IDigBio is an organization working for the implementation of digitizing museum specimens. The Professor I am working for has been awarded a grant to do just this at our University.
I have been given a task to build an equipment spreadsheet, and meet all the technical specifications for this project and the department. We have an outdated .ppt that describes the manor in which raw data should be stored. But they have not mentioned how to work with your IT department when implementing a Department server. I am going to propose to the department that we implement our own server, I believe I can implement the server for the department and meet IDigBio specifications.
Today our department met with IT, and I feel that they want us to purchase a server through them, and install it on their mainframe in our building. We haven't gotten quotes, but they want to install a "9 spinner - Raid 0" setup, the relationship should be good. Professors must meet the IT departments specifications and all technology must go through IT prior to integration online.
Although the money is distributed in a "Decentralized" manor, I feel as if the IT department is shooting for our department to buy a server that will be integrated into their network.
I'll update this with more periodically. I found this article by PCMag helpful
@Zelgada I have updated IT with our specifications, I am awaiting their quotes for the equipment they can source with their discounts from Dell.
Yesterday I visited with the Dean of Photography here on campus, he took an hour of his time explaining to me the pros and cons of the set up we are trying to build. This meeting was extremely beneficial and much more educational than I expected. Understanding that lighting must be 5500 Kelvin (K) to represent true color, and that other light sources can cause interference, or "warm" and "hot" spots in the final image. We are going to be editing these photographs with Adobe Lightroom, and each specimen will be photographed with a Kodak or Macbeth scale and color guide, this will provide a true representation of white and black before decompression and batching to the folder.
The professor also mentioned that the copy stand we want to purchase would not be adequate for the size of specimens, as the distance from the specimen increases, the Field of View does also, the copy stand will actually hinder a full photograph if the diagonal is larger than 1.5 meters. Calculations like these matter in the beginning, I am trying to create a system that will be viable for 5 years or longer. Proactively thinking, I reached out to a photography professor and he mentioned using a scissor boom. This will allow us to mount a frame to the wall, allowing us 47 inches of vertical freedom, this does not include the height from the floor but from the specimen table, this is referred to as "working distance". The scissor boom will allow us 3 feet of horizontal freedom, the importance of increasing the horizontal movement will allow for larger specimen collection. The primary reason for taking all this into account is due to the macro photography we are conducting, we will be using a 50-55 mm lens, and our DSLR camera will have an uncropped sensor. This provides the highest field of view possible.
A sub-problem photographing specimens from above that are taller than 3 inches is the Depth of Field, this can be mitigated with increasing the light and decreasing the shutter speed.
I'll update this again when we receive our quotes from IT, I have been told by the computer science department that we should just buy our equipment, ship it to IT for their stamp of approval, and not worry about the equipment quotes because they will not be worth it.