modelling real objects

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In many cases digital assets can refer to real objects, such as artwork, 
animals, minerals, people, etc.. It would be useful that the DAM could model 
real objects too and use them to organize digital assets. Real objects should 
have a twofold behaviour:

(1) the should behave like CONTAINERS of digital items (e.g. like collections 
or taxonomy keywords);

(2) they should behave like DIGITAL ITEMS, with their own metadata and the 
possibility to associate them to taxonomy keywords.

A possible solutions:

Real objects are shown in the catalog, as a tree. Example: 

Monuments
  Churches
    SS.Trinità di Saccargia
    S.Antioco di Bisarcio
    ...

When clicking on a real object the metadata panel shows the metadata associated 
to the object and (maybe) the lightbox shows the digital assets associated to 
the real object (in this case it shall be chosen a default digital asset to be 
associated to the thumbnail).

The hierarchy of real objects is distinct from the hierarchy of keywords.

It is possible to associate keywords to real objects. In order to do this, real 
objects shall be displayed in the lightbox.

When clicking on a keyword, both items and real objects will be shown in the 
lightbox. Need to add a check-box for the real objects.

The hierarchy of real objects can contain:

    * categories, i.e. classes that define attributes
    * real objects (leaves), i.e. instances which inherit attributes of parent classes 

Digital assets cannot be associated to categories, but only to real objects.

Digital assets may inherit attributes of real objects. 

01/21/11 10:07:21 changed by orlando

I believe that the case for having a distinct hierarchy or special 
implementation is unclear. We should distinguish between the USE of a keyword 
and its implementation.

Are "real objects" really different from abstract objects like "philosophy", 
"art", "yoga"? Is "Beaubourg" more real than "Modern Art"? To me it's only the 
context that makes things different.

I understand that the specific context of "Beni culturali" may require real 
objects, but I think that introducing new concepts in Notredam to accomodate a 
new context is a losing game. After a while there will be too many concepts, 
too many special cases to manage.

Therefore I propose that before adding a new hierarchy we should look hard if 
there is a way to extend the current concepts in a way that mantains uniformity 
while still satisfying the new needs.

In the specific case, adding metadata to the taxonomy keywords seems doable, 
and far easier to implement. Is it enough or not to accomodate the new users?

BTW: would it be possible to conflate collections and categories in keywords? I 
think that this would give us a simpler, more powerful system without losing 
any functionality. If the only real differences between collections, categories 
and keyword are constraints on use, we could leave them to user discipline, or 
implement them as attributes.

01/21/11 11:42:39 changed by agelli

We can definitely use just one tree, extending keywords and categories to model 
real objects. However, using a distinct tree for real objects allows organizing 
real objects just like digital assets (and so associating keywords to real 
objects, etc.). The key decision is this one.

As far as collections are concerned, we can remove them. Actually the only 
practical difference between collection and keywords is that the collections 
maintain an ordered list of items.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by maurizio...@gmail.com on 21 Jan 2011 at 12:50

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Original comment by maurizio...@gmail.com on 21 Jan 2011 at 12:54

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Original comment by maurizio...@gmail.com on 21 Jan 2011 at 4:15

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Original comment by maurizio...@gmail.com on 21 Jan 2011 at 4:23

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Original comment by maurizio...@gmail.com on 21 Jan 2011 at 4:23

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1.
A solution can be using just one tree and providing the possibility that 
keywords can have attributes. This can be done modeling the keywords as 
instances of classes specified in the admin interface.
When creating a keyword it shall be possible to specify which class the keyword 
is instance of. If no class is specified, the keyword has only its label as the 
only attribute.

2.
Items can be associated to keywords, as usual.

3.
Categories have no attributes.

4.
For any node (keyword or category) it can be specified the class the children 
of the node are instance of.

5.
Clicking on a digital item in the lightable, the metadata panel shall show also 
the properties of the keywords the item is associated to.

6.
clicking on a keyword, if the keyword has some properties, these properties 
shall be shown in the metadata panel.

Original comment by maurizio...@gmail.com on 15 Mar 2011 at 3:19

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Please read to the latest version of the User Manual.

Original comment by maurizio...@gmail.com on 26 Oct 2011 at 10:31

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Original comment by fabrizio.solinas83@gmail.com on 2 Apr 2012 at 1:29

• Changed state: Fixed