FAQ - Basic

Descriptions include all elements that may appear in an image: subjects, objects, clothing, animals, plants, actions, and (historical) locations. In REALonline, the social status, occupation, or age of depicted persons or figures, as well as their gender and their gestures or posture, are also recorded. For objects, clothing, animals, and plants, the color, material (if identifiable), and shape are recorded in REALonline. Using the Description facet (see also “How do the facets in REALonline work?”), you can refine your search based on all these criteria. Similarly, in the Thesaurus facet, you can use a tree structure of these fields for a “browsing” search of the descriptive data.

Descriptions in REALonline are recorded using a predefined structure and controlled vocabulary. They thus differ from what is commonly understood as image description in many contexts.

The sequence of image elements in the structured descriptions generally follows this criterion: from left to right, from top to bottom in the image—with main subjects/protagonists listed first and background elements listed in a second pass.

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