Database visualization software

Aaron

Grumbler in Training
Joined
May 11, 2006
Posts
1
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Michigan
Hello everyone this is my first post> I’ve been lurking around here on and off for about a year. Here’s my question

Does anyone know of a visualization software that runs from a database instead of laying out corner samples all the time? I would like to get a website done and incorporate it on there so a customer can play around with different combinations of mat and molding samples from there own home. Something where I could photograph all the moldings ahead of time and they could just click on the molding and mat they like. I know not every customer is savvy enough to upload picture of there art but a lot of people are. I would also like it to give them pricing. Here is a link to something like what I am talking about.

http://www.pictureframes.com/scripts/WebObjects/PictureFrames.woa/wa/FrameShop


Is this even a program or is it some type of custom website design? I am pretty website challenged so these might be really dumb questions. I tried doing some search’s and found nothing so please forgive if I missed it. If anyone knows of someone capable of building such a sight please let me know.


Thanks in advance
Aaron Fisher
 
Most of the "early" visualization systems, as in those that have been around since the 90's, work or worked off a database of images. Wizard's Integrated Framer was originally a database product.

Now that camera technology has achieved the right set of features at the right price, most (if not all) are moving towards camera-based visualization. Why? Because building and maintaining the database of mat and moulding images from every vendor is extremely cost prohibitive, and color correction is less of an issue when the samples are captured with the art at the same time with the same lighting..

Regardless, John is right in that See-It corp is about that only company in the industry that I know that has a off-the-shelf solution. Most of the big portals that sell art and framing contracted out the work to develop their own. And I would suspect that even with See-It you'll probably have to digitize all the samples that you plan to make available on your site..
 
Wayne Stewart

I have to agree wth Wiz Steve (Below) The Integrated Framer uses the KISS principle and while people in general seem to think that having a Data Base of mouldings and mats Etc built into their Visualization Software is the way to go, in reality it will take many hours of precious time to update and maintain the Data.
The whole idea is to save time not create more work for oneself. The other problem that no body has mentioned is that the mouldings in a data base will more often than not be photographed at a different distance than the artwork on your counter, that will cause the mouldings to be a different scale than the picture and the mouldings will be either to large or to small when rendered on the screen.
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From Wiz Steve.......Most of the "early" visualization systems, as in those that have been around since the 90's, work or worked off a database of images. Wizard's Integrated Framer was originally a database product.

Now that camera technology has achieved the right set of features at the right price, most (if not all) are moving towards camera-based visualization. Why? Because building and maintaining the database of mat and moulding images from every vendor is extremely cost prohibitive, and color correction is less of an issue when the samples are captured with the art at the same time with the same lighting..

Regardless, John is right in that See-It corp is about that only company in the industry that I know that has a off-the-shelf solution. Most of the big portals that sell art and framing contracted out the work to develop their own. And I would suspect that even with See-It you'll probably have to digitize all the samples that you plan to make available on your site..
 
Pre-View has the best of both worlds.

Mouldings can be captured "on the fly" when required. The captured moulding image is placed in a database from where it can be instantly recalled at any future date. Once the moulding is captured there is no need to do it again, so this somewhat fiddly process is avoided when visualising the same moulding in the future.

In a few hours you can build up a table of your most popular mouldings, a very worthwhile exercise which can make the visualisation process much smoother.
 
I have to agree wth Wiz Steve (Below) The Integrated Framer uses the KISS principle and while people in general seem to think that having a Data Base of mouldings and mats Etc built into their Visualization Software is the way to go, in reality it will take many hours of precious time to update and maintain the Data.

Wayne,
"Visualise It" has a database of almost every moulding available in Australia and can alternatively utilise a digital photo which includes the moulding. I have found it very versatile and easy to use. I am currently using my camera handheld with flash and am getting excellent results in almost every case.


There are some examples on this forum somewhere and also at the website below:
http://www.chameleonsmart.com/framesmart/visualisation.php
 
Mouldings can be captured "on the fly" when required. The captured moulding image is placed in a database from where it can be instantly recalled at any future date. Once the moulding is captured there is no need to do it again, so this somewhat fiddly process is avoided when visualising the same moulding in the future.

I predict as time goes on that more and more POSes with their own visualization will implement this, as tickets that don't happen to use visualization will still benenfit from it.

However, most of the time when I'm with a customer I already have the samples out anyways, and I prefer taking photos of the samples with the artwork so that they both use the same lighting conditions.. :thumbsup:
 
What if you could click on a menu of black frames and scroll through say 4000 in a matter of seconds without ever pulling a single sample off the wall?

I think yall are setting your sights way to low.

Database driven viz software does have its limitations. When those limitations are met, sky is the limits.

Think bigger!

I know this is an old thread but still I'll add; this already exists in a few forms on PC. On the internet is a whole different animal. I'm guessing there is a solution for you but it will come with a very hefty fee.

Good luck.
 
What if you could click on a menu of black frames and scroll through say 4000 in a matter of seconds without ever pulling a single sample off the wall?

Sounds good, until you realize that you don't carry 3988 of those 4000 frames and its 2 years out of date.. ;) Maintaining just the data from hudreds of vendors about the samples is bad enough - doing images is not cost-effective.

Unless of course this industry finally got its act together and standardizes on data formats and information exchange.. :icon45:
 
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