NASA Windtunnel Images - reposting guidelines

[overscan (PaulMM)]

For the various people reposting NASA images of windtunnel models.

1) Please don't post EVERY image - a selection covering different angles is adequate, with a link to the original location.
2) Attach the high res copies, not the small versions. Don't link images - will the links still be valid in 5 years time?
3) Priority should be given to models which provide additional information about a project which isn't already well known.
4) Server space is not unlimited - make sure the image you attach brings value.
5) Admins will modify posts where needed to fit these guidelines.

Thanks for your cooperation.

 

[Stargazer]

Thanks overscan for this helpful reminder and for adjusting to the potentially massive new input from the NASA archives!

I know you expressed some general concern here and did not aim at anyone in particular. I believe I was pretty much in line with your suggestions except for #2, and I'm sorry about that, but I'd like to say that including the pics in the body of the page was not neglect on my part but was motivated by the fact that:

• I didn't want to make the pages too heavy to load.
• I thought attaching such heavy files as the high-res pics would eat up a lot of server space if we all do that.
• I thought attaching the files made some pics too small to see exactly what it was about.
• I didn't want to infringe on NASA's copyrights.
• I wanted to encourage viewers who are interested to visit NASA's sites so that it augments visits to their pages (I guess the more interest, the more material they'll release and document; if forum members get the real McCoy here they may not click the URL...).

So you see, there was some logic to it. But I also understand your concern about links being liable to change... NASA servers have often been down in the past, and many of their URLs changed with no redirection. From now onwards I will attach all large images. By the way, is there a way to attach a file directly from a URL? Or does it have to be on your computer, as I always thought it should?

Thanks again.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

No, unfortunately you have to download first.

Regarding the image size - yes, thought about that, we'll see how it goes. I think that higher resolution is better, given a choice.

In terms of picture selection, I was thinking - does this picture add anything to what we know of this project? Will it help a modeler to build the aircraft more accurately? Two views from the same angle, probably not. Choose the nicest one.

In some cases I have been able to remove lower quality copies of the same images (e.g. Rockwell SNAKE).

 

[DSE]

For the various people reposting NASA images of windtunnel models.

2) Attach the high res copies, not the small versions. Don't link images - will the links still be valid in 5 years time?

Have you considered that while the original NASA link might not be valid, it may still be possibly be available at the Wayback Machine at http://archive.org? Also, I note you limit attachments to 1 MB, pretty small for hi-res images especially as NASA is now today scanning many old photos and posting them. Just some issues to consider.

As I posted the original link to the "archive", was there anything wrong doing that?

 

[Matej]

You can re-save the image using a bit higher compression, but with the kept resolution. Regarding the links - look at the Keypublishing forum and try to find some older topics, lets say from 2005. How many links posted there are still valid? If you answer this question, you will also have the answer for your question. We dont want to do things this way.

 

[DSE]

You can re-save the image using a bit higher compression, but with the kept resolution. Regarding the links - look at the Keypublishing forum and try to find some older topics, lets say from 2005. How many links posted there are still valid? If you answer this question, you will also have the answer for your question. We dont want to do things this way.

If you have folks re-save an image you lose the original info, isn't that what one should care about? By having people do so you introduce an infinite number of variables in how the information is changed. Or do folks here not care about original authentic information, exif info, color, etc? I'm quite recent to this forum. As to your query, since I don't use that forum I can't answer your question. However I would pose back the question of whether they exist on the Wayback Machine as pointed out as a possibility in my original post.

I understand it takes server space, but isn't disk space cheap these days. My own personal commercially hosted web site comes with 150 GB of space and the message I saw last fall said there was <10GB of images stored here. If it means donating a disk, heck I've got at least one 75GB 10krpm Raptor laying around doing nothing.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Interestingly, http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/ seems to not be available. Hopefully a temporary problem.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

You can re-save the image using a bit higher compression, but with the kept resolution. Regarding the links - look at the Keypublishing forum and try to find some older topics, lets say from 2005. How many links posted there are still valid? If you answer this question, you will also have the answer for your question. We dont want to do things this way.

If you have folks re-save an image you lose the original info, isn't that what one should care about? By having people do so you introduce an infinite number of variables in how the information is changed. Or do folks here not care about original authentic information, exif info, color, etc? I'm quite recent to this forum. As to your query, since I don't use that forum I can't answer your question. However I would pose back the question of whether they exist on the Wayback Machine as pointed out as a possibility in my original post.

I understand it takes server space, but isn't disk space cheap these days. My own personal commercially hosted web site comes with 150 GB of space and the message I saw last fall said there was <10GB of images stored here. If it means donating a disk, heck I've got at least one 75GB 10krpm Raptor laying around doing nothing.

Shared server hosting often oversells storage as they know it will rarely be used. They say you have 150GB but they are gambling that few if any customers will actually use it - the server won't have 150Gb per user available. Also there may be a limit in bandwidth - and if every picture is twice as big, that will effectively double the bandwidth used by the server.

The hosting we have is a dedicated virtual server, this carves the physical server into a number of separate servers with dedicated resources. This is more expensive, but much better - I have full access to a dedicated server, I can manage and even change the OS, control all aspects of the server.

Go look at www.whatifmodelers.com and see how on shared hosting, at busy times of the day, the server can get overloaded.

The package we are on has 512MB dedicated RAM, 20GB disk space, and 300GB/month bandwidth.

If I double allowed attachment size, and people upload on average twice as large a file, then the disk space will run out faster and we may exceed the 300GB/month bandwidth limit.

Going to a larger Virtual Server plan of 40GB space would near double the monthly hosting cost.