Intern:Binary object

Binary (large) objects (BLOB) are digital files consisting of plain text, photos, grafics, films, sound or binary data in specific formats. BLOB are stored in a file system on a hard disc/tape robot combination (hs=hirachical storage). The metadata are stored in Pangaea with a link to the BLOB.

BLOBs are archived in three steps:

(A) Upload of BLOB and comment files
 * 1) Upload the files to the storage system of your choice. It is important, that the path to the data is well defined and remains stable on a long-term scale. BLOBs should be archived in at least one standard exchange format (jpg, gif, tiff, png, pdf, txt, shape, wave, ...). Proprietary formats should follow international standards if available (sgy, NetCDF).
 * 2) Upload comment files.
 * 3) Keep path in mind.

(B) Metadata definition or import
 * 1) If locations of the BLOB are related to a campaign (cruise/expedition), information about its name (code/label), time, basis/ship, responsible scientist, and citation of a report may be given.
 * 2) If a BLOB is georeferenced, provide a list of events (station/site/profile), describing the location of each BLOB. Mandatory are the fields LabelEvent (must be unique), LatitudeEvent, LongitudeEvent; recommended are ElevationEvent, DateEvent, TimeEvent, Gear; (for profiles, all fields can be given twice for start and end point); optional fields are Remarks and OptionalLabel.
 * 3) If a BLOB is not georeferenced, no campaign or event need to be defined.
 * 4) Ensure that authors are defined in the staff table and references are added to the reference table.

(C) Data import Data are archived with one data description per event. Required description fields are: Data set title, principle investigator (PI), method, comment, and reference(s) if published. A detailed description of the BLOB can be added as a pdf- or txt-file.

There are different ways of archiving BLOBs:

a) The event is a station with one (two) pair of latitude/longitude -> all BLOBs are added to this single event, but may be differentiated by geocode DATE/TIME.

b) The event is a profile described in detail by several pairs of lat/long, giving each BLOB its own georeference; -> in this case a list must be imported, containing the columns:
 * Event label
 * date/time
 * latitude
 * longitude (both in decimal degree)
 * path to the BLOBs as URL
 * further columns with analytical and/or technical data may be added as required.

c) If a BLOB is not georeferenced, the data description is defined in the following steps:
 * 1) open the Data sets table, click on New
 * 2) add Author(s), Title, Source or Reference and Project on the Basics card
 * 3) add Comment, Keywords and Topologic type on the Details card
 * 4) on the Web card, check the static box (which means, that you will add a static link)
 * 5) add the path linking the BLOB in the URL field
 * 6) add the path to a comment file in the URL Data details field
 * 7) leave the field Export filename empty
 * 8) press Save

If tables containing links to BLOBs are imported as data files, filenames should follow a certain syntax: EventLabel_describer.extension. The describer can be used individually and may contain a code (date/time, ordinal number, depth, length, ...) or the type of a BLOB (photo, x-ray, description, video, ...) or a combination of both.

Examples for filenames of BLOBs:
 * Photo EventLabel_photo.jpg
 * Photo of a segment EventLabel_begin-end_photo.jpg (GeoB1234-5_678-778_photo.jpg)
 * Photo, x-ray EventLabel_x-ray.tiff (GIK12345-6_000-100_x-ray.jpg)
 * Photo w time EventLabel_hh_mm_ss.png
 * Photo w date/time EventLabel_yyyy-mm-ddThh_mm_ss.jpg
 * Photo w ordinal number EventLabel_0034.png
 * Grafic of a segment EventLabel_begin-end.gif
 * Description as pdf EventLabel_begin-end_descr.pdf (GeoB1234-5_678-778_descr.pdf)
 * Plain text EventLabel_comment.txt (PS58/012-5_agecontrol.txt)
 * Film/sound sequence EventLabel_begin-end_video.avi

In case several events occured at one site (e.g. box corer followed by a piston corer), one directory, named after the site, should contain the documentation BLOBs of all events. This will allow a synoptic overview of the availability of all photos and graphics from the same site; however a data set description must be defined for each event (in this case all pointing to the same folder).

Examples of data sets linked to BLOB:
 * dataset consists of graphics and photos as a documentation of a geological sediment core. In the header the fields of the metainformation as described above are listed. In HTML-view the grafic objects are shown as thumbnails, a click on a thumbnail starts download of the file in full resolution.
 * shows photos from the ocean floor along a transect. Due to a missing relation between photo and precise position, all photos are related to a single pair of latitude/longitude only; in addition the lat/longs describing the track are given in one minute time resolution as additional text file. For a convenient download of all photos an extra link is added.
 * is a fully georeferenced data set containg the description of a cruise track with links to BLOB as seismic and grafic files from certain segments of the track. Columns with further technical data are added. The URL shows the path to the mass storage system for BLOB used by PANGAEA.