[Ma:]

Hi everyone,

For investigation purpose, I have to create a multimedia database that contains pictures together with certain and incertain data. More concrete, it's a database that collects pictures of landscapes in Belgium (www.recollectinglandscapes.be). Every picture has a location, a photographer, a date (could be certain or incertain), unique location,... I want to do some investigation on such type of data like working with quad-trees and kd-trees to store the information.

Now my question to experts like you is ideas on what database and (if necessary) what programming language I should use to make it a success.

I thought about postGreSQL, perhaps Oracle, and if there's a need for a programming language I would prefer Java. Do you have any ideas or solutions on my problem

thank you very much in advance

Mathias

[aschk]

This could be due to not understanding your requirements specifically but ANY half decent database will support what you're after, i.e. the database really shouldn't matter here, what matters is how that data is organised. So the database design is probably key to achieving your goals.
Each database system has its +'s and -'s so it's up to your preference really as to which you wish to choose.

You're talking about using quad-trees and kd-trees, but I think you'll need to explain more thoroughly why you need to work with these data structures in particular. What "investigation" are you doing on this data?

[loquin]

From a practicality/efficiency viewpoint. many folks (myself included) would recommend that the multimedia files be stored in the file system, rather than within the database, and that only the path of the multimedia file be stored in the database. Now, most databases are capable of storing the multimedia files internally, however, access to the files is often substancially slower than if they are stored externally. (plus the database can quickly become unwieldy if the files are stored within it.) The trade-off is that you have to maintain separate sets of permissions, and you need to ensure that the files are never deleted, moved or renamed without updating the database (otherwise you end up with orphan files or records)

[Brett Kaiser]

Originally Posted by loquin

From a practicality/efficiency viewpoint. many folks (myself included) would recommend that the multimedia files be stored in the file system, rather than within the database, and that only the path of the multimedia file be stored in the database. Now, most databases are capable of storing the multimedia files internally, however, access to the files is often substancially slower than if they are stored externally. (plus the database can quickly become unwieldy if the files are stored within it.) The trade-off is that you have to maintain separate sets of permissions, and you need to ensure that the files are never deleted, moved or renamed without updating the database (otherwise you end up with orphan files or records)

Second that

Too short

[Ma:]

Originally Posted by aschk

You're talking about using quad-trees and kd-trees, but I think you'll need to explain more thoroughly why you need to work with these data structures in particular. What "investigation" are you doing on this data?

I already did some investigation to lookup spatio-temporal data in databases and my conclusion was that quad-trees, and also a little bit kd-trees are very useful for this kind of data. An exaple, every picture has unique x- and y- coördinations, and for looking up on these values, quad-trees are extremely useful. For my last investigation I used a caché database with help of the caché-java binding to program the quad-tree. But now my purpose is to make a database that is as fast as possible, where I can make use of the quad-tree and kd-tree data-structure for looking up. I don't have many experience with database systems and I would prefer a binding with java

thanks for the tips already!!! I appreciate

[mike_bike_kite]

Ma

I'm not familiar with quad trees or kd trees but after 2 minutes on google I'd say they're a complicated way of getting your end result.

Why not just have a traditional database (artists, type of art, locations etc) and link to a file stored in a directory. This topic was discussed in this forum a month or two ago and I think the general consensus was that this is the correct method.

You could just have a table containing a hierarchy of locations (Belgium -< areas -< cities etc) and link each artwork to a point in the hierarchy. You could optionally have an importance score for each artwork to help decide when to show it and at what level. It would be interesting to also have feedback from users on artwork - perhaps populating the front page with the most popular pieces.

As an interface you could be built either as a list of places or from a map that is "mapped" to these places and by clicking on various points you'd see the art of that area. Perhaps you could also have date as well so a user could see how the area has changed from the point of view of the artist. You could also link the art pieces together so users could see all paintings by the artist, all paintings in that area, all similar styles of painting etc.

I wouldn't limit yourself to just paintings though - I'd go for any type of art (poems, sculpture etc) as often the different forms evolve together. And why limit the system to just Belgium?

Mike

EDIT just spotted the enter key on the web site (perhaps you could consider using darker colouring here ) - much of the above may be already done but I can't read Belgian to find out. You also need a link on each page to go back to the front page. It would be very nice if it uploaded a different pictures all the time on the home page. Also changed my mind on using GPS co-ordinates to just a location hierarchy. Added link to topic.

[certus]

@mike, I think Ma: wants to hook into a mapping API with coordinates of the photograph as parameters.

[mike_bike_kite]

Oops - did I get the wrong end of the stick again

still think the quad / kd trees are too complicated for what he's after though.

[Ma:]

Thanks for the reply's guys, i'll keep you posted on how my investigation proceeds