Galatee is a Java library for exploring and searching in large image collection where images are annotated.
The library is mainly developped for browsing-searching image collections and annotating images.

Feel free to send me an email at nicolas.james@gmail.com if you are interested by this library.

The Galatee library provides:

• visualization of a list of images (with associated metadata): images are referenced by a URI object. Schemes of the URI can be file for a local image file, or http for an image file accessible via HTTP,
• textual search in the image list (based on the value of the image URI and on the image description) using a Lucene in-memory index,
• downloading, in-memory loading and resizing of an image is made only when it's necessary (something like a load when you see),
• multi-threading for the downloading, loading, resizing of the images,
• configuration via a Galatee.properties file:
  1. customize the item visualization (image size, text area size),
  2. cache directory for downloaded files.
• implementing its own item visualization is easy (just a class to extend, the GCellPanel class).
• Galatee has an EventListener interface for easily forwarding the user interaction to your code:

  public interface GListener extends EventListener {
    public void itemDoubleClicked(GEvent e);
    public void selectionChanged(GEvent e);
  }

package net.trevize.galatee.main;

import java.awt.BorderLayout;

import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

import net.trevize.galatee.GEvent;
import net.trevize.galatee.GListener;
import net.trevize.galatee.Galatee;
import net.trevize.galatee.GalateeFactory;
import net.trevize.tinker.SystemCommandHandler2;

/**
 * 
 * 
 * @author Nicolas James <nicolas.james@gmail.com> [[http://njames.trevize.net]]
 * DirectoryExplorer.java - Jan 29, 2010
 */

public class DirectoryExplorer {

	private String path;

	public DirectoryExplorer(String path) {
		this.path = path;
		init();
	}

	private void init() {
		System.out.println("*** DirectoryExplorer with Galatee main test ***");
		System.out.println("initializing...");

		int n = 3; //initial number of columns.
		System.out.println("path=[" + path + "]");
		System.out.println("display in " + n + " columns");

		//using the GalateeFactory for getting a Galatee object.
		Galatee g = GalateeFactory.loadDatasetFromDirectory(path, false);

		JFrame f = new JFrame("*** Galatee main test ***");

		JPanel p = new JPanel();
		p.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
		f.getContentPane().add(p);
		p.add(g);

                //implementing a GListener for handling events of the Galatee components.
		GListener listener = new GListener() {

			class SystemCommandThread extends Thread {
				private SystemCommandHandler2 sch2 = new SystemCommandHandler2();
				private String command;

				public SystemCommandThread(String command) {
					this.command = command;
				}

				public void run() {
					String[] commands = new String[1];
					commands[0] = command;
					sch2.exec(commands);
				}
			}

                        //if double click we use ImageMagick "display" command to display the image.
			@Override
			public void itemDoubleClicked(GEvent e) {
				System.out.println("item doubleclicked ["
						+ e.getSelectedItem().getLocalFilepath() + "]");
				SystemCommandThread sct = new SystemCommandThread("display \""
						+ e.getSelectedItem().getLocalFilepath() + "\"");
				sct.start();
			}

			@Override
			public void selectionChanged(GEvent e) {
				System.out.println("changing selection for ["
						+ e.getSelectedItem().getLocalFilepath() + "]");
			}

		};
		g.addGalateeListener(listener);

		g.enableSearchFunctionality();

		System.out.println("initialization ended.");

		f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
		f.setSize(512, 512);
		f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
		f.setVisible(true);
	}

	public static void main(String args[]) {
		String path = "/home/nicolas/datasets/PascalVOC/voc2006/voc2006_trainval/VOCdevkit/VOC2006/PNGImages";
		DirectoryExplorer explorer = new DirectoryExplorer(path);
	}

}

The library is designed and programmed on a GNU/Linux platform but it should work also on the MS-Windows platform (if not, drop me a line at nicolas.james@gmail.com about any problem you encounter).
However, some of the embedded features of the library use external applications (e.g. those of the ImageMagick project) on a GNU/Linux system through a special class called SystemCommandHandler2 which is only available for GNU/Linux system, so some functionnalities are only available on GNU/Linux and Unix systems.

• SVN repository https://code.google.com/p/galatee/

Galatee use the following libraries:

• commons-vfs, commons-codec, commons-httpclient, commons-io, commons-lang, log4j, lucene-core: under Apache license
• JUI: under GPL license
• some of my libraries: Tinker, Jmagine: under GPLv2 license
• conja
• JAI: Java Research License (JRL)

Galatee, a Java library for exploring image collection in Java.
Copyright © 2009-2010, Nicolas James.
http://njames.trevize.net/wiki/projects:galatee

Galatee is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Galatee is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this Module; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

• is there a bug with the management of windows formatted filepath GalateeFactory line 243?

• surprising: It appears some images that contains problems (wrong JPEG header etc.) cannot been open by JAI but can be using ImageIO.read(…).

• add a refresh button in FSExplorer (when we add a USB disk is useful).

• BUG: when right click for displaying the contextual menu of an item, the JTable component automatically scrolls the panel, this produce a bug with the ItemChanged event. This changes nothing for the user, but an exception is thrown.

• make an update to the GItem class, notably the GItem.getLocalFilepath() method (GItem.getLocalFilepath(boolean standard_access_required)), for generalized the access to the files (when browsing a TAR, we don't want to unpack the tar, but when we want to work on an image GItem.getLocalFilepath(true) unpack the image and update the localfilepath).

