but get different textures that makes each unique.

What do you all think, a good idea? Humm, maybe I should have made this one a POLL Aaron?

DT:twisted:

[Joshua]

Maybe some strict specifications would be useful, so that our world texture repo would be consistent across the board. Maybe we could put together a tutorial for gathering the shots.

[SeerBlue]

Sounds good to me, but I can't help with the "few gigs of space", I am down to 8 out of 160 gigs with all my experimenting for ME-DEM, though every few weeks I clear out all the mistakes . I have a Canon Rebel EOS 6 mega pixel. It will export raw (though I have not yet done it, usually just jpgs). So lets get something rolling! SeerBlue

[JavaJones]

Sounds like a very cool idea. Here are some wrenches to throw in the works.

First, an existing gallery system like Coppermine or Gallery 2 would probably work just fine. It's massively categorizable. You can have it display EXIF info, it has "keywords" (which could be used in a pinch to hold info about the texture type), and I believe you can even specify "extra fields", so if we wanted to have "location", "texture type", etc. as different searcheable fields, that could be done fairly easily. The only thing I see as missing would be a dynamic sorting system, where you could have textures show up in multiple categories (say if something is granite it would go in "rocks" but it also has lichen on it so it would go in "ground cover" or something). However that can be fairly well taken care of by searches, keywords, etc.

The trick is getting people to properly tag their stuff, but this will be a problem no matter what system we use. One thing that might help is extending Coppermine (or finding a plugin if one already exists) to allow users to specify pre-set locations and other such info so they can quickly fill out a new picture upload if it's in a standard location.

If a custom system seems truly necessary then that's great too, but somehow I think the work input would be more worthwhile in modifying an existing system if anything. Coppermine and similar systems include automatic thumbnailing, existing categorization, and many other useful functions that would have to be re-coded.

Next, yes I can probably offer hosting space. Maybea round 5GB, it depends. I could start with a few GB and move up from there if necessary. We'd have to see how it went. Bandwidth is likely to be the bigger issue if the place becomes popular, but that shouldn't be a problem at least initially.

Another thing to consider is the standard limitations of PHP on file uploads. 2MB is a standard file size limitation and you need to specially configure your server to allow higher limits. The problem with this is that it can cause timeouts on larger files. This is something we'd have to experiment with. I will ask my host if they even allow modifying this particular PHP setting.

Finally the most important bit: Has this been done before? My guess is yes. I do know there are many existing free texture libraries, though most are provided by a single or few individuals or a company. There *is* a huuuge and very well developed, sophisticated "stock photo" archive that essentially serves the same purpose. It's not texture-specific, but you can find a ton of good textures with the right search terms. They have over 200,000 pics now and many are available in high resolution. They also have a very good system for handling useage rights, etc. Have a look: http://www.sxc.hu/

So the question becomes is it really best to setup a new thing when systems like that already exist and are providing stuff free of charge? Perhaps we should just upload all our stuff there?

I'm open to suggestion and I'm very interested in this idea. I'm game to offer resources, etc. if needed, but if we do this I want it to be successful. If we use 5GB+ of space it might as well serve a lot of people. So it's in our best interest to make sure we wouldn't just be reproducing what someone else has done.

- Oshyan

[Aaron]

Hello,

I think it's a great idea DT. I also agree with Oshyan that writing your own PHP/SQL system wouldn't be an effective use of time, since a gallery such as Coppermine will do the job nicely. As an aside, Coppermine does indeed allow for special fields (I have 'renderer' and 'map size' in the L3DT users' gallery), and the search function does a good job of categorising by keyword (see list at the bottom of this page).

Regarding Oshyan's final point (has this been done before?) - yes, partially:

Lemog3D, by Laurent Antoine, has a nice gallery of texture images (specifically, here), with free and unrestricted use. It's based on Coppermine, BTW. That site doesn't, however, include specific information on terrain types, locations, etc.

So, is Lemog3D good enough, or is it worth the effort to 'build a better mousetrap'? Personally I think it is worth it if:

1) The site can attract lots of contributors.
2) Licensing is very liberal, and easy to understand (eg Creative Commons Deed).
3) It's well set-up (clear focus, sensible categories, easy to navigate, looks neat).
4) The admin, whomever that may be, is willing to commit to years of maintenance.

Oh yeah:

The trick is getting people to properly tag their stuff, but this will be a problem no matter what system we use.

Agreed. It might pay to have a bunch of 'super users' that are allowed to move images and change tags - effective, though time-consuming and not very democratic.

Anyhoo, there's my five cents (Australia doesn't have 2c coins any more, nor 1c).

Cheers,
Aaron.

PS: Is it just me, or is http://www.sxc.hu/ dead?

[DeathTwister]

WOW, what a great response dudes,

OK, information overload here, so I will say yes to all, but need to go look at coppermine, could someone shoot us a link? That would be great, to start for us. I am so happy you guys think it a good idea, and it will be a huuge asset to our community I am sure.

We would be more then happy to maintain the site for the long term and if in the future we need to move on will will find a new Custodian Stewardship to take over from us, but my partner says he would be honored to help in that way. We just need access and he will go check Coppermine out and get into this week, err today.

