[help-GIFT] Re: Perl MRML CGI Client

[David Squire]

Sander Bockting wrote:
> Dear David,
>
> For an Information Retrieval course at the University of Twente, a study 
> partner
> and I are trying to build an image retrieval system in which we will try to 
> test
> User Interfaces for children. We want to evaluate search techniques in which 
> the
> search is started using a random selection of images or using a search phrase
> and where children can search again with the resulting set of images.
>
> Since the time to build and evaluate such a system is limited, we first 
> searched
> for systems that may form a good starting point. One of the useful systems we
> found is the GIFT. However, the default version of the GIFT does not allow us 
> to
> use text (if we are correct). We found an implementation of the GIFT that used
> algorithms that combined textual annotations with visual properties. We 
> believe
> (and hope) that we found it on your site.
>
> If it is indeed your site where we found the GIFT that used some algorithms 
> that
> used textual elements, we would like to ask you if it is possible for us to 
> use
> those algorithms.
>
>   
Dear Sander and Matthijs,

You have indeed found the right person. I am one of the original Viper
team that created the GIFT, and a few years ago I hacked together a
version that could use text features as well. It was pretty easy to do,
since the whole philosophy of the GIFT features and query engine is
inspired by "classic" text retrieval systems.

It's a long time since I did it, and it was always just a hack - never
properly integrated into the GIFT source tree. I am in the midst of
moving from the UK to Australia this week, and I can't promise that I
will be able to find the code in time for you. Would next week be OK? I
will see what I can find.

In any case, rest assured that it is easy to hack the GIFT to do this.

Regards,

David


-- 
Dr. David McG. Squire, Senior Lecturer. On sabbatical in 2006.
Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Australia
CRICOS Provider No. 00008C       http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~davids/