• feature request: open tar files that contains a dataset (as in ImageNet). It could be performed with Apache common VFS, and the archives has not to be decompressed, but commons VFS seems not supporting parallel access to one tar (even in read only). I have try using java stream pipes (PipeInputStream and PipeOutputSteam) and it could really works… I have to handle the access to the tar with locks…

• a lite version of Galatee should also be convenient to have now… and exporting the DatasetExplorer in a separate project.

• the search panel should be at the top of the Galatee panel.

• specifying the authorized image file types in the Galatee.properties.

• drag&drop image ⇒ desktop environment (path to access the file)

• the application do not keep in memory the display preferences (changing the image size for example, should be keep in memory).

• thinking about saving the thumbnails (think about photographs) in the tmp dir.

• fullscreen mode

• the FSExplore does not support the multiple root filesystem on Windows platform.

• the search bar does not appear on Windows platform.

• a bug with the “home” and “end” keys (selection item not updated). corrected in v0.43.

• When loading very large image databases (I've tested with 67k documents, a snapshot of the ESP Game data), it seems JAI has memory issues:

  Error: One factory fails for the operation "stream"
  Occurs in: javax.media.jai.ThreadSafeOperationRegistry

  This bug occurs with the pure Java mode, and with the JAI accelerator. It's not a critical bug because we don't open such a large database usually.

• page_down (resp. page_up) do not stop on the last element (resp. first). corrected in v0.43.

• the last loaded image is not displayed in the GUI if it is the current edited cell (i.e. the currently selected image) it's cause of the _TableCellEditor, cp.setimage(null) and the image is loaded after that, so if the selection hasn't change, the cp.setImage(image) have not been done… resolved in v0.43

• changing the selection using the arrow keys is buggy. There also a bug after “add a column” or “remove a column”. (idea: since the introduction of the _TableCellEditor, we have to update the edited cell after a change of selection). resolved in v0.43.

• be careful: the SystemCommandHandler for using the imagemagick display command is buggy. resolve in v0.43. In fact, the SystemCommandHandler using naively the Process class in Java is complicated to use, so I've integrated my SystemCommandHandler2 using a character stream in the input of a Unix Shell. Obviously, this trick only run under GNU/Linux, for Windows the SystemCommandHandler is still in the project.

• could be useful to get the possibility to see/unsee the meta.

• the doubleclick action is launch whatever is the clicked button. corrected in v0.43

• write a _TableCellEditor (copy/paste filepath for example). added in v0.43.

• si le nombre de document n'est pas divisible par le nombre de ligne il y a des cellules vide, normalement une cellule vide n'est pas affichée, mais lorsque le texte de la description est plus grand que la hauteur de l'image une cellule vide est rendue. Unreproducible.

• si le nombre de document n'est pas divisible par le nombre de ligne il y a des cellules vide, cependant avec les touches curseur la selection se déplace sur la ou les cellules vide non affichées. resolved in v0.43.

• concernant le thread de chargement des images, il serait judicieux de coder un pool de thread pour améliorer le chargement des images, et utiliser un ExecutorService plutôt qu'un pool codé “old school” avec des blocs synchronized. resolved in v0.43.

• when the display is parametrized with 3 columns, but there are only two results, typing '-' for removing a column is not performed in the GUI (from the user eyes), because the number of column is 3. The problem is here too with the key '+, 'add a column' action then shouldn't add a column if no data to put in it. resolved in v0.43.

• v0.46 → v1.43
  • correction of several bugs for the windows platform.
  • use Jmagine for displaying images by default in the DatasetExplorer.

• v0.45 → v0.46
  • lucene in_memory index for searching
  • bug correction: edited cell not immediatly displayed when browsing and specially when searching. corrected.
  • bug correction: scrolling to an item is not ensure that this item is in the visible rectangle of the JTable. corrected.

• v0.44 → v0.45
  • embedded application DatasetExplorer

• v0.43 → v0.44

• v0.42 → v0.43
  • the key '-' was not correctly mapped (the action for removing a column in the browser), it's corrected.
  • Conja is now used for the loading of the image queue (using an implementation of Iterable, GItemList and an implementation of Iterator, GItemListIterator).
  • the first object of the data associated to a GItem, is the description displayed in the browser, the other objects are that you want.
  • the key page_up and page_down was very buggy and changed the current selection. For now, the scrolling is ok, and going page_up and page_down do not modify the current selection.
  • the verification that a cell was not empty when moving with arrow keys was not made, and an Exception was thrown. Resolved.
  • the imageDescriptionSpacer in the GCellPanel was added even if the imageDescriptionWidth == 0 (no description).
  • An editor has been added to the project: _TableCellEditor. It's basically an example, could be completly rewritten, for now it just allows to copy the filepath to the clipboard.
  • introduction of a Galatee.properties and a GalateeProperties class for storing all the configuration of Galatee.
  • from now Galatee take in argument a list of URI (no more a list of File object), this allows to have image located on the web. If the scheme of the URI is “http” the image is downloaded in a temporary directory (see GalateeProperties), if the scheme is “file” nothing is changed compared to previously when Galatee took in argument a list of File object.
  • introduction of HTTPAbsoluteFileListDatasetExplorer class, which take in argument a text file containing at each line a relative URL. I use the term of “relative URL” because each line will be prefixed by a “host_prefix” to build a valid URL.
    A use case of such a class is a web directory, whatever is the server hosting your files, you just need (1) a text file that contains the relative path to your images, (2) the URL prefix, i.e. the web adress of the server that contains your image dataset.