Re: Use of and Questions about MediaStream Image Capture API for Study of Cultural Heritage

For implementation of features of the image capture specification in a
specific browser, such as Chrome, it might be good to watch Chrome's bug
tracker:

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list?q=component:Blink%3EImageCapture

In particular, focus distance is here:
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=732807

And exposure time control is here:
https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=823316

This implementation in Chrome is being spearheaded by Intel; you may
want to contact the people whose names are on the implementation bugs
for more information.

Happy digitizing, and make sure your use cases are considered in the
WebRTC WG's "next version use cases" document!

Harald



On 11/19/2018 10:27 PM, William Spies wrote:
> Dear public-webrtc group,
>
> I am writing on behalf of a cadre of researchers and cultural heritage
> specialists here at Northwestern University that have taken great
> interest in WebRTC as a tool for scientific progress. Our team,
> assembled from members of the Computational Photography Lab
> <http://compphotolab.northwestern.edu/> and the Center for Scientific
> Study in the Arts <https://scienceforart.northwestern.edu/>, has been
> working on novel applications of web technologies for cultural and
> scientific applications, and we wanted to reach out and praise the
> work you all have been doing with WebRTC. In particular, we are
> currently leveraging features from the MediaStream "Image Capture" API
> for a very unique application, which will enable museum conservators
> to quickly take measurements of cultural heritage objects such as
> paintings and sculptures.
>
> We are hoping to use some of the lesser known or to-be-developed
> features in the "Image Capture" API, such as focus control and
> exposure time control, to improve the reliability and quality of such
> measurements. We also wish to extend our support for the ongoing
> development of the photographic controls set, else we would not be
> living up to the name of our lab! Our group anticipated that it might
> be nice to hear about applications of WebRTC beyond the scope of
> person-to-person communication that could drive home the utility of
> such a development.
>
> We saw some correspondences between WebRTC maintainers talking about
> focus control and exposure time control being added to the
> implementation in the near future; is there some way to get an idea of
> precisely when that rollout would occur?
>
> Thanks,
> William Spies
> Research Associate
> CompPhotoLab @ Northwestern University
> Seeley Mudd Building, Room 3406
> 2233 Tech Drive, Evanston, IL 60208
>
> http://compphotolab.northwestern.edu/
> https://scienceforart.northwestern.edu/