Picture database?

[Richard Miller]

I have about 10,000 pictures and I was wondering if Access would be a good
database for them?

Richard

 

[Rick Brandt]

I have about 10,000 pictures and I was wondering if Access would be a
good database for them?

Richard

Actually storing the images *in* the database, no. Storing the path to their
location along with descriptions or other data that you might want to
organize/search on then yes.

While Access/Jet provides an OLE DataType where the images themselves could be
stored this will bloat the size of the database quickly and tend to perform
poorly and corrupt often.

 

[Arvin Meyer]

As Rick mentioned, it is normally better to store the pictures on the hard
drive and the path to them in a database. A free demo that does that is
available at:

http://www.datastrat.com/Download/Picture2K.zip
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
Microsoft Access
Free Access downloads:
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access

 

[Larry Linson]

I have about 10,000 pictures and I
was wondering if Access would be
a good database for them?

There are a number of free, inexpensive, and not-too-expensive picture
catalog "databases" available. Any of those would require far less time and
effort than creating your own in Access. On the other hand, the satisfaction
of creating your own and having it do exactly what you want rather than what
someone thought you might want are rewards that you'll get only if you
create your own.

The sample imaging databases at http://accdevel.tripod.com illustrate three
approaches to handling images in Access, and the download includes an
article discussing considerations in choosing an approach. Two of the
approaches do not use OLE Objects and, thus, avoid the database bloat, and
some other problems, associated with images in OLE Objects. At least one of
the approaches may work for you -- feel free to use the example as a
starting point.

If you are printing the images in reports, to avoid memory leakage, you
should also see MVP Stephen Lebans' http://www.lebans.com/printfailures.htm.
PrintFailure.zip is an Access97 MDB containing a report that fails during
the Access formatting process prior to being spooled to the Printer Driver.
This MDB also contains code showing how to convert the contents of the Image
control to a Bitmap file prior to printing. This helps alleviate the "Out of
Memory" error that can popup when printing image intensive reports.

Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP