Chip Tray Photography made easy with Geobank Mobile

Hey Howard, 

Great setup. I've been investigating Geobank Mobile functionality for core photos a couple of years ago, but we've moved into other direction (IMAGO).

Couple of questions:

1. Do you save images as BLOB type in the SQL database, or there is some other way? I think that is what stopped us from using this method, cause i was not sure if the quality will be decent, and how heavy the database will become with this new type of data.

2. Could you please share some snapshots of your 'photo' table in GM, including settings? (i assume the process is organized through a specialized table)

Thanks in advance, 

Andrey

Hi Howard

Thanks for sharing this; having seen this in action, I can say that it works really well.

Andrey, the images can simply be stored at full DSLR camera quality as file images, with the Geobank Mobile table storing a link to the file location. Anatoli can show you the settings for the 'Image' data type to use.

Hi Andrey

Saving images in SQL as a BLOB is doable…. BUT I wouldn’t recommend it.

I use a separate tool to load all the “Metadata” for the images into our SQL database. ( including the file path to where the image is located ) Note! The tool also moves the images to a pre set location on a file share as the metadata is loaded.

The tool was originally designed to make the task of manually renaming core tray photos ( Back in the day when you manually copied the files from the camera SD card to your computer ). Now I just extract the metadata I need from the pre named files …. AND then push Load.

You can process thousands of files in minutes…

1. You select the images you wish to load…. ( You can do thousands in a single go )

1. You extract the EXIF data from the images. ( Camera Make / Model / Focal length / Date taken ……… )
   

1. Extract Hole ID / From / To / Photo Type from the file name.

1. My database utilises a dual primary key for the Hole ID so this stage fines the other half from the database.

1. Now we load… Select the import template. Select the move file option. Then “GO”…

The metadata is loaded to the database … And the images are moved to the required location…

My drillhole related image table in the database looks like this. Nothing special. Just a typical related table in SQL.

Now that you have all the metadata for your imagery in your database ( including the file path to where the image is stored ) its child’s play to use this in Micromine.

CREATE VIEW [dbo].[DHPhoto_CTB]

AS

SELECT P.DataSet, P.Hole_ID, P.Depth_From, P.Depth_To, CASE WHEN (Row_Number() OVER (ORDER BY P.DataSet, P.Hole_ID, P.Depth_From) % 2 = 0) THEN 0 ELSE 1 END AS Row, P.PhotoID,

P.Path + P.PhotoID AS Hyperlink

FROM tblDHPhoto AS P

WHERE (P.Photo_Type = 'CTB')

GO

Now set up your database in Micromine like this…. No you can click on your drill trace in Vizex and BOOM … your image opens.