Document Imaging: one TIFF or multiple JPEG to SQL: Document Imging, Tiff or JPEG

by: AlmatrodiPosted on 2009-01-15 at 08:42:05ID: 23385150

I am working with C# and SQL 2000 to scan documents and save it to SQL 2000 Table.

by: AlmatrodiPosted on 2009-01-16 at 06:03:28ID: 23392791

Another suggestion I got was to create a PDF file containing all of documents.

by: cs97jjm3Posted on 2009-01-16 at 11:22:19ID: 23396430

i think you need to consider db size of both options also speed of access for end user.

at the mo we use just a location of the tiff and the db stores that so when a users requests the file it pulls it from the location

by: mark_willsPosted on 2009-01-16 at 11:25:33ID: 23396462

Depends a little bit on what you want to do with them. Would be inclined to sae the image externally from the database in a "shared" or globally accessable disk folder and store the name and file path in the database. That way if TIFF best represents the nature and type of information you want to present back to the users then the size becomes a little less important. If the information is "image" by 'image" specific such as the way you desribe the jpg version, then in the database you could also add in "tags" or "keywords" so that individual images can be retrieved without having to download the whole lot.

by: mark_willsPosted on 2009-01-16 at 11:26:35ID: 23396468

"inclined to sae " should have been "inclined to save" in the top line.

by: cs97jjm3Posted on 2009-01-16 at 11:27:45ID: 23396481

lol Mark glad to see we do similar things with Tiffs

by: gregoryyoungPosted on 2009-01-16 at 11:33:45ID: 23396536

I think you need to figure out user stories of how users want to access this data before modeling the technical details of it.

Are users interested in "documents" or in "pages"? i.e. are they always wanting the whole document or are they often just wanting a single page etc?

Cheers,

Greg

by: jimpenPosted on 2009-01-16 at 13:27:26ID: 23397604

Having looked at multiple imaging apps and the one that we are using -- do not store the images in the database. Store them to disk and only have references to the location in the DB.

We have about 1TB of images stored on disk and the SQL 2005 db is 40GB on top of that.

by: QlemoPosted on 2009-01-16 at 17:25:03ID: 23399093

Another expert has to agree: Don't store images in DB, only links! As a rule of thumb: Only store data which contents have to be analyzed. XML can be stored in DB, for example, if you need to process the XML data. If there is no information contained in data, don't store it in the DB.

by: mark_willsPosted on 2009-01-16 at 20:34:46ID: 23399557

Hi James (cs97jjm3), Didn't actually see your earlier post until just then... yet another case of great minds and all that...

Given the "great minds" reinforced of course by the other experts, then you should be creating the table as :

create table tbl_image_locations (
ID int identity primary key clustered,
Document_Reference varchar(20), -- maybe int linking back to other document attributes (such as reviews, content, keywords, whatever)
Image_Location varchar(255), -- full path
Image_Name varchar(100)) -- Name on disk - could also use the ID as the name

obviously there could be type of image and a few other attributes to do specifically with the image...

There is a whole pile of code examples for this type of thing in sourcecodeonline - for example
"document management" http://www.sourcecodeonline.com/list?q=copy_files_and_folders
or "liquid frog" http://www.sourcecodeonline.com/code/ai_image_files.html
or and image turorial http://www.sourcecodeonline.com/details/asp_net_tutorial__upload_image_files_using_asp_net_and_visual_basic_net.html
or TIFF handling (have a look at 360 - can do the PDF convert as well) http://www.sourcecodeonline.com/list?q=TIFF_image_viewer
or codeproject for similar tools and more dialogue such as : http://www.codeproject.com/KB/web-image/thumbnailer.aspx (also see links down the bottom)

by: AlmatrodiPosted on 2009-01-18 at 10:00:35ID: 23405757

At first thanks to our Administrative for his guidelines.

Thanks to all. But my question is not to save in DB or no. I was asking which is better.

The reasons that I save images to databse are two:

1- Security reasons.

2- The count of images will not go over 2000 papers.

3- The count of users are just 5 users.

So, I think after further reading to go for TIFF.

Best Regards.

by: QlemoPosted on 2009-01-18 at 10:06:39ID: 23405778

Because GIF compresses better with technical drawings and images with strong contrast, like a Document, it is better suited as JPEG, which is much better for natural images like photos. I would not recommend TIFF (nor JPEG).

by: mark_willsPosted on 2009-01-18 at 14:56:02ID: 23407042

Thanks for the points, but if we had not answered you correctly, then you could have kept asking...

My two cents worth : TIFF is more of a methodology / instruction set for image formats - and not all TIFF are the same so you need to be careful and would have to provide your own tiff "handler" for presenting back. It is however better quality and considerably larger than JPG - which is really a compression technique more so than a native format.

If you have a need for quality then TIFF is the better bet - but the size will hurt most browsing networks / casual users. If it needs to be representative then JPG can save quite a bit on size and space so is more network friendly.

Given the low user count, and the 2000 papers (is that images - or - how many pages per paper), then I would be inclined to go TIFF (being multipage and therefore easier to manage a single paper).

However, with such a low user count, then security should not be a problem either inside or outside a database. Make them all part of a role - say "imageuser" and then deny access to anyone who is not imageuser (or admin). In fact can hide that entire folder, or have it mapped only for their logins, or just for the application used to display. To keep it inside a database because of security is not entirely neccessary, and given the size that TIFF can run into then think very carefully about the impact of a largish database on the server.

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Document Imaging: one TIFF or multiple JPEG to SQL

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