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The "normal" way Biopar discusses using TNT technology is in the context of a specific 'project' with a potential client. That discussion takes place before we even know what will be required for ID and morphometrics. In other words, "What do you want to do?" Do you want to "tag" fish for future idenification. Do you want to conduct research to determine taxonomic discriminants? Do you want to develop a multi-species database with climatic, geographic, and demographic meta-data? And so on. The responses to those questions guide the construction of the infrastructure of the "account". THEN we start asking about the species in question. If "tagging" is the primary goal, then we have to determine where on the animal the natural pattern occurs. Of critical importance is WHEN in the animal's life does the pattern show up, and determine if it is relatively immutable over the life of the animal, not changing with age or reproductive status. Getting that information is no small matter. Once that information is in hand, Biopar programmers have to write custom programs to "process" the images to extract that specific information AND store it in a database. Morphometric data is a similar but separate process.Can we as NANFA add that as a tool to our website?
I would be willing to work with NANFA - free of charge - to go through the preliminary steps necessary to well-define an initial "pilot project". My recommendation would be to define something "easy" to do initially. Get a feel for how it works within the NANFA infrastructure - something the "powers that be" seem to want to deny exists. If that pilot project "worked" to everyone's satisfaction, it could be expanded. (Biopar builds "expansion" into EVERY project.) Given that you put the use of TNT in the context of commercial enterprise, and since there MIGHT be considerable "work" that Biopar would have to do, I doubt seriously that Biopar could set something that comprehensive up without compensation. However, let me suggest something else.
My initial idea with NANFA members was to set up a NANFA "account". Among other things, that would include setting up a NANFA sub-site on the Biopar website. The NANFA account would have a NANFA administrator that would be responsible for the general oversight of the NANFA sub-site. That is essentially someone that would function like a "Moderator" at that site. They would also have the responsibility of authorizing new Biopar/NANFA users. In other words, no one would be able to use the Biopar NANFA site without that person's authorization. Members would have access to the site and the NANFA database maintained by Biopar. NANFA could decide how they wanted to share the data in the NANFA database. (You'd be amazed at how tight-fisted MOST government agencies are with "their" Biopar databases.)
On a side note: I spent 20 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars developing pattern recognition algorithms and patenting this technology. My pattern recognition algorithms are the fastest and most efficient in the world outside of whatever DoD might be doing. Those algorithms are not available for "distribution". There is no way I could trust "someone else" to be vigilant in protecting Biopar's intellectual property. Somebody would work at 'reverse engineering' them if they were out of my hands. What that means is that if NANFA wanted to access Biopar's technology through this site, there would have to be considerable work done to seamlessly link to the Biopar site in a way that the user didn't realize that they were actually "at" another site.
Back to what was my initial idea about use by NANFA members:
Members would come to the site and upload their images into the Biopar processing engine. While "easy", this interface - built specific to NANFA's needs - is what initiates the image processing and data storage. (This process is best understood via a "live" demonstration.) The person would choose what they want to "do" from a menu, and once the metadata was input and the image uploaded, would proceed to process that image. Here's the "Good News": Set up as I have just described, the person inputting the image(s) would do the processing "by hand". Done this way, I'm fairly confident that we could set this up without cost to NANFA. I don't think that would be possible if we have to 1) find the patterns, 2) write the algorithm for pattern matching, and 3) write algorithms for automatic processing. If this setup "worked" for everyone involved and NANFA wanted to expand the scope, we could discuss what that would mean in terms of cost.
Based on experience to date with NANFA, I am quite leery of discussing ANYTHING that even suggests "money". That said, Biopar's technology could be a source of revenue FOR NANFA, and without putting ANY burden on NANFA members. I've gotten a pretty cold shoulder from "the powers that be", but if the NANFA governors would like to discuss this further, I have made myself as available as I know how. I have made repeated offers of "no charge" and have been rudely rebuffed. I won't tolerate kindly any further crap about "promoting" or "advertising" for Biopar. My initial offer was for "free of charge". I am still willing to provide that service on a "recreational" scale. If NANFA - or any of it's commercial members - wants to discuss potential revenue generation via TNT technology, THAT'S THEIR CHOICE, and should take place somewhere other than on this forum.
Paul
NANFA Youtube Channel 
