[HN Gopher] Compositor: A database of eighteenth-century printer...
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       Compositor: A database of eighteenth-century printers' ornaments
        
       Author : polm23
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2021-05-22 11:58 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (compositor.bham.ac.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (compositor.bham.ac.uk)
        
       | traverseda wrote:
       | Most of these are low enough resolution that I certainly couldn't
       | use them to produce anything. I guess they're mainly intended for
       | book/fragment identification?
       | 
       | Which is too bad. They're presumably old enough that they could
       | be public domain, although the university of Birmingham doesn't
       | seem to have licensed them permissibly. It would be nice to make
       | some stamps out of these. Libraries of design elements like this
       | can be really nice for making all kinds of stuff, but the quality
       | and the licensing both mean this will probably only be usable for
       | reference.
        
         | thechao wrote:
         | There's actual garbage in the DB; clearly, they've used some
         | sort of automated method for thresholding images, "finding"
         | ornaments and pulling them out. As such, I don't think the
         | ornaments in the DB are particularly interesting. The raw data
         | (unthresholded) is, but I bet that's not copyrightable.
        
         | rektide wrote:
         | hate to say it but could definitely use some machine learning
         | to radically upscale most of them
        
           | mistrial9 wrote:
           | they appear to be using some process already to find the
           | ornaments. As noted here, they may be more interested in
           | improving their own software and their own publicity than
           | providing anything useful for others
        
         | kwinkunks wrote:
         | It really is such a waste of time and resources. Like you said,
         | the database seems to be 'all rights reserved', even though the
         | original printed artifacts are obviously out of copyright. Lots
         | of institutions do this with scans of old books, paintings,
         | etc. I don't understand why institutions limit their own impact
         | like that.
        
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       (page generated 2021-05-22 23:01 UTC)