Cataloguing Assets

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Cataloguing Assets

Postby Dave Fennessy » Tue Feb 14, 2017 5:02 pm

For a long time now I have wanted to create some sort of visual database of all the freeware assets I have ever collected from various Railworks sites from all over the world. I have so many that I simply forget I have them, and some of them are brilliant. I recently stumbled over the Radiomaster assets, which could well be Czech in origin (possibly); totally stunning examples of run-down warehouses and factories etc.

The idea of making a page per asset in a word processor instantly sprang to mind, but then I wouldn't be able to just type in a search item like 'wooden fence proc' and it would pull them all up and point to where they could be located from. Hopefully you can understand what I'm looking for. Some sort of database program that allows a pic and some definable text inputs, all of which can be cross-referenced with search options.

The irony is I can remember using a program called MasterFile 48k on the ZX Spectrum which I used to keep track of all the public domain programs I had, but I can't seem to zone in on anything user-friendly that I could use in 2017. Ideally something freeware / open source so that other people could share in what could become an almighty database including all official DLC assets etc. Yeah, don't worry, I do have time on my hands :D

Any ideas and suggestions will be eagerly explored.
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Re: Cataloguing Assets

Postby jp4712 » Tue Feb 14, 2017 5:32 pm

It sounds like Microsoft Access could fit the bill - a database program that's pretty easy to pick up if you're familiar with MS applications. Not free although older versions are cheap and the latest versions don't really add anything of any significance anyway, especially for what you have in mind. Categoriseable, searchable, and I'm fairly (one step down from 'pretty') sure you can include a pic in a database entry.

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Re: Cataloguing Assets

Postby Dave Fennessy » Tue Feb 14, 2017 8:02 pm

I shall check it out :D
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Re: Cataloguing Assets

Postby Rockdoc2174 » Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:13 pm

Have a look at either Google Sheets in Google Docs or the Open Office suite of programs. Both are free.

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Re: Cataloguing Assets

Postby AndiS » Wed Feb 15, 2017 4:27 pm

My thoughts yesterday. Though they don't have a database on offer.

I would go for Excel (LibreOffice Calc actually). If you split the assets into groups that would not get entangled, e.g., lofts, signals, scenery, rolling stock and put each into its own sheet within the file (or its own file to help the program if memory consumption becomes an issue), there is little danger that you will ever want to search across sheet boundaries.

I found Open/Libre Office surprisingly stable for large figures of lines, as long as there is no formatting information.
Before you hit the limits of the filter feature there, I would not try anything else.

But you mentioned images and that is another story altogether. It rules out anything of a spreadsheet design.


There is a surprising dearth of open source interactive databases. There is a lot for bigger things but you need to spend some time on it even if you want something small like you do. Maybe having any collection of data just for you on your local computer is dying out altogether?

I tried Open Office Base but did not find it great. Going by what I read on the net, it is a proof of concept that is going to be developed further. It could just do what you need, however. I spent some time with it and got frustrated about the state of documentation, but I aimed at more than you it appears.

To get quick results with little effort, you need one of the commercial offerings, MS Access or Filemaker. In the past, my suggestion has always been the latter but I have not evaluated MS Access for over a decade, not being asked about it. I am pretty sure both will do all you want.

At any rate, I would often export the whole data collection in CSV format and keep the images sorted in some folder hierarchy, just to be on the safe side if something stupid happens. That way, it will always be easy to feed this into the next system if you are fed up with one.


I might have said it: If you need tools that take a folder under Assets and create a table with all the asset names with provider/product or anything like that, let me know. It does not take pictures, of course. It just extracts all the .xml files.
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Re: Cataloguing Assets

Postby brysonman46 » Wed Feb 15, 2017 6:12 pm

AndiS wrote:
But you mentioned images and that is another story altogether. It rules out anything of a spreadsheet design.




Au contraire. Excel allows one to insert images into a cell, or even over a group of cells! I used it all the time in my research. You need to keep the images at medium to low resolution, as storing them does increase the file size quite a bit (there is an additional overhead). Alternatively, you can keep a separate file of images, and link from within the spreadsheet.

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Re: Cataloguing Assets

Postby brysonman46 » Wed Feb 15, 2017 6:20 pm

Another way is to use the Route Build to display the items, several at a time, with the asset list at the left hand side. Take a screenshot, and use a drawing program to highlight the items displayed.Image. I have done this for the UKTS-FP items and the LivMan assets from RSC.

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Re: Cataloguing Assets

Postby AndiS » Wed Feb 15, 2017 6:53 pm

brysonman46 wrote:
AndiS wrote:
But you mentioned images and that is another story altogether. It rules out anything of a spreadsheet design.




Au contraire. Excel allows one to insert images into a cell, or even over a group of cells! I used it all the time in my research. You need to keep the images at medium to low resolution, as storing them does increase the file size quite a bit (there is an additional overhead). Alternatively, you can keep a separate file of images, and link from within the spreadsheet.

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Of course you can insert images. But they mess up the formatting. I mean, any prolific collector will have thousands of lines (even I might have them and I live of a strict diet regarding downloads). So even the smallest thumbnail would blow up the line height big time. Now you can say it does not matter and on a second look, I could even agree. But the then the thing with the file size comes into play. I never tried it, but I guess having 1000 thumbnails in a spreadsheet can bring it to its knees. And of those buildings, I would want a decent picture, not a thumbnail.

The screenshot idea is certainly a good way for moderate collections. But Dave explicitly mentioned searching for a term and that is nothing you can do with the text in the image.


Maybe these things should be combined: You create a series of images like yours instead of individual ones showing just one asset. You name them after some scheme (like package name plus running number) and you enter that name into your spreadsheet, in lieu of the image itself. That will put the same reference into several lines in the spreadsheet, if each line refers to one asset, but finding the asset in the group will be easy, in particular if you always arrange them following the same scheme.
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Re: Cataloguing Assets

Postby Dave Fennessy » Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:26 pm

Thanks for the replies and ideas so far. I'm looking into MS Access and Libre Office BASE which with a bit of tweaking could offer up a solution. I'm also checking out a couple of freeware programs called SoftCAT and DataCrow. Both look suitable prospects. I also had a look at MySQL which frankly scared the life out of me :lol:

Yes Excel is a possibility. Having to make sure jpgs or whatever are going to be within certain sizes could add an awful lot of work to the table. I also like the idea of screen-grabbing from the route editor.
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Re: Cataloguing Assets

Postby AndiS » Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:55 pm

Another thought: Why not google for free photo cataloguing programs? Not that I have any idea which to pick. But if you want to combine searchable keywords with title and decent sized JPG, then you could be in the same position as anybody coming home with a ton of photos showing cats, flowers, and buildings (and trains) and who does not want to keep them all in a single folder, or devise a clever hierarchy of subfolders.
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