Naming Convention, Rules-based File-renaming Utility using Thumbnails?

We’re building cellular sites for Siemens/Cingular, and each site needs a series of photos to fill the documentation requirements. The photos need to follow a naming convention – especially since, at the end of such a project, there’ll be thousands of photos.

I specifically do not need any of the standard incremental file renaming utilities – what we need is something that lets us figure out what image file fills what image requirement (by looking at thumbnails), then renames & organizes the collection of images to meet the naming convention.

I hope someone knows of a tool that can make this requirement easy to handle. I envision a thumbs pane showing images taken of a single cell site, most likely still on a CF card or whatever. From that pane, I’d like to drag & drop images into thumbnail "slots" that represent each of the rules below (or other sets of rules, of course). At the end of a drag&drop session, the tool would copy images, rename them to the convention and file them in an appropriately created directory. It’d be great if the tool also tracked/audited missing images.
I believe that such a tool would be fairly easy for an image software team to create from existing tools. More to the point, maybe something like this already exists – I gotta think that a purpose like mine is a major reason for the purchase of lots of digital cameras.
Please let me know what you think….

Cut from documentation requirements:
————————————

1.6 – Digital Pictures
Digital Picture File Requirements: Minimum resolution 640×480, JPEG format.
. . .

We’re building cellular sites for Siemens/Cingular, and each site needs a series of photos to fill the documentation requirements. The photos need to follow a naming convention – especially since, at the end of such a project, there’ll be thousands of photos.

I specifically do not need any of the standard incremental file renaming utilities – what we need is something that lets us figure out what image file fills what image requirement (by looking at thumbnails), then renames & organizes the collection of images to meet the naming convention.

I hope someone knows of a tool that can make this requirement easy to handle. I envision a thumbs pane showing images taken of a single cell site, most likely still on a CF card or whatever. From that pane, I’d like to drag & drop images into thumbnail "slots" that represent each of the rules below (or other sets of rules, of course). At the end of a drag&drop session, the tool would copy images, rename them to the convention and file them in an appropriately created directory. It’d be great if the tool also tracked/audited missing images.

*** post for FREE via your newsreader at post.newsfeed.com ***
Post this question to the Adobe Photoshop scripting forum:
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.ef7ec95

You’ll have to create a login.

You’ll get an answer there.

Just Me

—–= Posted via Newsfeed.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =—– http://www.newsfeed.com – The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! —–== 100,000 Groups! – 19 Servers! – Unlimited Download! =—–

– what we need is something that lets us figure out
what image file fills what image requirement (by looking at thumbnails), then renames & organizes the collection of images to meet the naming convention.

You can then create "tags," which could be your requirements. The photos are displayed as thumbnails and you "attach" the tags to each photo, as many tags as you like. Tags can be grouped. You can display one or more tags or groups.

Rather than using Photoshop as the "basis" for the scripting, is there a suitable forum whereas I can propose the creation of a stand-alone kind of application?

"Joseph Meehan" wrote:

You can then create "tags," which could be your requirements. The photos are displayed as thumbnails and you "attach" the tags to each photo, as many tags as you like. Tags can be grouped. You can display one or more tags or groups.

I really wish cameras had a limited form of this built into them and exposed via the EXIF stuff. A single "tag" (or maybe call it the ‘event’? ‘series’?) would just be a simple counter that the photographer can increment with a button push. Associations between the tag number and whatever can be done on the computer, and almost automatically: you just need to identify one image in the series, and the rest follow.

"Joseph Meehan" wrote:

You can then create "tags," which could be your requirements. The photos are displayed as thumbnails and you "attach" the tags to each photo, as many tags as you like. Tags can be grouped. You can display one or more tags or groups.

I really wish cameras had a limited form of this built into them and exposed via the EXIF stuff. A single "tag" (or maybe call it the ‘event’? ‘series’?) would just be a simple counter that the photographer can increment with a button push. Associations between the tag number and whatever can be done on the computer, and almost automatically: you just need to identify one image in the series, and the rest follow.

I think what I need would be a piece of cake for the Cerious guys to whip out if I can get them to take it seriously…

Wayne R. wrote:

Rather than using Photoshop as the "basis" for the scripting, is there a suitable forum whereas I can propose the creation of a stand-alone kind of application?

if i understand you correctly, you want a program that "looks" at each *image* (no other info), decides what that image is then uses a ‘rule’ to place it in a certain category?

the robotics guys have been trying to do just that for a long time now, with limited success, looking at a scene and identifying objects/subject. that’s still bleeding edge stuff – things are just getting to the point where a computer can recognize faces and put a name to it.

wrote:

"Joseph Meehan" wrote:

You can then create "tags," which could be your requirements. The photos are displayed as thumbnails and you "attach" the tags to each photo, as many tags as you like. Tags can be grouped. You can display one or more tags or groups.

I really wish cameras had a limited form of this built into them and exposed via the EXIF stuff. A single "tag" (or maybe call it the ‘event’? ‘series’?) would just be a simple counter that the photographer can increment with a button push. Associations between the tag number and whatever can be done on the computer, and almost automatically: you just need to identify one image in the series, and the rest follow.

How about different memory cards?

"Wayne R." wrote:

– what we need is something that lets us figure out
what image file fills what image requirement (by looking at thumbnails), then renames & organizes the collection of images to meet the naming convention.

