Darwin Core Biodiversity for cataloguing species

Post Reply
fabrizio.giudici
Posts: 53
Joined: 22 Feb 21 18:23
Location: Italy
Contact:

Darwin Core Biodiversity for cataloguing species

Post by fabrizio.giudici »

Hello.

Also looking at other posts in this forum, I saw that Photo Supreme supports XMP tags from Darwin Core Biodiversity. If I understand it well, to use this feature one must add custom fields in the "Info" panel. But: is this supposed to specify only a single taxon for photo? In this case I'd be useless for me, as I have photos where multiples species are present.

Thanks.
Photo Supreme + Capture One
http://stoppingdown.net
Hert
Posts: 7841
Joined: 13 Sep 03 6:24

Re: Darwin Core Biodiversity for cataloguing species

Post by Hert »

fabrizio.giudici wrote: 01 Aug 21 14:04I saw that Photo Supreme supports XMP tags from Darwin Core Biodiversity. If I understand it well, to use this feature one must add custom fields in the "Info" panel.
You need to select the Darwin Core editor in the Image Details. There's a "small/xpress" and "full" editor for DwC
DwC.png
DwC.png (49.21 KiB) Viewed 9302 times
fabrizio.giudici wrote: 01 Aug 21 14:04But: is this supposed to specify only a single taxon for photo? In this case I'd be useless for me, as I have photos where multiples species are present.
This I don't know, since I'm not a DwC user myself (there are a few DWC die-hards here on the board who may chime in).
PSU supports what the DwC standard describes.
This is a user-to-user forum. If you need product support then please send a message
fabrizio.giudici
Posts: 53
Joined: 22 Feb 21 18:23
Location: Italy
Contact:

Re: Darwin Core Biodiversity for cataloguing species

Post by fabrizio.giudici »

Thanks, I didn't notice the sandwich menu in that screen.
It seems it still allows one single entry for photo. Waiting for the "die-hards" replies for more info.
Photo Supreme + Capture One
http://stoppingdown.net
Mke
Posts: 675
Joined: 15 Jun 14 14:39

Re: Darwin Core Biodiversity for cataloguing species

Post by Mke »

I don't use Darwin Core myself, however:

1 - It would be better to add the information to your catalog items (you need to be using the DC editor in the 'details' panel to see DC in the details profile)...

Darwin1.png
Darwin1.png (45.21 KiB) Viewed 9275 times

...so that when you apply a label, the DC details are automatically added. If you use the 'also assign its parents' then you can create hierarchies of labels that also apply entire the Darwin hierarchy when you apply one label.

2 - Just tested applying multiple labels, and it does seem that only one set of DC metadata is retained (each label added overwrites the previous DC entries). Although at least the subject metadata could record the rest of the information, if you set it up as described.

3 - One workaround could be to duplicate the photo, one copy labeled for each species.

You could also propose an enhancement, if the DC spec permits multiple species in an image.
fbungarz
Posts: 1826
Joined: 08 Dec 06 4:03
Location: Arizona, USA

Re: Darwin Core Biodiversity for cataloguing species

Post by fbungarz »

Hi Fabrizio,
I am the one to "blame" that PhotoSupreme supports the DarwinCore :wink:

I use the it extensively myself and find it very useful, because all my photos from the field are "tied" to herbarium specimens and the images thus essentially act as photo vouchers of these specimens.

I have a tree of labels that essentially reflects the taxonomy mapped to the taxonomic fields in DarwinCore, but I also have other labels mapped to fields like Collector, Collector Number, the herbarium where the actual specimen is deposited, the locality where the specimen was collected (and the photo taken), etc.

You are correct that the Darwin Core fields are limited to 1:1. Meaning you can only assign one species name to one photo, else the mapping will cause a conflict. When I collect a lichen specimen of course it is often the case that I collect one piece of rock with several different species that cannot necessarily physically be separated - and if I take a photo that photo also shows several lichens side-by-side.

I don't consider this a huge problem, because I typically take not just one single image, but several and then label the different photos according to what species "dominates" the picture. But, yes, it is somewhat problematic.

Alternatively, you can of course still assign different species names labels to one photo and even tie them to areas inside the images. Even if these are mapped to the DarwinCore fields, this is not necessarily a problem, because the labels will all be assigned to the image, but only one DarwinCore field will be filled with the relevant information.

It all depends a bit on what kind of photography you do...

Cheers,
Frank
fabrizio.giudici
Posts: 53
Joined: 22 Feb 21 18:23
Location: Italy
Contact:

Re: Darwin Core Biodiversity for cataloguing species

Post by fabrizio.giudici »

Thanks. Well done for pushing Darwin Core support in PhotoSupreme... About fifteen years ago I was working (as a software engineer) to a custom image cataloguing tool that supported Dublin Core. Even though now I only deal with photos for hobby, I'm still a fan of strongly structured metadata.

Yes, I reckon that DwC is mainly important for people cataloguing pictures of specimens, so one set of DwC tags for photo makes sense. In my case I just tag photos for aesthetics and I need to have multiple tags, so I can e.g. search for pictures of a certain butterfly on a certain kind of flower.

The hierarchic tag system I'm using takes advantage of a naming convention so I can have a form of taxon support: for instance order:Ranunculales / family:Ranunculaceae / genus:Anemone / scientific name:Anemone hortensis. I'll stick with it for the moment. With some scripting I should be able to convert it to DwC when it will make sense for me.

Thanks for all the replies.
Photo Supreme + Capture One
http://stoppingdown.net
Post Reply