My new favorite music video:

I’m working on an asset management tool that needs to extract data from various image formats. Here’s the formats I need to extract from:

• PSD (Photoshop)
• EPS (Various originations)
• AI (Illustrator)
• JPG
• PCD (Corel maybe?)
• PICT
• PPT (PowerPoint)
• TIFF

The information I need to extract:

• Creation date
• Color mode
• Horizontal resolution
• Vertical resolution
• Width
• Height
• Any embedded description (I imagine EXIF)
• A blob thumbnail to embed in my database from the source asset

I’m at a crossroads as some of the above I can extract with GD or ImageMagick, however neither tool will give me 100% of the data from 100% of the images (in fact, even together I can’t get all I need). Ideally, I would bypass the PHP/Server-Side scripting tools alltogether and bundle a scriptable Mac framework into a RealBasic desktop application. That’s what I’ve been trying out lately, but as I’ve never coded in RealBasic before, and don’t know much about things like Core Image I’m a little lost.

Anyone have any success with a project like this? Thankfully, I have 2.1 million assets that already have this information stored for me, so the above issue will only be for new assets imported (which I have pushed out a delay on any importing for a month).

Update September 03, 2008:

I have upgraded ImageMagick on my server and have succesfully converted several formats, leaving PICT as the only one that’s giving me fits.

• PSD (Photoshop) - Great!
• EPS (Various originations) - Pretty damn good
• AI (Illustrator) - Don’t need to convert at all
• JPG - Great!
• PCD (Corel maybe?) - Great!
• PICT - Very bad results (see below)
• PPT (PowerPoint) - Don’t need to convert (removing from new version)
• TIFF - Great!

Ok, so here’s what’s happening with the PICT files: When I run a basic convert (or mogrify) I’m getting a very small thumbnail version that appears to be inverted. I’ve attached two smaller (GraphicConverter adjusted) previews of the input and output using $ convert Corb_AFP_026.PICT Corb_AFP_026.jpg as the flag.

Input (a smaller version of the original)

Output

See how strange that is? I’m not sure what special flags I need to add to handle the PICT files. It appears that Preview can read the files without error, and GraphicConverter handles them fine as well. However, a simple convert does not, resulting in the output above.

Any suggestions?

Update 2 (same day):

Looks like PCD is now in the mix of piss-poor conversion. I’m having the same output issue as with the PICT files.

Went out for another ride on Sunday. While I do need to replace the fork oil (hitting bottom when I don’t want to be), get a legal plate on the bike, and add some mirrors (sigh, $140 if I’m lucky enough to find what I want) the bike is otherwise in great shape and just wants to go-go-go!

Riding Jolene on a Sunday.

My buddy Patrick worked on a KZ400 recently, and he shared some photos with me of the start to finish build.

I thought I’d show you what the bike looks like from the start to the finish (the very shorthand version).

Amazing job, Patrick!

The starting out - notice the high bars, the “Sean-target” taillight, and the fuzzy seat. Oh, also notice the battery box is in the default location.

And the finished product. Notice the bars are now MUCH lower, the “Sean-target” is gone, and the battery box and taillight are housed comfortably under a custom bump.
Also, look at that badass front fender! I want one of those!