From: Marina.Salume@corp.sun.com (Marina Salume)
Subject: Re: cross stitch program
Organization: Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 18:44:42 GMT

I am posting this for someone else who does not have direct posting
capability.--marina

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From: polowin@chem.QueensU.CA (Joel Polowin)

Since Mary Otto seems not to have forwarded my response to her to
alt.sewing, as I'd asked when I sent it on Thu, 16 Jul 92, would you
please send it to the group for me?  Thanks.
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> So, okay, you are so impoverished that you can't afford a color chart.
> (Let's have a telethon!  Dial 1-800-NOT-BOZO and pledge our support
> of this endeavor.) 

Let's try this one more time.  I was told at the craft shop that a
single colour chart would cost $15 and would take a couple of weeks
to get here.  How many colour charts are there?  Do they include the
colour information I need (red/green/blue info, or equivalent)?  And
what is wrong with asking _IF_ this information is already available?

> Realistically you can make your own chart by wrapping
> a piece of every color of floss around a piece of cardboard (perhaps
> your friend already has bobbins) and get them scanned in. ...
> Get creative.  Don't let those chem lab fumes destroy your brain.
> ... If you don't like the University price, NETWORK and find
> somebody who can get access.

I'm under the impression that, what with several different manufacturers
and no general correspondence between their products, there are
probably better than a thousand colours of floss that would have to
be scanned in to make a general-purpose palette that would be suitable
to match the colours in a picture, without prior information about
that picture.  A lot of time and trouble, no?

Even if I had the charts, even if I had ready scanner access, extracting
the information would be a hell of a lot of work.  Much simpler, much
smarter -- the chem lab fumes haven't QUITE rotted my brain, thanks --
to ask if someone has already done this sort of thing, or if the manufac-
turers have made this information available, don't you think?  There's
this process called NETWORKING that I was trying to employ.

>NOW, THE MORAL OF THE STORY.  CROSS-STITCH PATTERNS ARE ART.  They
>are more than simply a digitized photograph.  As a stitcher, you
>couldn't possibly know the subtletly that can be achieved in this media.
>The depth and beauty.  A good pattern is as much a work of art as
>the finest Monet.  And no scanning process in the world can work
>the miracles of detail that a skilled designer can achieve with finely
>crafted backstitches.  I am a designer.  I take pride in the art
>that I create.  My media is needlework.  To reduce this art form
>to digitization is the ultimate insult, and denies the artistic
>merit and reinforces a stereotype of inferiority due to variance
>from photographic reality.

Fine.  You're an artist; your medium is needlework.  All of the oil
painters in the world have not prevented the spread of photography
as a hobby -- and some would call it an art form also -- which many
people enjoy.  I gather from the responses which I've had that there
are a number of people out there who would very much like to be able
to take a photograph, feed it through a scanner, and work with the
pattern that will come out.  All that my software will do will be
to replace what I presume to be a rather tedious process of making
a pattern by hand, using graph paper, photoenlargements, and so on.
You are still free to add back-stitching and whatever other 
embellishments serve, in your eyes, to elevate a raw pattern to the
status of art.  

>Further, if what you are scanning is not your own creation, then
>creating the copy is a violation of the artist's rights to their
>work as intellectual property.  Changing the media does not allow
>you the rights to copy the work.

Am I claiming anything to the contrary?  Precisely the same strictures
apply whether one is making a pattern by hand or by making it by an
automated process.

>So, okay.  I asked what people thought.  And you said I should have
>asked you what you were doing with it.  You still haven't told us
>except that it's for a friend, and you are planning to make the
>software available for free.  So, Joel, what is it you are trying
>to scan?

Well, for MY part, I've got a GIF of myself, and one of my friend,
which I intend to convert to patterns, simply as a novelty.  As part
of testing the software, of course, I'll be running a number of the
scanned pictures which are readily available on the net or by FTP.
Many have been released into the public domain.  As I have stated,
I'm interested in writing some useful software which my friend
expressed interest in, and which I have since realized is also of
interest to other people.  That's about as far as my interest goes;
I think that cross-stitching is pretty but have more hobbies already
than I can find time for and don't currently intend to add another
one.  _I_ am not especially interested in scanning anything.


Joel
polowin@silicon.chem.queensu.ca, polowin@chem.queensu.ca,
  polowinj@qucdn.queensu.ca


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