4D Photo Imaging™ is what we call a digital photo documentation workflow that is backed by and enhanced through the use of 4D Imaging Systems' PhotoStation Manager™ solution.

Using the PhotoStation Manager as the main platform for your 4D Photo Imaging means that you will have a simple way to turn your pictures into a indexed, time-based collection of visual records that can help you better document and report on how something is changing over time.

If you are in Healthcare, use 4D Photo Imaging to visually document your patients or track the results of clinical trials. Be able to see and measure changes in features, and identify which features have recently appeared.

If you are in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC), use 4D Photo Imaging to visually document your various projects and their state of completion. Be able to see and measure features, even after they have been covered up. Complement your CAD and Building Information Models (BIM) with photo documentation of construction progress.

If you are in Law Enforcement, use 4D Photo Imaging to visually document crime scenes or accident scenes. Be able to accurately capture and document a situation and then be able to forensically explore positions, sizes, and appearance of key pieces of evidence.

If you are in any profession that relies on photography as a tool in your business or practice, 4D Photo Imaging can speed your photo documentation workflow and help you make better decisions about what is happening or what happened.

4D Photo Imaging with the PhotoStation Manager:

• Works with any digital camera
• Makes it easy to locate, access, and update images of any of your subjects
• Creates reports with text and graphics on any photo you need to edit (without changing the source image)
• Enables you to take 2D measurements of any feature of interest

4D Photo Imaging lets you capture, organize, markup, report, and communicate your photo documentation quickly and easily.

There are several things to consider when establishing a digital photo documentation workflow. To begin, you should be able the answer some basic questions, including:

• What is my Subject that I will photo document (i.e. a person, an object, a location, etc.)? What are the list of standardized views that are needed to fully document your Subject and in what sequence can you most quickly / efficiently capture those views with a camera?
• How many cameras will be used?
• Will a single camera be used by one person or multiple people?
• Will you capture photo images for a single Subject and then process / load those photo images before moving on to the next Subject? Or will photo images of multiple Subjects be captured before performing the processing and loading?
• Will the photo image processing be done at a single, centralized workstation? Or will each person taking photo images have access to their own computer while taking the photo documentation  images.
• What information is critical to be associated with the photo images? Do these include any measurements?
• What sorts of procedures will be documented using photo images and have you standardized the steps / views you desire to be captured using photo images?

These are just a few of the things you need to consider when creating a standardized digital photo documentation workflow.

If your organization has multiple users of the PhotoStation Manager solution, depending on your needs, all users can share a single, networked collection of photo documentation records, or one or more of the users can setup their own private collection of photo documentation records.

One of the setup features of the PhotoStation Manager is the Storage Tab. On this panel, you can choose where your photo documentation collection will be stored. You can choose a local drive (i.e. on your personal computer), a networked file server drive, or even a virtual drive located up in the cloud.

A networked file server drive or cloud drive selection makes it easy for a single photo documentation record collection to be accessed and shared by multiple users.

Whether you are using the PhotoStation Manager software or the PhotoStation System, you do not need a dedicated photography room if you are a Healthcare practitioner.

The PhotoStation Manager makes it easy to use off-the-shelf digital cameras to shoot photo documentation in any of rooms for upload later into the PhotoStation Manager system.

With the all-inclusive 4D PhotoStation System, you can move the camera system from room to room and take consistent high quality photo images. The PhotoStation System allows for the setup of camera settings files for each room in which pictures will be taken. Before capturing new photo images, select and load the predefined settings to take great pictures.

While taking consistent high quality photo documentation images requires more than pointing your camera and pressing the shutter release button, you don't need to be an expert in photography to get the job done.

Many digital cameras include options that make it easy to take pictures in a variety of situations. While most cameras have a sports mode, or fireworks mode, unfortunately no camera we've seen has a 'consistent high quality documentation photo image' mode.

By understanding the four key ideas of shutter speed, aperture, white balance, and ISO level, you can take high quality photo images at your facility without becoming a photo expert. Please refer to our Digital Photography Primer for more information about capturing photo documentation images.