“DAM software that relies on only one of these technologies limits itself,” explained Picturepark Director of R&D, Thomas Wackersreuther. “There is no better enterprise database than SQL Server and there is currently no faster option for DAM search than NoSQL. It is too difficult to choose the better of these two technologies because each offers compelling strengths, so we chose both.”
Wackersreuther’s team took advantage of Picturepark’s service-oriented architecture (SOA) to replace the DAM’s previous search technology in a way that is virtually transparent to users. Search functions are the same, so no retraining is necessary. Users simply notice significantly faster search and browse performance, particularly in systems with millions of assets or hundreds of thousands of tags.
Search results are now ranked by relevance. Picturepark administrators can “weight” the importance of each metadata field so that each customer can choose field matches that are most relevant to them. The complete contents of PDF, Word and other document formats are now searched with no perceivable impact on performance.
Picturepark 8.6 also delivers improved video playback. Borrowing on the progressive-download user experience offered by sites like YouTube and Vimeo, Picturepark 8.6 enables users to jump to any position in a video for immediate playback. Leveraging this new capability, video cue points can now be added that work like video bookmarks. Each cue point includes its own metadata, enabling users to find specific video locations in addition to complete videos. Users can click any cue point to instantly move to that section of the video and begin payback.
Picturepark’s asset sharing technology has been updated to enable users to edit any aspect of a previously shared collection. This enables users to create shares that can be posted indefinitely, yet always lead to a current selection of assets and up-to-date instructions and information.
Rights (permissions) management is now easier thanks to a new palette that enables permitted users to perform drag & drop rights assignments. Administrators of multi-tenant Picturepark Regional Clouds or multi-departmental solutions can use the palette to assign rights for any tenant. The new palette also makes it easier for Picturepark users to find assets based on rights assignments.
Backend improvements include support for Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS 2.0), usability changes to the Picturepark Ports configurator, automated workflows that import metadata from ERP, PIM and other external systems, optimizations to the product’s API, and the ability to create ISO instances of installations that can optionally include assets, records, user records, workflows, shares and more.
Cloud customers were upgraded to Picturepark 8.6 on 07 Feb, 2014. On-premise customers should contact their Picturepark representatives for upgrade information.
About Picturepark
Picturepark digital asset management software enables organizations to centrally store, manage and share digital assets on a modern service-oriented architecture (SOA) that is scalable, based on open standards, and available in the Cloud (SaaS), on-premise or in hybrids. Picturepark is suitable for enterprise-wide DAM deployment thanks, in part, to load-balancing, failover, service-based computer clustering, and support for true multi-tenant deployment. Adaptive Metadata technology enables each class of asset to have its own metadata schema that can evolve over time. Support for multiple taxonomies and controlled vocabularies is standard. The Picturepark Web Services API enables developers to integrate Picturepark with other systems. Embedded and branded Web portals based on HTML5/CSS can be built using the graphical Picturepark Ports tool.