Orchid search engine

[packat]

Hello, I am a computer scientist who has a deep passion for orchids. My parents grew several orchids where I grew up (Thailand), way back in the 60's. Our fence at the front part of the property lined with 8-9 feet long poles covered with coconut husk and grew Vanda on them. They are very common in Thailand. I don't know what species, but the plants grew as tall as the poles and flowered profusely. The leaves were thin about 10 cm long with round cross section. We had several other kinds of orchids too, mostly natives of Thailand.

I now live in Maryland near DC. I have spent fortune over the years trying to grow several orchids I bought from local nurseries and internet. But I wasn't successful. They all eventually died. But even with all these failed attempt, my love for orchids has never faded. I decided to turn to studying them instead of growing them. My new goal is to build a web-site that I (or any site visitors) to search the database that stores taxonomy and various characteristics of each species. For instance, people could request: "find all orchids with red lip, yellow petals, 2-3 cm in size,....." etc. The response would be the list of species that match, or fuzzy match these characteristics. I hope to also show pictures that I collected over the years from the internet. Probably those that some of you took. But I need to work out the intellectual property issue first before I can do that.

My questions to the community are:

1) Would this be useful to you? 2) Is there a website(s) that has comprehensive list of orchid taxonomy? I have looked at several sites including wikipedia, which are very useful, but I haven't yet found an authoritative and comprehensive site. 3) This is a stupid question: I found several differentiations between sites on the species name: e.g. dayana vs dayanum, coccinea vs coccineum, aurea vs aureum,... and many more. What is the standard practice when it comes to choosing which version to use?

Thanks, pax

[K Barrett]

Pax, if you want to get involved with databases, maybe you should ask Jay Pfahl

if he wants help with his site or ask Alex Maximano if he wants help with Orchid Wiz or ask the American Orchid Society if they want help with their site Goodness knows the AOS always needs talent. Otherwise its kinda hard to compete with the Google search engine. If I want to know anything I just google the term and usually I find it to any depth of interest.

K Barrett

[v_coerulea]

I pretty much agree with everything said so far. While I don't think anyone here would do it unless provoked you could be prosecuted for just downloading all those pictures you say you have. That's copyright infringement. If your harddrive were to be confiscated for any reason, those pictures could provide more evidence against you. While most of us probably have some downloaded material hanging around the harddrive, we don't say so or propose to use it. Take the advice and start more modestly. If you manage to work out the basic problems, I'll be the first to try and help. But you have a lot of footwork to do first before anyone will invest time, energy or intellectual property. Gary

[Steve]

OK, now I better understand. If you have the ability to make existing knowledge easier to search through and find what we need to know, then I am sure everyone here would be interested to hear how it's going as your project develops.

Steve

[v_coerulea]

So you're not talking about databases just coding for acess to a database the will be created in the futures by someone or individuals. If that's correct and you're just looking for advice on what topics interest people so you can write it into your program, then this whole thing is a lot easier. Mentionned already was lip color. You can add wavy, frilly, small, large; flower recumbent or not; flower large, medium, small, single, small group, cluster; tall spike, medium, or small; spike straight, lax or arched, or downward; plant is small, medium, large, very large, miniature; monopodial growth, sympodial growth; internode is 1", >1", <1". You get the idea I think (credit, please. Just joking) Enjoy yourself. Gary

What I made the wrong choice of words. What I meant by "intellectual property" is really "infringement". I have never taken a picture of orchids in my entire life :) so there is no intellectual to protect on my part. Sigh... I have been living in the US for over 30 years, but my English vocabulary can only fill a Chinese restaurant menu!

I visited Jay Pfahl impressive site. I am awed at the massive content he accumulated, and cannot guess the amount of time needed to maintain the currency of the classification, now that there are a lot of re-classification efforts around the world.

The project I have in mind was a lot more modest that some of you may think. My intention is to develop a web software, not the content. It is not to build a comprehensive information center such as JayPfahl's, which would require in-dept expertise that comes with years of experience on orchids classification which I don't have. I am sure Jay did not just spend a few years collecting pictures and organizing them on his web site.

I am more comfortable in designing and writing computer software. I will reach retirement age in a couple of years which make me think what I really want to do to make my retirement meaningful and entertaining. I want to see a web site where people can search pictures by features (pattern, color, shape, etc..) without any knowledge of scientific classification. The search algorithm is not specific to orchids. Before taking on such a massive undertaking (phrase borrowed from Dianna) I need a small manageable sample data for proof of concept. And for that, I planned to use orchids under genus begin with A to D. As Steve and K Barrett suggested, it may be better to share this capability with existing content provider such as Jay Pfahl's and/or American Orchid Society. But I am way ahead of my self. For now, I will only focus on designng and building a proof of concept.

Thanks you all, pax

[packat]

Thank for the great tip. You read mind. Is this common among vanda's? ;-) I think the key is to know what key features people are looking for in orkinds. You gave me lots of answers. What I have done so far were the standard thing, petal, sepal and lips color, pattern, relative size, shape, texture. I will add what you suggested.

thanks, pax