Quick Guide to UC Image Service using Luna Insight®
What is Luna Insight?
Insight is software that allows one to search for, zoom in on, crop, and display over 300,000 images from 13 different image collections. Insight has a built-in presentation tool so users can present sequences of images, like a traditional slide show or PowerPoint presentation. Unlike a traditional slide show, Insight allows the user to manipulate images by zooming in and cropping during the presentation. One can also export individual images for use in other software, export presentations as html pages, and export either PowerPoint or Keynote files.
The Insight software and the collections available to UC faculty and students through it are hosted by The California Digital Library.
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Why use Insight?
Insight is software that offers distinct advantages over more common image retrieval and presentation software by combining into one tool the ability to search for, manipulate, arrange, and present images.
- Searching for images:
- Insight allows search by metadata fields and controlled vocabularies, unlike search engines or personal collections.
- Insight allows searching of multiple collections at one time.
- Manipulating images:
- Images may be enlarged to view details.
- Images may be cropped to only show portions intended.
- Arranging images:
- Images may be saved in small groups for easy retrieval at later times.
- Images are easily ordered and reordered for best placement within a presentation.
- Presenting Images:
- Images in Insight are of large size and high quality.
- Image arrangements may be saved as presentations for classroom display.
- Images may be repeated and shown side by side.
- Presentations may be shown directly from Insight, or they may be exported as HTML (website), Powerpoint, or Keynote files.
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What collections are available in Insight?
- AMICO - Art Museum Image Consortium
118,717 images of African, American, Asian, & European
prehistoric to contemporary art from museums in Canada, the UK, & USA.
http://www.amico.org
- David Rumsey
Map Collection
10,040 Cartographic material of North and South America
from the 18th and 19th Centuries,
including atlases, globes, maps, etc.
http://www.davidrumsey.com
- Estate Project
Virtual Collection
3,065 works of art created by artists
with HIV/AIDS from the Alliance for the Arts.
http://www.artistswithaids.org
- Farber Gravestone Collection sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society.
13,527 Pre-1800 gravestone sculpture from New England.
http://www.americanantiquarian.org/
- Stanford's Hoover
Institute Archives
Poster Collection
53 political posters from Germany, Russia, UK, & USA from around the time of the World Wars.
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/hila/posters.htm
- Japanese Historical
Maps from
UCB's East Asian Library.
209 maps of Japan, Japanese cities and the world
from before 1890 - many woodblock prints on handmade paper.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EAL/
- Museums of the
Online Archive of California
(MOAC)
77,193 manuscripts, photographs, and works of art
held in libraries, museums, archives,
and other institutions in California.
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/
- Saskia Ltd.
Cultural Documentation.
27,353 high quality original photography
with core teaching images for the
history of Western art & architecture, including the LUCI collection of UC art images.
http://www.saskia.com
- SPIRO: Arch + Arts + Places from UCB's Architecture Visual Resources Library.
43,582 images of architecture, allied arts, and places from prehistory to the present.
http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/spiro/about.html#Introduction
- Tebtunis Papyri
Collection from
UCB's Bancroft Library.
55 fragments of papyrus documents
excavated in Egypt c. 1900.
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/
- UCSF Demonstration Project at the Kalmanovitz Library & Center for Knowledge Management
99 images of medical and
dental subjects from UCSF Faculty.
http://www.library.ucsf.edu/info/about/
This list also available as a downloadable chart: Summary of collections (.doc)
This information courtesy of Maureen Burns, Humanities Curator, VRC, UC Irvine.
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How do you use Luna Insight?
Using Insight is much like using any other application, but there are peculiarities to the Insight Interface. The Insight help manual provides detailed information about specific operations in the application, and is well worth a look. The best way to learn to use Insight is to download it and explore it, well before you expect to use it live in a classroom setting.
There are two main screens:
- Collections/groups Workspace
- Image workspace
Collections/Groups Workspace
Collections/Groups Workspace with menu, group of selected images, and all collection images.
Searching for, selecting, and saving images occurs in the Collections/Groups screen. Here, the general sequence of events is:
- search for images
- create a "group" for selected images
- drag selected images into your group
- save your group for later viewing
- export images and presentations to your desktop
Image Workspace
Image Workspace with editing tools open, image magnified.
Manipulation and arrangement of images into presentations happens in the Image Workspace screen. Here, the general sequence of events is:
- open and manipulate images by enlarging, shrinking, or cropping
- creating and saving presentations with manipulated images
- displaying presentations
Image Workspace with presentation controls; editing tools minimized.
It is impossible to provide a thorough explanation of all these actions here. Please refer to the Insight help manual for specifics on actions within the application. Most actions can be discovered by trial and error, the interface is fairly intuitive. Don't be afraid to experiment!
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Can images be exported from Insight?
Images and metadata may be exported from Insight to your computer. This is done after selecting images within a group. Choosing "export selected" from the "file" menu will download the images to your computer after you pick an image size and destination folder. Then the images may be used as normal image files in other software tools. The export process is not quick, but it allows for use of images contained in CDL Image Service collections outside of the Insight client.
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Can Insight be used off campus?
In order to download the Insight client, you must either be on the UC Berkeley campus, or connected to the campus network via the UC Proxy Server Service. Access to
the CDL image service collections from off campus must be done via the VPN (Virtual Private Network), software for which may be downloaded from UCB's Workstation Support Services.
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How can I download Insight software?
The Insight Java client is software that must be installed on your computer so that you may access the various collection databases. Versions are available for both PCs and Macintoshes.
You can download the java client from:
- California Digital Library (CDL)
- From the CDL download site, choose either a PC or Mac download file, and follow the installation instructions that appear on the CDL site.
- After downloading and starting the Insight Application, it may ask you for a login password. If so, please email AVRL for a password.
Certain image collections which UC Berkeley uses through CDL, including Amico, MOAC(Museum and Online Archive of California), and Saskia, may be accessed through a web based version of Insight that does not share all the functionality of the downloadable client. This option is given when connecting to these collections through the UC Berkeley Library's Electronic Resources: Image and Sound Databases page, or via the links above. The biggest difference between the downloaded and web based versions of Insight is that cross-collection searching is not possible using the web based software; only one collection may be searched at once.
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Created & maintained by:
Jason Miller
Architecture Visual Resources Library
College of Environmental Design
UC Berkeley
Last Modified December 1, 2004
