User:Christchurch Image Bank

=Introduction=

The Christchurch Image Bank is an archive of high-resolution images of information-rich streetscapes, interiors and aerial views of a community established on the 16th of December 1850 as an exclusive theocratic Utopia. Eight generations later it is now the principal city of the largest of the fair isles of Oceania.

The Image Bank is a relatively objective Log of how the community and its guests have wanted to see the city since the time of its foundation.

A spatio-temporal image-map evolves from a time when the most desirable real estate was near to a cluster of four houses at the furthest navigable reach of an estuarine river and a landing-stage, some sheds and a Blacksmith's forge opposite.

The researcher can easily become familiar with an era when the more affluent pilgrims (as they called themselves) began erecting large houses on the other side of a trackless Common of fern and tussock, as they now are with the bucolic square that it's become. Two hundred and thirty one images already record the changes and events across one and a half centuries at what would become Market Place and is now Victoria Square. More extensive sequences track developments at other significant areas within the city.

Also included within the archive are Virtual Reality 360° panoramas, fly-through 3D models, video sequences and time-elapsed morphological transformations.

About the Archive
The archive includes more than 5,000 views of the city from 1851.

An average of 850 new images are being catalogued each month.

Prior to the current era, the decade with the highest frequency of images is 1900-1910. This was a period of significant development in the city and probably also relates to the International Exhibition from November 1906 to April 1907, when many thousands of foreign visitors sent postcards overseas. As a consequence international Internet Auctions have proven a rich source of early images.

The decade with the poorest representation is 1940-1949. This is probably due to governmental restrictions and the scarcity of film during much of that era.

Most sites within the bounds of the original city now have third generation buildings on them, nearly equal second are sites with second and fourth generation structures.

=Sources=

Domestic Archives
Uncorrelated collections of earlier images exist within the local Library, Museum and University and to a lesser extent within Archives New Zealand and the National Library of New Zealand. Significant levels of ambiguous annotation would seem to have occurred where these images have been published. Subsequent to visual and descriptive restoration they have been added to the Image Bank.

Private collections and Auction houses
Private collections and auction houses are also important sources of historical images, adding depth of perspective to the abundance published since the advent of digital photography.

Local Photographers and International Visitors
Images by local amateur photographers and visitors to the city, published in on-line Albums, provide an increasingly comprehensive record of the last five years of community development. The current year has yielded nearly a thousand streetscapes and interiors from these sources.

Subject Popularity
The most popular subjects chosen by travelers are the Botanical Gardens and banks of the Avon River, followed by Cathedral Square. Third is the range of Medieval Gothic revival architecture within the cultural precinct. This area includes the Arts Centre (formerly Canterbury College), the Provincial Council Chambers, the Museum, Christ's College and their environs. Fourth in order of popularity comes traveler accommodation, cafés, restaurants and bars, with a significant proportion of interior views.

Real Estate Industry
The Real Estate industry is also an important source of images. Their recent contributions, correlated with vintage images, have afforded accurate dating of architectural development and changes in taste and affluence during different eras. Enhanced by nine decades of aerial views, the development of suburban in-fill is readily apparent from the beginning of the community's third decade when houses, churches and halls were being removed from the city on Bullock drays to what are now the inner suburbs (a remarkable number have accordingly survived).

=Research=

Using the search function of all relevant industry-standard computer operating systems or their appropriate software applications, the archive is searchable, within time frames, at specific locations such as street side between intersections. Using the Microsoft Windows applications, results can be displayed as text, thumbnails or as a captioned, chronological slide show.

Search Examples
house 191 - All houses built, altered or demolished between 1910 and 1919

hereford cashel 188 - A narrow swathe through the commercial heart of the city, between 1880 and 1889, showing both sides of all streets connecting the parallel thoroughfares.

sculpture - All statuary and sculpture within the city

painting - All Watercolours and Oil paintings depicting urban scenes, etc.

185 - All images of the city's first decade (currently 126).

aerial south 193 - Aerial views with aspects from Southeast to Southwest, between 1930 and 1939

The archive can also be installed as a computer Screen Saver or viewed from a DVD disc via a video projector.

=Technical Information=

Digital Darkroom applications allow a satisfactory 300% enlargement as part of the restoration process of early images.

Dependent upon their historical significance or information content, the images are usually stored in the range of 650Kb to 6 Mb.

The 255-character image file names are based upon comma separated information fields using the Universal Data Format industry-standard file protocol (also known as UDF or Universal Disk Format).

Image filename data field sequence
[vantage point],[year],[nearest intersection],[next intersection],[aspect/elevation],[sundry keywords & tags].jpg

Example
Armagh, 1865, Manchester, Colombo, Southwest,From Left; Dr Deamer's new brick house & surgery - Gould house 1851 - second Golden Fleece Hotel at Colombo corner.

Using the same formula an event time-line and a bibliography have been integrated into the archive's information base.

Time-line data field sequence
[location],[year],[event type],[month],[day],[event description],[sundry keywords & tags]

Example
1924, Cashel, Nov, 11, Bridge of Remembrance dedicated.

Bibliographic data field sequence
[principal subject],[publication year],[publication type],[Title],[Author],[place of publication],[summary & tags]

Example
Press Newspaper, 1963, Media, Book HB, The Press 1861-1961: The story of a Newspaper, Not stated, Christchurch, Centennial history - Montreal 1861 - Cashel 1862 - Square 1909.

Contributions to the information base and suggestions for further types of information to be included are welcomed.

=Development=

An assiduous photographic survey of the city is recording sites of Archæological interest, buildings of historical significance that do not appear within the current range of sources and all buildings within the inner city that are being completed, altered or demolished.

Current copyright considerations and the anticipated scale of this project preclude on-line access to the complete archive within the near future. However, it's anticipated that the image bank will accessable for research at specic locations yet to be ascertained.

The longer term aims include using the archive as the raw data for a four-dimensional Geographic Information Systems (GIS) model of Christchurch, with a facility for the researcher to morph the view through time from any vantage point within or above the city.

--218.101.51.52 09:06, 12 December 2005 (UTC)