6. IMAGE Terminology

IMAGE Terminology

There are a lot of terms used as part of IMAGE, whether in documentation, source code, or user interfaces. To avoid confusion, these terms (should) have specific meanings when used in the context of IMAGE.

Visual Media-related Terms

• IMAGE - This is the Internet Multimodal Access to Graphical Exploration or IMAGE project. IMAGE contains various software and services, which are discussed on this wiki and on the main website. To avoid confusion, "image" (lowercase) should be avoided in documentation or user interfaces.
• Graphic - This refers to any kind of visual media in a digital format. It indicates nothing about the content of the media (e.g., if it's a chart, graph, photograph).

IMAGE Architecture Terms

• Orchestrator - The container that receives requests from the client. These requests contain a graphic or other data representing a visual element that will be used to generate non-visual renderings.
• Preprocessor - A container that analyzes a request to extract or identify additional useful data.
• Handler - A container that uses information from the client and preprocessors to produce renderings to be shown to the user.
• Service - A reusable running software accessible through network requests to perform special-purpose but common tasks for preprocessors and handlers. For example, text-to-speech. Note that this is separate from a Docker service, although many containers of an IMAGE service may form a Docker service.