Digital Imaging Group (DIG) Announces Completion Of DIG35, The Digital Imaging Metadata Standard

San Francisco - August 30, 2000 - (Seybold San Francisco) - The Digital Imaging Group (DIG) today released the final DIG35 Metadata Specification providing a cohesive and consistent set of metadata definitions to the imaging industry. DIG35 provides the first persistent way for digital images to become rich, completely self-contained sources of information, regardless of where they travel on the global network. With millions of digital images now produced yearly, this capability is critical for enabling users to effectively organize, find, retrieve and share their images instantly.

Businesses, professionals and consumers can all utilize metadata in order to manage images. Instead of spending valuable time painstakingly looking at each image file to determine the content, businesses can search by any associated metadata to locate an image and read the descriptive elements. By using XML as the recommended encoding method, DIG35 is Internet ready and easy to implement on e-commerce sites.

Professional photographers can associate information about camera settings, copyright information and image manipulation techniques within the image in order to recreate images and recap their work. Additionally, consumers can easily share their captured experiences by using metadata to tell the story or narration behind their images.

Anticipating future public and propriety expansions and industry changes, the DIG35 specification is file-format independent, developer friendly and will be able to mature with the market. The specification's common baseline definitions may be supported in different file formats and consistently implemented within various applications with a relational database or other data storage methods.

The specification also includes a reference encoding method using the current industry standard language XML. Using the XML DTD and schema provided, developers can easily implement the DIG35 Metadata Specification in their own imaging applications. Additionally, DIG35 can be used as a single standard interchange format between existing applications that each use different proprietary metadata formats, allowing users to greatly extend and leverage their existing intellectual capital investments.

The DIG35 Metadata Specification has been reviewed by the public, by several universities, and by organizations such as the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) JPEG2000 Working Group. The relevant portions of the specification have been submitted to the JPEG2000 file format subgroup and have been incorporated into the JPEG2000 Part 2 specification committee draft.

The DIG35 Metadata Specification, including the XML DTD and schema, is available today for public download on the DIG web site at www.digitalimaging.org. For more information about the DIG35 Initiative Group or to download the DIG35 Metadata Specification, visit the DIG website.