Online Cultural Heritage Research Environment

OCHRE

Frequently Asked Questions

Why am I prompted to accept security certificates every time I start OCHRE?

You should check the box indicating that you will always trust software downloaded from ochre.lib.uchicago.edu. If you do this, you will not be prompted to accept the security certificate the next time you start OCHRE. Macintosh users must click the “Show certificate” button to make this option visible. You may be required to enter your computer’s administrator password to save this setting.

Why does OCHRE seem slow?

OCHRE requires 512 MB of computer memory (RAM) and a high-speed Internet connection. It performs well under these conditions. You can improve performance by adding more memory and by increasing the speed of your Internet connection. You can also improve performance by closing other software applications that are running at the same time. If too many applications are running, OCHRE may perform slowly.

How do I import existing data tables into OCHRE?

A data-conversion utility program will be available soon. This program converts two-dimensional data tables into XML documents that conform to the Archaeological Markup Language (see the “ArchaeoML Schema” page of this website). OCHRE projects can then import  these XML documents using the “Import data” option on the main “File” menu. A certain amount of manual editing is usually required after data has been imported.

Can I use OCHRE offline?

At the moment, you must be connected to the Internet to use OCHRE. It will soon be possible to use OCHRE offline, however. This feature is necessary for archaeological field projects, for example, that wish to record data in the field and upload it to the central OCHRE database when their field season is completed. Such a project will download its data from the OCHRE database server to its own computer in order to view, query, and update it without being connected to the Internet, and will subsequently upload the changed data to the central OCHRE database. (This will require the installation of the Oracle Database 10g Release 2 on the project’s computer.)

Does OCHRE support vector maps and plans?

OCHRE will soon support vector maps and plans of the kind used in GIS mapping software. This feature is under active development. OCHRE projects will be able to incorporate spatial data in the ESRI “shapefile” format, with panning and zooming of vector maps and plans, and selection and linking to individual map shapes (i.e., shapefile records). This will permit the generation of a color-coded map or plan on-the-fly as the result of a query (e.g., an archaeological phase plan or distribution map, in which selected features and labels are shown).

What kinds of external resources can OCHRE use?

An OCHRE project can enter URLs to link its data to external resources on its own server. Such resources can include: document files in PDF or RTF format; image files in GIF, JPEG, PNG, or SVG format; audio files in AIFF, AU, AVI, MIDI, MP2, or WAV format; video files in AVI, MOV (QuickTime), or MPEG  format. OCHRE will display or play these resources in a separate window. For some formats, OCHRE database items can be linked to a particular part of the resource (e.g., to a specific page of a multi-page PDF file or a pixel region in an image).

Does OCHRE support multiple languages and scripts?

Yes. Textual information entered into OCHRE may contain any Unicode character and may be displayed using any Unicode font, including fonts in non-Roman alphabets (e.g., Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew) or in non-alphabetic scripts (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Korean). A project may supply its own fonts or use the OCHRE fonts. Projects are not required to use English as the default or primary language in which their textual content is entered. In addition, one or more translations of any textual portion (word, phrase, sentence, paragraph) can be embedded invisibly, permitting users to read translations of textual content by switching from one display language to another. Eventually, OCHRE will be available in “internationalized” versions in which the user interface menus, buttons, and labels, which are currently in English, are displayed in other languages.

Is there an API for the OCHRE database?

An application program interface (API) that interacts with OCHRE’s underlying XML (ArchaeoML) database structure will be developed eventually for the purpose of creating user interfaces other than the OCHRE Java application. This will not be done until after the Java user interface has been completed. Note, however, that XML documents exported from OCHRE can be loaded into any native-XML DBMS to be queried using the APIs provided by that DBMS.

 [Last revised on May 11, 2006.]

University of

Chicago