AMICO Technology Committee

Art Museum Image Consortium
Related Image and Multimedia Files Specification This version dated January 21, 1998

1. "MAIN IMAGE" CONTRIBUTED TO AMICO

Each work of art contributed to The AMICO Library must be documented by at least one image, showing a full view of the work.

1.1   Resolution:
Images contributed to AMICO should have a minimum resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Members are encouraged to contribute larger files, to allow for user manipulation.

Existing images at resolutions below 1024 x 768 (such as those at 800 x 600 created by the National Gallery of Canada for its CD-ROM project) will be accepted as part of the university testbed library, with the understanding that they may have to be replaced in subsequent years. Those museums who intend to submit at a lower resolution, are requested to post notification to the AMICO Technical Operations Committee Hypernews Discussion.

It is not recommended that images created or sampled for AMICO be at resolutions less 1024 x 768.

The University Testbed project will study what resolution is required for particular functions (e.g. project, lab study on a monitor) as an explicit part of its research agenda. These findings will be incorporated into the next round of submissions of image data to AMICO.

1.2    Bit Depth:
All images will be 24 bit color.

1.3    File Format/Compression:
Images should be submitted to The AMICO Library as uncompressed files in the TIFF format. This will enable future compression by a distributor without loss of quality. Certain research uses also require uncompressed images.

AMICO members will also be given the opportunity to produce their own compressed files to the specifications of any particular distributor. These files would be provided in addition to the uncompressed TIFF and on a schedule defined with the distributor.

Distributors will be asked to declare their image sampling/compression processes, for AMICO review and approval. AMICO members will also be given an opportunity to review the results of distributor's compression routines.

1.4    File Names:
All associated media files, text, image, multimedia, etc., will follow the same naming and linking conventions.

Filenames will be entered in the appropriate linking field in the AMICO main catalog record: Related-Image-Identifier/link, Related -Document-Identifier/Link or Related-Multimedia-Identifier/link.

As there are many differing schemes in use in AMICO member institutions, file names will not be assumed to have any meaning. The characteristics of images will be recorded in their accompanying metadata records.

AMICO filenames are comprised of three parts:


Institutional abbreviation [4 letter prefix - as with AMICO-Identifier]
. identifying string of characters
.file format suffix [3 character MIME type extension, e.g. .tif; .jpg, cgm, mov]



File names should not include:	*
	?
	/
	#
	or "spaces"


They can be in upper and lower case, and are case sensitive.

1.5    References in Catalog Records:
Each image file contributed must be referenced in the Related Images field in the AMICO catalog record. The exact file name must be entered in the catalog record to make a link between records and associated files.

Validation routines will test to ensure that all files cited are present, and that all files contributed are referenced in a record.

2. METADATA for RELATED IMAGE AND MEDIA FILES

Each image or other media file will be accompanied by a separate structured text metadata record, containing the minimum fields, as specified.

Sample metadata records are posted on the AMICO Web site, along with sample image and media files.

Delimiters and character set specifications are identical for metadata records and for the AMICO main catalog record.

3. RELATED MULTI MEDIA FILES

Associated media files will be contributed to The AMICO Library in their native format. i.e. in QuickTime, WAV, RealAudio, etc.

Files must be accompanied by a metadata record, and referenced by an entry in the Related-Multimedia group field of an AMICO Catalogue Record.

Validation routines will test to ensure that all files cited are present and that all field contributed are referenced in a record.

4. RELATED DOCUMENTS

Related textual documents can be contributed in any common format:

• page images can be in TIFF, GIF or JFIF file format
  
• text documents can be in ASCII, or Rich Text Format (RTF)
  
• marked up texts can be in Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) or Standard Generalized Markup Language(SGML)

Each related document file must be accompanied by a metadata record, and referenced by an entry in the Related-Documents group field of an AMICO Catalog record.

Validation routines will test to ensure that all files cited are present and that all field contributed are referenced in a record.

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