Newsgroups: misc.books.technical From: ajayshah@cmie.ernet.in (Ajay Shah) Subject: BOOK REVIEW : Imaging in Corporate Environments: Organization: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, Bombay Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 08:57:35 GMT Imaging in Corporate Environments: Technology and Communication Daniel Minoli McGraw-Hill, 1994 ISBN 0-07-042588-4 300 pages, hardback, $40 Recently I was involved in an interesting design problem of putting together a large image storage/retrival application. I started from scratch (on images) and gradually learned bits and pieces about issues in image databases, using a heterogenous mix of drinking from newsgroups, asking questions on them, trying out pieces of the design on friends, reading product literature, and keeping my wits about me. I was looking for a book which would help me get a more structured grip of the field. While browsing in the Computer Literacy Bookstore (across the road from Frys in the bay area, a lovely place!), this book caught my eye. The title is a bit forbidding -- "corporate environments" brings to mind something aimed at big iron administrators storing images on IBM mainframes. The TOC was quite reassuring for the technical thug in me. Let me reproduce it here: 1. Introduction and Overview 2. Imaging systems in corporate environments 3. Technical principles of resolution and color 4. Imaging entry--capture systems 5. Output systems 6. Compression and Storage Techniques and Standards 7. Storage Technology 8. Local Area Networks: Imaging Platforms 9. WAN services and technologies for imaging systems. The chapters are quite self contained, and you can benefit from reading groups of chapters in isolation. I will hence talk about these groups separately. 1. Introduction and Overview 2. Imaging systems in corporate environments Little here was new for me, but they are a useful 50--page birds eye view of the field. My only complaint here, one that is applicable to many parts of the book, is that it is quite dated. For a book published in 1994, it seems remarkably out of tune with the state of the art as of today. I wish publication lags were shorter. Of course, this is also a reflection on how fast things change in this field. :-( Perhaps FAQs are a better way of disseminating such knowledge. 3. Technical principles of resolution and color This was the most "new" chapter for me, for I had no roots in color before it. The book takes this up in depth and while I don't need color for my problem, I now have some idea about the issues, and I know where to look when I need more. This is the most technical chapter of the book. It is not afraid to use mathematics. I really enjoyed this attitude of offering deep fundas, but I suspect many a "corporate environment" won't need this kind of understanding of color. I suppose knowing things in-depth is good for the soul and builds character. Nitpicking. In Table 3.1, it is "unfair" showing the Macintosh Classic as 640 x 400 resolution. 4. Imaging entry--capture systems 5. Output systems This is a reasonably good treatment of scanners, file formats, printing bitmaps, etc. The "output systems" chapter has a strong emphasis on the problems of colour. I didn't mind, since I know a good deal about the b&w side of life, but it felt like an omission. References to specific file formats and software are glaringly weak in not giving pointers to net software, such as pbm, the independent jpeg group, gs, etc. I think knowing of these is really valuable for anyone working with image files. This is germane for the next chapter too. The author doesn't appear to be much net--aware. Nitpicking. Many scanners routinely refer to a distinction between the "optical resolution" and what you finally get using "software interpolation". I have always wondered how this was done. The book doesn't tell how. I have also been curious about a related topic: how do you print a 400 dpi fullpage bitmap on (say) a 300 dpi or 600 dpi laser printer? The book doesn't bring up this question. The entire problem of speed of printing bulky bitmaps is not touched upon. 6. Compression and Storage Techniques and Standards This was a nice chapter, with an emphasis on JPEG. I had a good deal of prior background, but still enjoyed reading it. I was hungry for more details and practical examples. E.g. it would have been nice to have a dozen or so samples of input matter and compression obtained in practise using different algorithms. 7. Storage Technology I know this area quite well and the chapter left me cold. One problem is that many of the specific pieces of information are dated. There are subtle weaknesses in the text which were disappointing. I guess if you had to do an image system and didn't know a lot about storage technology to start with, then this chapter is definitely good reading. But I wish it had been done more perfectly. 8. Local Area Networks: Imaging Platforms 9. WAN services and technologies for imaging systems. I started out with a reasonably good idea about TCP/IP and how I could use it for image problems. These two chapters are not strongly about imaging systems (notwithstanding the title) though this is perhaps inevitable. They are like a capsule summary of computer networking. If anything, they could easily be confusing. The reader will be subjected to a barrage of technology options, and will not see how easy networking actually is when putting together a TCP/IP network using off the shelf technologies. Instead, the reader will get one section each on T1 and FT1 lines, X.25, ISDN, ATM, SONET, frame relay etc. The book does not _evaluate_ these options and show which will be superior when. It tends to catalog them. I think it makes the entire networking situation more complicated than it really is. A "how--to" on making a TCP/IP network fly using mainstream communications technologies would have been more useful to practitioners in corporate environments. In all, I'm glad I read the book, and I would recommend it to anyone who plans to work with largescale image problems. I would strongly recommend that you get uptodate information, from vendors and from the net to supplement the book. I would strongly recommend not relying on the book for "the big picture" of storage technologies and computer networking. This is not one of the memorable technical books I've seen in my life, but it's useful all the same. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ajay Shah Work: 91-22-4300531 Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, Bombay Fax: 91-22-4370558 ajayshah@cmie.ernet.in Home: 91-22-6420584