Introduction

The Madison Digital Image Database is a freely distributed, open source web application originally developed at James Madison University and now supported mainly by vrcHost LLC. MDID is a digital media management system with sophisticated tools for discovering, aggregating, and presenting digital media in a wide variety of learning spaces.The project started in 1997 in response to increasing curriculum requirements within JMU's School of Art and Art History and evolved over time into a cross-disciplinary instructional application used at several hundred institutions in the United States and around the world.

Version 3 of MDID is completely redesigned and re-coded from the ground up in order to meet emerging user expectations, such as support for audio and video, integration with Blackboard and other web sites, more flexible metadata structures, a richer and more robust discovery interface, granular access controls, PowerPoint compatibility, shorter development cycles, support for composite objects, and novel presentation mechanisms. It runs on most operating systems. MDID3 ships with a companion application, the MediaViewer. The MediaViewer is used primarily in mediated classrooms to display slideshows (groups of ordered images). It features intuitive zoom and pan controls, intelligent navigation, image caching, catalog data display, and support for dual monitors.

It is freely available for download from the Internet under an open source license.