How would you rate this image?

James Z. Wang, associate professor of information sciences and technology, is one of the principal researchers on the Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine (ACQUINE), a system that judges the aesthetic quality of digital images. Wang said this tool is a significant first step in recognizing human emotional reaction to visual stimulus.

ACQUINE, which has been in development since 2005 and was launched in April 2009, can be found online at http://acquine.alipr.com. Users can upload their own images for rating or test the system by providing a link to any image online. The system provides an aesthetic rating within seconds. more…

If you are sure everything is connected correctly, and you have turned on the laptop only after everything else is connected and turned on, you may need to use a keyboard command to tell the laptop something is connected to its external output port. Below is a fairly comprehensive list of keyboard commands as provided by the manufacturers, compiled by Extron Electronics and edited by United Visual:

http://unitedvisual.com/2tips/2tvp111.asp

Looking for digital images for your papers, presentations or art history tests? ARTstor contains nearly one million images gathered from museums, universities, libraries, and the U of C’s Visual Resources Collection.
 
ARTstor for Undergrads

• Where: Cochrane-Woods Art Center, Room 157
• When: Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 2:00 – 2:30pm
• Description: In this brief session, you’ll learn ARTstor essentials: how to find, print, save, and cite images and how to access course folders. Bring your laptop to follow along during the session.

ARTstor for Faculty and Graduate Students

• Where: Cochrane-Woods Art Center, Room 153
• When: Wednesday, November 5, 2008
  3:00-4:15pm: Teaching with ARTstor
  4:30-5:15pm: Presenting with ARTstor
• Description: More than a repository of digital images, ARTstor offers simple pedagogical tools that resonate with today’s visual learners. Learn how to build, present and share your lectures in ARTstor. Prefer PowerPoint or KeyNote? Learn how to download ARTstor images for use in other presentation tools. Bring your laptop to follow along during the session.

LUNA allows you to search image collections, manipulate images, and create image-based presentations ideal for classroom and professional use. Zoom in and crop high-resolution images and quickly share your content as a hyperlink. Individual images can also be exported to other presentation software, such as PowerPoint and Keynote.

Click here to learn more.

On campus

1. Go to http://www.artstor.org
2. Click “GO” in the upper right hand corner.
3. At the bottom center of the page, click “University of Chicago, Visual Resources Collection” under Institutional Collections.

Off campus

1. Go to http://www.artstor.org
2. Click “GO” in the upper right hand corner.
3. Click “Login”in the upper right hand corner.
4. Enter your ARTstor (not cnet) username and password to view images. You must register for your username and password on campus.
5. At the bottom center of the page, click “University of Chicago, Visual Resources Collection” under Institutional Collections.

For assistance or instructor privileges, please contact Megan Macken in the VRC.

You can share individual ARTstor images, image groups, and presentations in Chalk. It is as simple as copying and pasting a link.

Within the next few weeks, the majority of the VRC collection will be available in ARTstor. You’ll be able to combine ARTstor and VRC images in one group and share them with your students or classmates.

To learn more about ARTstor or to schedule an individual training session, please contact Megan.

ArchNet is very happy to announce a new collection of rare Swahili Kingdom images in its Digital Library, the James de Vere Allen Collection.

At present, this collection includes 185 black & white images of the Palace at Gedi, the Great Mosque of Gedi, the Kongo Mosque, the McCrindle house, and the Lamu cityscape, as well as other Kenyan sites.

Sourced from Mr. Allen’s archive, which he donated to MIT in 1988, the online publication of these images was made possible with the kind permission of the family of James de Vere Allen.

Duke University Libraries has launched an online digital collection of about 5,000 photographs shot primarily in China between 1917 and 1932.

The photographs were taken by Sidney Gamble, the grandson of Procter and Gamble co-founder James Gamble, and provide a glimpse into daily life unlike any other photographs from this period. A sociologist, China scholar, and avid amateur photographer, Gamble travelled extensively in China from Liaoning province in the northeast to Guangdong province in the south and to the western edge of Sichuan province along the border of Tibet.

The photographs came to light when Gamble’s daughter, Catherine Curran, discovered the collection at the family’s home. She gave the entire collection to Duke in 2006, just before her death.