Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!David_Bat_Masterson From: David_Bat_Masterson@cup.portal.com Newsgroups: misc.wanted,comp.databases,sci.research,comp.ai,comp.misc Subject: Re: pattern recognition software (recognizing humpback fins!) w Message-ID: <1608@cup.portal.com> Date: Wed, 25-Nov-87 18:21:55 EST Article-I.D.: cup.1608 Posted: Wed Nov 25 18:21:55 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 12:30:20 EST References: <1163@uhccux.UUCP> Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 18 Xref: mnetor misc.wanted:1702 comp.databases:605 sci.research:294 comp.ai:1164 comp.misc:1698 XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.2888 This request sounds vaguely familiar. I thought I had seen a show about a few students for a college doing a study of humpback whales. They also were having trouble keeping track of which whales were which (maybe it was killer whales). The way they went about handling it was to classify the dorsal fin shape by things like size, shape, bites, extra spots, barnacles, etc. (their fingerprint). I forget if they used a database system to keep track of this or just a file card approach. If you use a DB, this information could be entered into a relational database for scanning purposes (Dbase perhaps). This would not provide an automatic mechanism for processing the photographs, but its a start. Additional ideas would be to implement an expert system as front end to this process. The expert system could be trained to ask the right questions about a photograph to get a good classification. On top of this could be added a laser scanner (for about $3K) that would bring the photo into the database; there may be database systems that would allow you to store the image of the whale right in the database (I know the Amiga databases can). Think about it, you can build up from a basic capability, but don't try to do the whole thing at once. David_Bat_Masterson@cup.portal.com