First time - upgrading from PicaJet FX

[SteveF48]

I was advised to use Daminion by the JetFx support team, because it can use JetFx xml data. Well it can, sort of.

When I started Daminion it asked if I wanted to import my JetFx data, so I said yes. After several minutes Daminion opened with... an empty database. It hadn't imported anything, no categories, or images.

I then clicked on import and pointed it at a JetFx xml file that I'd prepared earlier in true Blue Peter style. Another long wait then lo and behold a lot of my categories were listed under keywords, but still no images.

Third try. I clicked on 'Import' and told the program to download my top directory and all sub-folders, it spent some time thinking then started importing 13k images. 5 hours later it has aborted with Import Error, Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

 

I've found that it's only the import that failed Daminion is still running. The import added 2747 files, which isn't very many. It also added all of the keywords in the files to the program's keywords, so that I now have hundreds of keywords (exactly the same as the categories imported from JetFx). What was the point of that, why would I need categories AND keywords. In my book they are exactly the same.

 

It's just not my day. I've tried running 4 programs and every one of them has responded with some sort of failure message.

[Murat]

Hi Steve,

 

It's pity that you experienced such troubles with importing PicaJet XML album. Could you please send me that xml file to support at daminion dot net.

 

Regards,

Murat

[SteveF48]

Hi Steve,

 

It's pity that you experienced such troubles with importing PicaJet XML album. Could you please send me that xml file to support at daminion dot net.

 

Regards,

Murat

It's on the way.

[Murat]

I've successfully imported 389 categories from the xml file that you sent me. Probably the problem is related to one of the importing files.

 

Could please help us to recognize this issue:

1. Please close the launched Daminion

2. Locate this file on your local disk

c:\Program Files\Daminion Software\Daminion\Config\Log4Net.xml

 

and replace it by this one.

3. Launch Daminion and import that xml file again.

4. If an error message appears, please locate this folder:

C:\Users\Steve\AppData\Roaming\Daminion Software\Daminion\1.0\Logs

 

Zip it and send me again to support at daminion dot net.

 

Thanks!

[SteveF48]

I too imported 389 categories, the problem is that when I added the photos, Daminion added 389 keywords, which are identical to the categories.

Once I had deleted all of the categories the import succeeded, so perhaps it was a memory issue. The netbook has 1gb of RAM, maybe that isn't enough.

The current situation is that I have 13k pictures and around 300 keywords. I don't know how to count them, is there a way within Daminioon? The keywords are jumbled up, so I'm organising them back into their correct hierarchy, as shown by the dot notation in the xml file.

Both JetFX and Daminion added keywords more than once. For example The bottom level of (some?) hierarchies also appeared as separate keywords.

I will try what you suggested, but would like to back up the Daminion database, before I do.

[Murat]

I too imported 389 categories, the problem is that when I added the photos, Daminion added

389 keywords, which are identical to the categories.

 

You can select how to map the PicaJet's categories. By default they are mapped to the Daminion Keywords. But you can change this rule (before importing!)

[SteveF48]

I'm confused.

The PicaJetFx keywords were imported into Daminion categories, so isn't that the default?

The IPTC data in the files was then imported into Daminion's keywords, causing duplication.

Where can I change the rule?

[Murat]

Hi Steve,

 

Hmm... The problem is because of the different mapping schemes in both programs. This is our mistake.

 

PicaJet's Categories and Daminion's Keywords are both mapped to the IPTC:Keywords. This is why you get the duplicates values after importing the PicaJet XMl file. One value Daminion gets from the xml file and another one gets from the IPTC metadata.

 

Probably we should to replace default mapping rules: PicaJet's Categories should be mapped to Daminion's Keywords.

 

I suggest you to open your catalog in Daminion and delete all the duplicates in the Categories.

 

--

Regards,

Murat

[dhilliger]

Like the previous post in this thread, I am having problems importing 1000's of images from Picajet...

 

Maybe the problem stems from this: PJ seems to store categories as entries in keyword fields in IPTC, whereas Daminion stotes it is sub categories - is that correct?

 

Q1.)Which is the most generally compatible way to go forward i.e. is there some sort of industry standard approach that will be most compatible with other image metadata management in future?

 

 

Now to my specific problems:

 

Q2.) When I import from PJ, daminion both creates keywords AND maps categories from a PJ category (I set the import rules to map PJ category > daminion category).

 

Really it needs a choice of one OR the other (i.e. to import from PJ OR to import files that already have metadata) as making duplicates for each category in the keywords just creates work in deduplicating.

 

Q3.) When I did my import from PJ using XML, I got duplicate names under both Category and Keyword from the one PJ category, however, under Keyword, daminion assigned (for example) 68 files, whereas under the same name in Category it assigned 0 files. It created the category, but mapped nothing there, but did map the photos to Keyword (probably from IPTC metadata in file?) where I really wanted it in category anyway.

 

The file import needs to work much better before I can migrate.

 

 

3.) Why does daminion create an author entry listing itself as author in every file? I do not want this listed as author in all of my files.

 

Q4.) I tried to use advanced search to look for images without "Places" in the keywords. It returned every file, rather than just the one I edited to remove this entry. Is there a logic error there or do I have to use a particular syntax when entering the word in an inverse search?

 

Thx,

David

[Murat]

David, thanks for your input in Daminion testing!

 

PicaJet stores categories in IPTC Keywords so if you specify to map PicaJet's categories to Daminion Categories the image categories will be imported twice: from xml (to Categories) and from IPTC (to Keywords)

 

This is why we map PicaJet's Categories to Daminion's Keywords by default in Daminion Import Options.

 

The best way to import the PicaJet album is via XML file

 

3.) Why does daminion create an author entry listing itself as author in every file? I do not want this listed as author in all of my files.

 

This will be fixed soon.

 

Q4.) I tried to use advanced search to look for images without "Places" in the keywords. It returned every file, rather than just the one I edited to remove this entry. Is there a logic error there or do I have to use a particular syntax when entering the word in an inverse search?

 

You can right click on the Place>Country and navigate to "Hide files with [Country]"