Re: f-spot future

[Sven Utcke <sven utcke gmx de>]

Hello Stephen,

> > What would be cool:
> > - sort images by similarity (easy enough to write - for me, this is my
> >   job - but I am certainly not doing Mono unless I get paid for it.
> >   So maybe as a plugin, if there's a good enough introduction into
> >   plugins?
> 
> Awesome list, thanks.  As for the sort images by similarity that would
> be really cool.  If you want to write all of the logic I'll happily
> try and port it over to c#.

Ok.  A few things to consider: this would need to calculate some
metrics for each image.  This means:

a) we have to look at each single stored image at least once, both old
   and new images.  For new images, this could be done on import (but
   would, of course, slow down import noticeably).  For old images, we
   would need to run something which either looks at all images in the
   background.  This might in fact be the best option.
   Alternatively it might well work sufficiently well to just look at
   the thumbnails, which would be much faster...
b) We need to store that information someplace, presumably in a
   separate table in the database. Hmm.  Wonder how much memory this
   would require though...

The actual computer vision would need to use some library such as
OpenCV (buggy, but widespread) or Vigra (not so buggy, but
unfortunately also less widespread).

Presumably it would be sufficient to just have a few C/C++ functions
(in form of a library) which could be linked to F-Spot, wouldn't it?
No need to port (much) to C#?

Oh, and the show-stopper for now: I can't actually compile F-Spot,
probably need to update my System first (currently running Ubuntu
8.04).

Does the above make sense (except for me running an old - but still
supported - version of Ubuntu)?

Sven
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