Where can I upload images and files for use on MATLAB Answers?

Where can I upload images and files for use on MATLAB Answers?

When you do upload, please use .zip files instead of .rar or .bzip or .7zip, as some systems cannot handle the other formats.

None of the following are officially supported by Mathworks, but they are some of the sites that people have found convenient to use.

One site per Answer, please, so people can comment about individual sites.

[Oleg Komarov]

I really think the fourm should allows direct upload

[sheen]

yes exactly

[Jan]

Agree. A thread is meaningless in the future, if the upload service removes the contents after a month or year.

[Sean de Wolski]

or disappears because The Evil Facebook buys it... drop.io we miss you!

[Jim]

use blogger.com and give the link with your question

[Jan]

We have 32'000 questions in this forum. A lot of them contain pictures, which are hosted on a bunch of servers and internet services. Non of them is officially supported by MathWorks. Whenever such a picture is deleted, the corresponding question and all its answers becomes meaningless. Therefore hosting the pictures on a MathWorks server is very important. In addition I really hate to be forwarded to ugly pages, which force me to enable JavaScript and overwhelm me with commercials.

The current strategy is equivalent to this policy:

After about a year a few important sentences are deleted from about 5% of the messages.

But this is obviously counterproductive in a forum, which was announced as a stable database for solutions. Therefore I boycott this thread: I do not vote for any of the mentioned services, because they are all insufficient workarounds for a problem, TMW could solve in minutes.

Answer 1

[Jan]

The problem has been solved ultimately by TMW: You can store the pictures directly on the forum's servers now.

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/87583#answer_97176Y

[Walter Roberson]

[Jan]

The US government applied a lot of pressure to Europe, to allow the import of genetically manipulated products. I'm convinced, that the NSA did not hack only our smart phones and records our emails, but they control the chicken also - even in space.

[Sean de Wolski]

I wonder if Doug's chickens are controlled by the state too?

[Walter Roberson]

Oh no! They've been censored out of the Curiosity photo!

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

imageshack - http://www.imageshack.us - allows images

Supports image previews

Supports resizing image to a particular size at time of upload.

No registration necessary to upload images.

[Arun Badigannavar]

thank u

[Walter Roberson]

Note: imageshack.us goes Subcription Only as of January 1, 2016.

Answer 3

[Jan]

My favourite: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange ! I've used a link to a screenshot of one of my FEX submissions.

Every upload service in the internet must produce profit. Otherwise it will be closed very soon. Forwarding the traffic from this forum to any foreign service must support an obscure money making practice. Therefore I strongly suggest: Ask files@mathworks to disable Google-Analytics and to allow storing pictures on a Matlab server.

[Walter Roberson]

Some upload services support free uploads only of smaller files or limited quantities, and derive their funding by convincing people to move to their "premium" paid service. I have no general problem with that kind of business model (though I personally do not care for services that make you jump through hoops and "nag-ware" you constantly into upgrading.) My email provider is an example of a system that provides limited free service that I found useful and non-intrusive enough that I willingly converted to their premium service.

Answer 4

[Gurudatha Pai]

I would put the files on my personal website or dropbox public folder and share a link ( http://www.dropbox.com). In both case, I would have total control over the content and both would not require registration and will stay there as long as I wish them to be there.

[Walter Roberson]

dropbox appears to require registration for free use.

dropbox does not allow web uploading; it requires that a program be downloaded to your computer to manage the access.

The dropbox terms say,

===

While you own the content contained in Your Files, files placed in your public folders are automatically available to other Dropbox users and to the general public. By placing Your Files in your public folder, you hereby grant all other Dropbox users and the public a non-exclusive, non-commercial, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, perpetual and irrevocable right and license to use and exploit Your Files in your public folder. In other words, a file in your public folder can be used by anyone, for any purpose except commercial use. If you do not want other people to be able to use Your Files in this manner, then simply do not place Your Files in your public folder.

===

[James]

Dropbox are a widely-trusted service for filesharing. The publically viewable folders are, when setup, very easy to use (with files of any size - a major constraint on many imageuploaders), as you simply drop the file into the appropriate folder on your computer and give the url to whoever needs it.

It's legal-speak, but basically Dropbox are covering their backs, so that if you put/broadcast something online using their service and someone else takes it (as they can easily do) nothing comes back to bite Dropbox. They claim are for non-commercial use, as any business that misuses your content for commercial use is an actual target that can be sued, unlike anonomous individuals on the web.

But, if it needs protected, why would you put it on the internet publically anyway?

[Paul T John]

Every file (say, a .zip file) in the public folder of Dropbox has a public link. It can be copied and pasted anywhere. When another person (need not be a Dropbox user) clicks the link, the .zip file is downloaded into the person's computer. The link is valid till the person who uploaded it decides them to stay there. He/she can even update the folder and the link would still be valid, provided the file-name is not changed.

Answer 5

[Walter Roberson]

imgr - http://imgur.com - images only

Images over 1 Mb will be compressed to 1 Mb.

No registration required to upload images.

Retention is 6 months after last download.

Image URL is private unless it becomes a popular tweet.

Keep track of the deletion links for what you have posted anonymously!

Answer 6

[Oleg Komarov]

tinypic - http://tinypic.com/ - allows images

Supports resizing image to a particular size at time of upload.

No registration necessary to upload images.

[Image Analyst]

My current favorite recommendation is tinypic.com.

