
    Over the years, a growing community has become
  increasingly familiar with quality firearms,
  primarily here in the United States. Toward
  this end, a plethora of published media has
  appeared on paper form extolling the virtues, and
  particulars of, said instruments. After spending
  the past twenty years of my life anxiously
  awaiting the latest pontification of "America's
  leading authority" (usually a book), and buying
  it, I now have a bulky, kludgy reference set that
  usually takes considerable time to look up any
  answer. Every decade or so I buy a new copy to
  replace one "loaned out" or simply worn out. The
  older books are growing very long in the tooth.

    But my dilemna did not stop there. In
  conjunction with my brother, many firearms
  have passed through our hands, and usually with no
  more tangible proof than a tattered Polaroid.
  Details such as color, condition, action, unique
  qualities, and what it looked like are by and
  large forgotten. With larger dealers and
  collectors, I suspect this issue is more severe.

    I am probably naive in the belief that anyone
  still cares about the firearms, and not just
  the money. My intent is to provide a common
  platform for the exchange and distribution of
  information.

    Books are a historical necessity, and text is
  immortal. Most gun texts do cover a mountain of
  data, and this research must provide a basis on
  which to move forward upon. However, the pictures
  usually lacking because they are black & white, or
  very small. Further, printing large, color
  pictures is expensive for both the publisher and
  the consumer.

    GUN is basically a picture application with no
  real upper limits. The application currently has
  only 30 full screen VGA, 256 color pictures in
  varying resolutions. Picture qualities will only
  increase in resolution and shrink in storage size.

    The guts of this idea is in Still Video computer
  images. This format has many advantages over
  traditional photography, mainly that images can
  be manipulated (larger, smaller, etc.), have an
  indefinite life, and can be transmitted
  electronically over telephone lines. The formats
  used currently are GIF (Graphics Interchange
  Format) for pictures and Patent scans.

     The GIF images are generated from a Still Video
  camera, digitized in a high resolution format,
  usually 640 x 480 (rows and columns) and 256
  colors. These files are between 150 and 250K each.
  At this rate a 1000 picture application could take
  over 200 Megabites of hard disk space. My solution
  is to compress these files into 320 X 200, 256
  color which keeps about 85% of the resolution in a
  30K file. I have allowed that any portion of the
  pictures can be used or deleted at any time to
  allow for ever changing hard disk storage
  priorities of the user. Currently, due to the small
  number of pictures included, all pictures are 
  located, ( and looked for by the viewer ) in a 
  single GUN\PICS subdirectory.	In other Arren-San
  applications, each manufacturer has a discrete 
  picture directory.

    The images are currently approximately 200,000
  pixels, or data points. Still video equiptment is
  available to double this resolution and capture
  the data twice for extra resolution,
  interpolation, and all around black magic.
  However, this is necessary to ensure the data
  captured today will be valid for generations to 
  come, even if the firearms are never to be 
  accessed again.

    A problem somewhat unique to long guns is a
  problem with the aspect ratio. Because the length
  is many times the width of a rifle or shotgun, the
  image of the entire object does not provide much 
  detail. Pistols are much easier subjects, and this
  is why mainly pistol images have been included.

  Picture libraries will be made available upon 
  request and as demand warrants.

    At 199,000 pixels, a 640 X 480, 256 color
  picture is roughly 200K. To adequately cover the
  world of firearms, my estimation is that
  about 10000 pictures will be required. This will
  equate to about 2000 megabites, and compression
  may reduce this to 1600 meg. Distribution will by
  necessity be on CD ROM, which can handle about 660
  megabites each. Don't groan - CD ROM readers are
  about $300 and will be cheaper than any other
  component of your computer system. The good news
  is that CD's cost about $10 each to produce in
  quintity, so $40 for CD's is far superior to $800
  for the equivalent floppies. But, you will still
  need many hundreds of megabites of hard disk space
  to store / use that type of product of the future.

    If we choose to generate a 640 x 480, 16.7
  million color (24 bit format) file, the size would
  be more like 907K with no compression. This would
  be required for highly critical manipulations,
  analysis, and color publishing. Yes, electronic
  images can be used in publishing, so paste up is
  history. But how can we get 24 bit images with
  16.7 million (real) colors ?


    A technology exists, while still evolving at the
  speed of light, that  writes the 24 bit images as
  strings of fractal geometry. Yes, they write
  pictures into sets of geometric functions. This
  yields orders of magnatude more data into an
  average 12K file. If true, the entire product of
  the future can be published on 50 floppies and
  only require the user to have 60 megabytes of hard
  disk space to store 5000 pictures of guns. But
  that ain't all: the image can then be written to
  any size or resolution level desired, or
  manipulated as desired. The fractals will also
  "fill" in at any level as long as there is data.
  For example, zoom in on that worn finish spot, and
  if the data is available, the program will show
  the layers of finish, or the level of pitting, etc.
  Can you say electron microscope from a camera, 
  manipulated from any computer, from a 12K data 
  file ?  If it really works ...

