ViXeN: An open‐source package for managing multimedia data. Issue 3 (12th October 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ramachandran, Prabhu; Devarajan, Kadambari
• Editors: Poisot, Timothée
• Is Part Of: Methods in ecology and evolution. Volume 9:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 785
• Page End: 792
• Publication Date: 2017-10-12
• Subjects: data management -- metadata -- multimedia -- open source -- software; Ecology -- Periodicals; Evolution -- Periodicals; 577
• DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.12892
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2041-210X

Abstract

Abstract: There is a dearth of good toolkits to manage the different data formats that are associated with ecological datasets. In this paper, we describe a flexible, general‐purpose, easy‐to‐use, extensible, and open‐source toolkit that was built to manage an ecological study involving thousands of camera trap videos. ViXeN, the software package described here, can be used to view data files, including videos, images, audio files, portable document format (PDF) files, and text, in multiple formats. It can be used to annotate these data files, using metadata in the form of arbitrary user tags. The multimedia data catalogued, archived and extracted, using this software can easily be exported as a comma separated value file that can directly be used for data analysis. The software is capable of handling large datasets with up to a million files. Furthermore, ViXeN provides the option of additional customization by advanced users based on their particular requirements. We provide a case study involving more than 6, 000 videos that were collected as part of a camera trap study involving mammalian carnivores to demonstrate some of the functionality of the software.