We will get back and post more here a bit later, need to go do a few things ATM and I need to go find a leaf calculator if I can as well this morning. So talk wit yazz laters dudes. Any ladies on? if so ladies and gentlemen then.

Thank you guys so much for the great input.

DT

[Aaron]

Hi DeathTwister,

could someone shoot us a link?

Here you go:

http://coppermine-gallery.net/index.php

Please let me know if you want any help/advice on installation (it's pretty simple though).

Cheers,
Aaron.

[DeathTwister]

WooHoo thanks bro,

OK will do.....

DT

[monks]

Sounds like a good idea DeathTwister. You only really realise how important textures are when you come to actually build something. I agree with keeping things as simple as possible with setting it up initially- see how it goes from there.



monks

[DeathTwister]

Quick Update:

Ok I have peeps coming up from the bay area this memorial day weekend, and I am trying to get my first Terrain into TSE today/tomorrow, So I will get back to the texture bank come next Tuesday and get serious about it /chuckles.
Looking forward to getting this together and started, and thanks for all the support and contribution's so far, WTG guys we make it work fer us good. fun fun.

DT

[DeathTwister]

Hay all,

Sorry for not getting back to this but all of a sudden I am swamped ROTFL. What with the L3DT 2 TSE jag I been on, we have also been finishing up our newest web portal http://www.atomixworldmarket.com soon to go live on July 15th, 2006.
We have also started work on putting together our: www.indiemusicsociety.org.
Our independent Music Society website for around the world, we have been kinda swamped. as we are trying to release both those 2 web portals and have the "LeGalleria" up fairly close behind them within a month or 2, if we can.
Also we are going out of state in the next day or 2 for the day, maybe over night for a meeting with another company that is coming on board with our store, and a greeting card company to boot, so maybe outlets for artists and greetings cards here this next year as well if all goes well.
On our way back from Oregon we are stopping at a Pirate radio station that wants to be part of the IMS (independent music society) website and play our music as well so we are stopping by CD's and info to them and they are both in Oregon, so bizzy bizzy this week.

So all of a sudden getting into this data base is a lot on our plate. We are going to do this for sure, it's a killer idea and a idea who's time has come, but hell yes, we sure could use the help from all you wonderful brothers and "sisters if any out there" as well.

Since we have never used Coppermine and the other software, we can learn pretty quickly and we have gone and downloaded it, but if someone else has better skill at it then us (pretty sure you guys are better) /chuckles, then maybe you guys could help getting this set up on your server bro? Shon is a killer programmer and will help and his email address is:
shon@theatomizer.com
and mine
maylock@theatomizer.com
and lets get together and we need to know what we need to do to help and put this puppy together.

JaveJones you have the server space right and the copper mine experience? maybe you could lead off here and help us get this going? I know we are all very very buzzy ATM with projects, and if we have a cut list in front of me/Shon would help us atm if that is not asking to much after I started all this? I feel bad at not being able to take the ball and run with this better right now

That sure Would help me, and I will have more time to put into this after I get this terrain chit figured out better and I won't be pulling my hair out so much these last few days ROTFL, naw I am loving it, not complaining in any way ROTFL, but the bleeding edge sure is sharp, hahahahahahaha...

Ok that it for now, I can get into this next week if I can get a game plan into being both for me/Shon and the rest of us? I am not the most organized artist in the world if you know what I mean, just a killer idea man, ROTFL

So we are tired of bieng broke and never having stuff we need so we are working real hard to change all that once and for all. Need to have income to be able to play on the level we want to anyway, I am sure you all know what I mean. We are hoping the store will help as we have thousands of products to sell that we think are great, and lots of indie stuff and craft people we are geting on board as well. Should be good if we do it right. We all need money, mula right? yup that is what I thought /winks.
If we do this right everyone will win, we have a plan:idea:

DT

[DeathTwister]

Sorry some of last post was off topic, but wanted you guys to know we will do it, just very bizzy...../smiles.

DT

[monks]

I've just found a very interesting little app called BricksNTiles which allows for the creation very rapid seamless textures from photo for architectural models:

https://www.the3dstudio.com/product_det ... duct=14592

You may have to be registered to view that: try a search on Google if you're interested.

monks

[DeathTwister]

Hum,

Couldn't get it in, and they wanted 45 bucks ROTFL ROTFL, not very nice of them ROTFL, and no free trials to test it with either soo farg it, on to the next goodies /smiles wanted me to register just to look at the download page, yuk, I left hahaha, they were selling textures up to 7-13 bucks a shot to, ROTFL dang I give all mine away
wonder if he sells any?????????? Thanks for the laugh Monks your great. We thought it was funny. probobly a good produce but was to controling for us. And free is better..

OK we will be out of town for 2 days I think, so you all have fun. See you when we get back from meeting other companies. All roads lead to ATOMIX one day we hope ROTFL.

I will check on one post I was hoping someone would post on with my trouble with squareSize and error metric, but guess it will have to wait untill I get back.

DT

[monks]

I should have mentioned that it wasn't free- but the price tag seemed pretty reasonable- especially if you do a lot of buildings. I've often thought that something like BricksNTiles would be extremely useful to a modelling project. It would super-useful for ME-DEM down the road.
I'm not to keen on buying wall textures though.

monks