[Walter Roberson]

By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content on or through the TinyPic Services, you hereby grant to TinyPic and other users a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels. Content will be publicly available, and TinyPic and other Users may copy or display Content outside of the TinyPic Services through the quick link feature or through any other display mechanisms.

[Image Analyst]

Isn't it this way on all "free" hosting sites, and even many pay sites? Which free site doesn't assume these rights for themselves?

[Walter Roberson]

I have only glanced at some of the Terms, but at least one of the sites I posted said specifically they don't look at the contents or make it available to anyone else.

Answer 7

[Walter Roberson]

Photobucket - http://photobucket.com - Allows images

Registration required to upload images.

Answer 8

[Walter Roberson]

speedyshare - http://speedyshare.com - allows files and images

[Not known whether it supports image preview]

No registration necessary to upload files

Premium (paid) accounts use tracking cookies for every file :(

Can I make money simply by sharing my files? you may ask. The answer is Yes! Every file you upload within your Premium Account will leave a hidden tracking code (cookie) on every computer where the file is downloaded. If anyone subscribes for SpeedyShare Premium using the computer where your files were downloaded, we pay you as well! The tracking code is valid for 365 days, so you can make money even a year after your file has been downloaded.

[Jan]

I don't like tracking cookies.

[Walter Roberson]

Quite. I run several cookie-blockers myself.

Answer 9

[Sean de Wolski]

Upload house

http://www.uploadhouse.com

• Makes it very easy to give a link directly to an image and to embed an image in an Answers post.
• No registration necessary.
• Allows for resizing on load
• Allows for password protection

This website does occasionally have highly inappropriate advertisements, but those are invisible to others as long as you embed the image in a post here.

[Image Analyst]

I don't recommend this as they allow adult themed images and our corporate filter won't let that site come through. Unfortunate because it does have some benefits that the others don't.

[Sean de Wolski]

IA, does that mean you can't see images in Answers that are just pulling an image from UploadHouse? Such as my second post in this thread:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/7394-find-pixel-coordinates-value-of-a-centroid

?

[Walter Roberson]

If it works like my workplace, the attempt to retrieve the remote file would simply come back as file not found, possibly after a time delay.

Answer 10

[Walter Roberson]

easyshare - http://www.easy-share.com - allows files and images

[Not known whether it supports image previews]

People downloading for free are prompted to sign up for each file they wish to download (i.e., not friendly to volunteers)

Free downloads are limited to 200 MB per hour.

Files uploaded for free are automatically deleted if unused for 90 days.

[Walter Roberson]

Free downloads may have a 30+ second delay imposed on them.

Answer 11

[Walter Roberson]

dropdo - http://dropdo.com - allows files and images

Supports image previews

File size limit is 25 MB

No registration required

Files are saved indefinitely.

Firefox add-on is available to upload: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dropdo/

Answer 12

[Walter Roberson]

rapidshare - https://rapidshare.com/ - allows files and images

Does not support image preview.

No registration necessary to upload images.

Files uploaded for free may be automatically deleted if unused for 30 days.

People downloading for free are prompted to sign up for each file they wish to download (i.e., not friendly to volunteers)

Free downloads may have a ~5 minute delay imposed on them.

Answer 13

[Walter Roberson]

jumbofiles - http://jumbofiles.com - allows files and images

[Not known whether it supports image preview.]

No registration necessary to upload.

Limit for uploads without registration is 1 GB per file.

People downloading for free are prompted to sign up for each file they wish to download (i.e., not friendly to volunteers)

No download delay.

Answer 14

[Walter Roberson]

sendspace - http://www.sendspace.com/ - allows files and images

[Not known whether it supports image previews]

Answer 15

[Walter Roberson]

flickr - http://www.flickr.com/ - allows images

Supports image previews. Supports multiple image sizes for the same image.

[Sean de Wolski]

Can sometimes be difficult (impossible) to save the image.

Answer 16

[Arnaud Miege]

I use my own Picasa Web Album. It takes a bit of work to link just the picture as opposed to the web page it's located on, but as it's my own album, I'm in relative control of the content - unless that is, Google suddenly decides to remove the contents.

[Walter Roberson]

Personally I don't like the indexing and content correlation that Picasa (and Google Mail) do.

Answer 17

[Walter Roberson]

mediafire - http://mediafire.com

Imposes its own viewer on PDF files.

Answer 18

[Walter Roberson]

filesin - http://www.filesin.com

Does not support image preview.

No registration necessary to upload.

People downloading for free are prompted to sign up for each file they wish to download

Free downloads may have a ~45 second delay imposed on them.

Free downloads have a "capatia" (type the letters shown in the image) imposed on them.

Considering the pay-nags, the imposed delays, and the hassle of the capatia, this is not a service that is friendly to volunteers, who are likely not to bother looking at the images.

Answer 19

[Image Analyst]

Here is a very easy one for uploading images: snaggy: http://snag.gy/ You can copy a screen shot (using alt-printscreen), or copy a file from Windows Explorer (or whatever, using control-C), then goto snaggy and simply type control-v.

Advantages: easy to upload files via pasting, no registration required for anyone who uploads or downloads, one URL (versus having to choose from multiple different types on some other web sites), downloader can see image immediately with no additional clicks.

Disadvantages: it converts the image to jpeg so you may get jpeg artifacts.

[Sean de Wolski]

Requires Chrome or Firefox.

[Image Analyst]

Or Internet Explorer (which I just tested). I have not tested others (Safari, Opera, etc.).

[Sean de Wolski]

For me, on IE8, it wanted to run a Java Applet, which with the recent security issues....