Overview     Manager     Publish     Net     Quartet    

A digital media asset management and picture library system for cataloguing and indexing all standard MIME
types - for example TIFF and JPEG images; video & sound clips including MPEG, WMV, MP4,
MOV, AVI; all Microsoft Office document types; Adobe PDFs etc...

iBase Manager - is a Windows application for PCs providing a set of tools for creating and managing an image database or a database of other digital assets and associated descriptive information. Manager supports all industry standard image, video and sound formats, and other files such as Word documents and PDFs. It makes organising, finding and displaying any item within the database easy and efficient and allows users to adjust and manipulate images, store them at multiple resolutions, keyword items and associate items with others in the database.

Outstandingly - iBase Manager provides for not only the creation and management of a structured subject / category / keyword hierarchy, but also enables sets of data fields to be created that are specific to each of any number of separate item types within a single database.

Index

1. Storing images
2. Database requirements
3. Hardware requirements
4. Displaying information about collections
5. Searching
6. Browsing and viewing records
7. Display of information
8. Different media types
9. Creating links between items
10. Searching through linked items
11. Configuration options

The Manager database with images or other digital assets can be published to iBase Net, providing access to them on the web or through an internal network (intranet). Click here for information on how Manager works with Net. (Adobe Reader required)

1. Storing images - digital assets can be managed by iBase in two ways; they may be either "linked" to the system from their original location, or copied and imported by iBase Manager and placed in a predefined server location.

Image files can also be imported from TWAIN compatible devices, such as scanners and cameras. Textual data can also be imported directly into the system from text files or any ODBC-compliant database. Files can be batch imported for speed and convenience.

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2. Database requirements - iBase Manager supports MS SQL Server 2000 / 2005, MSDE - a cost free version of Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle 10g.

3. Hardware requirements - In practice any new mid-range machine will run an iBase Manager client satisfactorily, or the following minimum specification will provide the best possible performance.

• Pentium 4 2GHz or equivalent
• 1Gb RAM
• 5Gb spare hard disk space
• SVGA graphics card
• Windows XP Pro

4. Displaying information about collections - files can be described using a customisable set of data fields. This may range from a simple Title, Date, Description set, to a full Dublin Core data structure. Data already available in Museums, Libraries and Archives systems can be directly imported and mapped to the relevant digitised item. Data can be entered on a record-by-record basis, or inserted or replaced across a batch of records, speeding data entry. In addition to field data, Manager includes a sophisticated keyword system that allows records to be classified and linked in multiple ways.

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5. Searching - Manager enables the user to retrieve items using any of the four powerful search mechanisms:

1. Word Search - find items that contain a word, word stem or phrase.
2. Data Search - locates items containing any piece of data, including numeric or date ranges (e.g. a user could search for pictures executed in 1840 and painted using watercolour).
3. Subject Search - displays a hierarchical subject tree or subject list and allows the user to search on any level of the tree or list.
4. Media Search - allows the user to locate records that do / do not have images, videos, sounds or files associated with them.

All of Manager's search engines can also be used to create Boolean search strings for really precise and sophisticated retrieval. The user can save the results of their search and access them at any time.

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6. Browsing and viewing records - Manager is designed to make viewing records simple and efficient. Users can move through items, viewing media records and associated data individually, or browse a gallery of thumbnails.

Images can be zoomed to display progressively more detail and "panned" if they are larger than the screen. A unique tracker feature allows a low-resolution preview to be displayed alongside a high-resolution version indicating the portion of the high-resolution image that is displayed on screen. As the high-resolution image is panned, the preview changes to reflect the area currently in view. Images can be "dropped" onto an imagedesk to allow side-by-side comparison.

7. Display of information - the iBase Manager screen is very flexible. Windows and toolbars can be arranged to perform particular tasks and workspace layouts saved. For example, if users were quality checking images, a screen could be laid out containing a large image and a small data form with a check box and notes field in one area. Workspaces can be set-up by any user with edit rights.

8. Different media types - Manager allows users to save multiple types of item within the database, with different combinations of components (e.g. image, video, sound, and document) and different sets of data fields for each "Item Type". This enables the user to describe a range of objects within one system. For example there may be a collection of works of art that need to be entered into the database, but also a series of records on individual artists, so a user might create an "Artist Item Type" and an "Artwork Item Type".

• The Artist Item represents the artist and might have dates, biographical details, a photograph, maybe an interview video or audio clip.
• The Artwork Item represents each of the works by the particular artist and would have details about the individual work, and maybe a range of images of the work.

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9. Creating links between items - relationships allow users to link different Items together. Take the above example of an Artist Type and an Artwork Type. In a typical database there will be one Artist but many of their works of Art. Manager can link that one Artist (Type), with its own data fields, to all their related Artwork. This feature can be extended to create exhibitions, narratives and educational resources.

10. Searching through linked items - the Relationships Tree allows users to navigate through Relationships at the click of button. A user can be looking at an Artist, and then navigate to a set of all the Artworks created by that Artist. Users can then move from a work of Art, to information about an Exhibition in which that work of Art was displayed.

11. Configuration options - iBase Manager is highly configurable by a user with administration permissions, both in terms of data structure and the look and feel of data entry forms.

• Create a database structure with as many fields as are required, subject to any constraints of your underlying database.
• Modify the database structure.
• Create aliases (visible labels) for all fields as required.
• Create data entry forms with a look and feel suitable for each user - much like creating forms in, for example, Access.
• Create workspaces, which can be saved and used as required, by individual users if required.
• Create subject keyword hierarchies, labelled as required to as many levels as are needed.
• Create customised import policies for images - determining the number of surrogate images created, their type, and resolution.

PDF version of this page (Adobe Reader required).

Information on how iBase Manager and Net work together (Adobe Reader required).

For further information on iBase products please contact us at sales@ibase.com or call +44 (0) 1943 603636

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