Assistance needed with graphics to be used in database.

[marion sterling]

:rolleyes: Good Day all.

I am new to This forum and VB Programming. I am trying to set up a database for use with my hobbies. Perfin collecting (stamps). I want just the perfin pattern stored in the database, so i can do searches by cat number OR the perfin pattern. I have set up a form that opens the stamp into a picture box. I have a selection box to isolate , rotate and flip the perfin pattern. Some of the perfins are same pattern but hole size, and overall sizes differ. So I would need to be able to check these areas on a search.

Question is: What is the best way to get just the pattern to save into the database. And be able to set the patterns for searches.

Where can i find some referances on advanced graphics in VB6.

I have attached a scan of 3 perfins.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Marion

[Comatose]

Well, I'm not 100% sure how you would go about "looking" at the picture in code, and determining if the patterns are the same or not. That's going to be an extremely low level and complicated task, using the type of byte, undoubtedly. You would have to open the image for reading as binary, read in the bytes, and know the format and compare them. Not a pretty task. You could consider having the user give a description of the pattern, and then be able to search by the description (save the description in a file, and search for the description, and have the file contain the path to the picture, so like, the description, a delimiter, and then the path to the image). Other than that, you've hit me with a toughy.

[marion sterling]

Thanks for the reply. Yes it will be a toughy. I will have to read up on converting the scans/ pics into binary. There will be a catalouge # and a description field for searching also, but the pattern search is for when a cat number is not availible. Also the patterns are not always letters.

Thanks again for the suggestion

Marion