[X] My Assistant

[MouseOnMars]

What method do Planetary Scientists use for annotating and commenting images ? Is there a formal method in use or is this done informally using a graphics package to add text and markers ? The reason I ask is that I am trying to develop such a method for my project Space Data Wiki. The advantage to having a formal method is that the annotations can be linked using the "Semantic Web" using RDF and OWL technologies (as I understand it at the moment). See "Annotation". Any information or suggestions will be much appreciated.

[elakdawalla]

Most scientists annotate their images in whatever image processing software they use, most often Photoshop. Annotations drawn on images have to be drawn to a scale that makes sense with their eventual display use -- very big for Powerpoint, smaller for print publication, even smaller for poster publication. So there's not a lot of value in a file format especially designed for storing image annotations. What some researchers are now doing is to use geographic information systems (GIS), so that information is stored in separate layers; that way the locations of the annotations are independent of whatever original image files were used for the mapping.

--Emily