—

A couple of additional things to consider –

Thumbs Plus Image database – http://www.cerious.com/

You might want to also look for some file utilities, such as X-Tree for Windows (if it’s still available) that lets you rename batches of files at once. I used to used it in DOS, before widespread use of Windows. I could rename files, change dates, attributes, etc.

I doubt that there is anything that works exactly as you describe above.

* * * To reply, remove numbers from address.

Stan *** To reply, remove numbers from address.

http://www.neworleansphotographs.com
http://www.atneworleans.com
http://www.sbeckart.com/sbeck

No, no robotics involved.

I just want/need a piece of software that can have some image "ports" (one for each rule) that can display the rule’s text at the "port", then, from another part of the screen displaying thumbnails, I can drag & drop the image that documents a fulfilled rule into the rule’s image "port".

Once each rule has its supporting image, then each image file is renamed according to the naming convention supplied, and each resulting renamed file is put into a directory structure that’s also set up within the tool.

I hope that’s clear – but if not, think about it from this perspective: 10 sites are visited to document 10 rules at each site resulting in 100 photos taken in one day. Each image must be named to show what rule it supports at what site. And this must be done daily, over and over again for weeks per project.

I’m just hoping to find/create a software tool that takes the error-prone drudgery out of it.

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 08:26:22 -0900, James Connell
wrote:

My camera supports putting things into different directories right on the CF card. It’s a pain though, but possible.

And the images aren’t always taken in "order" anyway. Plus, sometimes several shots are taken to get things to work out right. So I think a plain incremental operation isn’t ideal.

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 18:28:30 GMT, "Joseph Meehan" wrote:

wrote:

"Joseph Meehan" wrote:

You can then create "tags," which could be your requirements. The photos are displayed as thumbnails and you "attach" the tags to each photo, as many tags as you like. Tags can be grouped. You can display one or more tags or groups.

I really wish cameras had a limited form of this built into them and exposed via the EXIF stuff. A single "tag" (or maybe call it the ‘event’? ‘series’?) would just be a simple counter that the photographer can increment with a button push. Associations between the tag number and whatever can be done on the computer, and almost automatically: you just need to identify one image in the series, and the rest follow.

How about different memory cards?

I use ThumbsPlus and have written to them as well. They suggest using their Gallery feature, which allows drag & drop sorting (pretty cool). But it doesn’t handle the file renaming (other than the usual F2 – that I use a lot already).

I think what I need would be a piece of cake for the Cerious guys to whip out if I can get them to take it seriously…

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 15:17:03 -0500, Wayne R.
wrote:

I use ThumbsPlus and have written to them as well. They suggest using their Gallery feature, which allows drag & drop sorting (pretty cool). But it doesn’t handle the file renaming (other than the usual F2 – that I use a lot already).

I use TPO a lot and use it to sort and rename where necessary.

I think what I need would be a piece of cake for the Cerious guys to whip out if I can get them to take it seriously…

Not at all. it’s distinctly non-trivial programming because you are asking the software to "recognise" an image. Unless you have a military budget (along with the same number of personnel) it’s highly unlikely that you could code for every eventuality. And you would have to, otherwise things would go wrong and who would complain? You, the user.

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui

"Wayne R." wrote:

I think what I need would be a piece of cake for the Cerious guys to whip out if I can get them to take it seriously…

Yep. No matter how good an idea is, you have to convince them that the demand will be there. Of course, with the amount of digital files in use today, you would think that it is a no-brainer.

That’s why I suggested a file utility that allows for batch renaming (which can also be dangerous, if you are not careful).

No, I am NOT asking the software to recognize anything. I just want a tool that will provide a framework to organize the images and reduce the drudgery of renaming the files, etc.

I will visually sort the images myself – I just want the computer to give me a framework with which I’d sort individual images into pertinent sets that the software will formally rename as a result.
No robots, no rocketships, no brain salad.

So if there’s none of that far-out stuff, how difficult would it be for a bunch like Cerious to create a thumbnail/renaming
framework/utility like what I need? Not too, I think.

Batch renamers won’t allow me to 1) sort the images into an order that reflects what the image contains, and 2) won’t easily absorb these particular kinds of rules – at least, none of the renamers I’ve seen. I’d have to rename them to order them so that the renamer could rename them – yuk.

Batch renamers won’t allow me to 1) sort the images into an order that reflects what the image contains, and 2) won’t easily absorb these particular kinds of rules – at least, none of the renamers I’ve seen.
What I need is something that reduces drudgery and adds confidence to the results, too, by having a simple, repeatable framework.

Wayne R. wrote:

No, I am NOT asking the software to recognize anything. I just want a tool that will provide a framework to organize the images and reduce the drudgery of renaming the files, etc.

I will visually sort the images myself – I just want the computer to give me a framework with which I’d sort individual images into pertinent sets that the software will formally rename as a result.
No robots, no rocketships, no brain salad.

So if there’s none of that far-out stuff, how difficult would it be for a bunch like Cerious to create a thumbnail/renaming
framework/utility like what I need? Not too, I think.

i tried to eamil you but it bounced – i’ll write the program you need just how bad do you need it?

No, I am NOT asking the software to recognize anything. I just want a tool that will provide a framework to organize the images and reduce the drudgery of renaming the files, etc.

I will visually sort the images myself – I just want the computer to give me a framework with which I’d sort individual images into pertinent sets that the software will formally rename as a result.
No robots, no rocketships, no brain salad.

So if there’s none of that far-out stuff, how difficult would it be for a bunch like Cerious to create a thumbnail/renaming
framework/utility like what I need? Not too, I think.