Need efficient way to find stored images

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Dear Team,

As i have 3000000 images in hard disk (hard disk, and pc and Laptop) saved with different names.

daily i use to search min 50 images from those in these different parts.

its taking min 4 hours to search the image.

can anyone suggest the macro for the same to solve it.

Please help me out.

Regards
Swaraj

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What do you want the macro to do?
How do you decide which image is the one you require?
How are the images stored, in folders, dated, etc?

cheers, Paul

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thanks for the reply.

it is stored with the unique no called passport no.

image is stored in tiff format.

and by placing the required passport no in the excel we need to get the image from the any of the location placed.

and need to copy in a folder created at that time.

Regrads
Swaraj

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Maybe a desktop database which has indexes and you can embed objects

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Once you locate the passport file do you then copy it somewhere, or move it?
Do you put the image into the spreadsheet?
Do you need to use the spreadsheet at all?

cheers, Paul

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I don’t know about a macro… it seems like you need a database and – in my opinion – with 3 million photos to index this is probably outside the scope of a forum like this. As a result, the following is a bit of a guess as I’ve only ever had to deal with about 120 thousand files before.

Instead of searching different locations, I would create a data source per location then use these data sources to populate a database. I would use something like Karen Kenworthy’s Directory Printer (free) to save the file names and folder names as a .TSV (Tab Separated Value) file. I like this utility ‘cos it’s as easy to index network locations as it is to index local drives. Given the number of photos it’s going to take a while to generate the .TSV file per location.

38642-dirprn
(Click to enlarge)

The .TSV files can then be used with something like MS Access or LibreOffice’s Base (free). (3 million rows is more than either Excel or LibreOffice’s Calc can handle. I could be wrong but I think both max out at the same limit, i.e. 1,048,576 rows.)

Obviously you would need to have a method of keeping the database updated if new photos were added to the file locations.

Have a look here for advice re: Base.

Hope this helps…

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When I was working I had an Access 2003 database which had a table with over 4,000,000 records. If I remember correctly it was indexed so finding any record was quite quick. I had a VBA script to read the data in – I think indexing slows editing and adding down (well in 2003 at least). If the Op uses Access and indexes passport no, it would be very quick to find the relevant records. I’m assuming that a newer version of Access would be even better.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Try installing Google Picasa it searches using file names, I only have 11,000 images and Picasa suits my needs

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Not sure if I understood your problem but I access thousands of images (in three devices) from a Calc (Openoffice) sheet using the HYPERLINK function.
All the function needs is an URL, that is, a device and folder name + an image name. You can automate the task by feeding the function with other two cells:

– Cell A1: device name (can be automatically filled if your images are in alphabetical order and you know the lowest and highest values of each folder).
– Cell A2: image name (passport): Write here the one you need to see.
– Cell A3: the function, something like “=HIPERLINK(A1 & A2 & “”)
After filling cell A2 all you have to do is click on cell A3 and voilà, your picture will show up.

More info (if you use Openoffice) at https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/How_Tos/Calc:_HYPERLINK_function

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Try using X1 Search. This is an industrial-strength indexing and search package that should have no trouble with your large number of images, and multiple storage locations. Since it is fully indexed, it should respond to a search almost instantly. A free trial is available – no need to buy until you are sure it does what you want. I use it to index all of the files on my main computer – “only” 280,000 of them, but at that size, the response to a search is essentially instantaneous.

As a bonus, it has a built in viewer that gives you a preview of the file so you can instantly verify that it is the one you want. It knows about most common file types, including .tiff.

You start typing a file name, and it immediately displays a list of files matching the partial name, and then refines the list as you keep typing, so you you only have to type enough of the name for it to be unique.

When you first start it up, it will take a long time to scan your system and build the index. But after that, it watches for new files and adds them to the index in the background in real time.

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Copernic Desktop Search has both a 30-day trial version that you might like to try, and it has a free version with limited capabilities. It won’t just find photos – it will catalog ‘everything’, and it will search not just the machine you are using but the entire local network if you choose to let it.

That is the most powerful Windows desktop search engine that I am aware of, and the 30-day trial may be enough to give you the information you need. Because it keeps track of so much data in addition to photos, you might find it worth the ($40) investment.

Amendment: The X1 Search mentioned above is a new one on me, and looks interesting. I’ll keep an eye on that for my own purposes.

That, however, simply finds the photos. There are many other programs (Picasa was mentioned) that will allow you to perform operations on them as well.

If you are a single-system man (e.g. Nikon, Canon etc.) then the first place to check is your system’s own software. I know that Nikon’s bundled software is highly regarded, and gives you a full nondestructive workflow from start to finish.

If you have duplicates, that can be treacherous territory with photographs, and it might justify starting a separate thread.

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I’m with the folks who advise a database. The thing to understand is that desktop database applications, like all the rest of this techno-wonder, have their own cats and dogs. MS Access WILL choke on you after a bit. I also have Access files with 1m+ records and it’s a hope and a prayer to fight against file corruption. If you have the savvy I would look at using a desktop data base that uses an SQL service like MS SQL server as Oracle is WAY too expensive. There are others that are free to moderately priced and my main caveat is that you want something from a company that is not going to go poof with the next IPO or bankruptcy filing. If you want to set this up yourself (recommended) rather than paying someone, it’s WORTH IT to get a short free course or one from a community college. Database management is more like coal mining with a stick than rocket science but lots of people (including me) have learned this stuff.

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I must have been lucky as my Access database never choked or had corruption issues. However, I had to have it on a local drive not a network one as the VBA reading in the data was very slow when it was on the network.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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may not help with those

but i use a naming convention that gives each a sequential number
date and time stamp
location
subject
and other key data

if you have any clues it is easy to find them with a search
or if you know something that is unique you can go directly to them

start now and avoid more problems with future images

if you know all the names to search for i am sure there is a program out there that will build an index of the names with their locations to make it faster for windoze to retrieve them

or you could have windoze sort them into alpha sequence for faster retrieval

Dear Team,

As i have 3000000 images in hard disk (hard disk, and pc and Laptop) saved with different names.

daily i use to search min 50 images from those in these different parts.

its taking min 4 hours to search the image.

can anyone suggest the macro for the same to solve it.

Please help me out.

Regards
Swaraj

Reply | Quote