Well, I have been working on this project (login: test_guest, password: test_guest) for several months now, and I am getting around to releasing it soon. There are still a few things left to do, like getting on a UCI hosted server, integrating it with WebAuth, and production-side testing. The web-based application is based on a concept that University Strategic Communications came up with in order to organize and facilitate its large collection of digital assets. The first phase of the application will handle digital imagery, with later stages to include video, audio, and digital documents. I am hoping this will turn into UCI’s very own digital assets “cloud”.
Architecture:
This web-based application is based on the rudiments of the LAMP structure. It also utilizes some server-side third-party software, that allows for dynamic image asset manipulation, including resizing, scaling, and watermarking. This is accomplished using a combination of custom implementation of phpThumb, in conjunction with ImageMagick. ExifTool is a powerful serverside software used to extract any metadata regarding each image uploaded and stored into the archive. This allows for extracting data to be locally stored in the archive’s database, as well as the capability to write any new data to the master image files.
Administration – Editing an image asset:
After logging into the image archive system, any user with administration privileges will be presented with light table like interface. With this you can search for individual images in the search box on the top right, browse images in the archive, or select one in order to edit its information. If you wish to edit an image start with the basic route by starting on the initial page, where you are presented with a tiled list of image slides, and select and image like demonstrated in the image on the left (figure 1).
Once selected, you will be brought to the main image view page (figure 2), this is where all image editing, and maintenance takes place. Some features are turned on or off, based on your user type (user types/levels will be explained in following articles).
- This is the title of the image. By default, the image is given its file name, if no title is provided. Click directly on this text, and you will be provided a text field, in order to edit/change the image’s title.
- This is the primary area used for editing all the metadata/information associated with an image, including:
- Shoot name
- Date created
- Image credit (i.e. John Doe ©2012)
- Photographer
- Camera information (keep in mind this is not editable)
- File name
- Who last changed data about an image, and when that data was changed.
- Status of an image for licensing:
- Is it an outtake?
- Is it a select image?
- Is this image meant for a publishing, and if so, what publication?
- This section will allow you to edit/maintain the 3 caption elements of an image, including Final, Feature, and Generic. To edit any one of the caption, simply select the text area and enter text. Text automatically gets saved.
Managing image asset restrictions:
The next facet of editing an image asset is the group of tabs in the bottom area (figure 3). This is mainly used for managing the licensing restrictions for an image. Restrictions inform the licensed user of the image asset’s restrictions of usage. There are 6 restriction types:
- Embargoed: in order to restrict an image for embargo, provide only an embargo date in the provided text field.
- HIPPA: Yes/No option
- NCAA: Yes/No option
- Subject: provide an explanation.
- Internal: same as Subject restriction.
- External: same as Subject restriction.
Managing image asset groups:
The last tab in the image view is Groups (figure 4), and this will allow you to manage to what groups the image belongs. For most groups may be a confusion concept to understand, from a management perspective, but groups are meant to make batch editing of images easier, as well as provide categorization and build associations between multiple image assets.
- This is the group tile. One of the groups to which the image belongs. An image can belong to multiple groups. Click Remove group assignment to remove the image-to-group relationship, or click the image inside of the tile, in order to go to the group’s view.
- If you would like to add the image being viewed to an existing group, type in the title of the group, and then select from the suggestion drop down. Once the item from the drop down is selected, the image will be assigned to that group.
- If there is no existing group that you would like to add this image to, you can add a new group from here, by entering the group title in this text field, and click Add & assign.
Let’s add some keywords:
An image also can have its keywords edited, or new ones can be added to the archive as well as to the image. In the accordion menu to the right of the image, select the Keywords item, if not opened, and add keywords.
- Enter any new non-existing keywords in this text field, and click the Add button.
- Begin typing any words in this larger container, and a suggestion drop down will give you existing keywords.The ability to add new keywords is only available to Administrator users. All other user types can only add existing keywords.
Well, that’s it for now. Visit back for part II of this article, where I will discuss uploading image assets to the archive, and in part III, where we will go over managing image asset in bulk, using groups. If you have any questions or comments, please submit them in the comments section below! Cheers!