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New Gallery Analytics
Almost every artist who has a gallery wants to know who visits it and what artwork that the visitors find most interesting. If a gallery is virtual, like it is on Galeryst, an artist also would want to know where in the world the visitors are coming from. That is now possible on Galeryst! We’ve been working on a new analytics page on Galeryst that shows data about public galleries and artwork shared in them. For Galeryst subscribers, we are also showing visitor traffic and their engagement with the artwork in their galleries. Note, that there are many more non-public galleries on Galeryst that we do not share information about on the analytics page.
For the data visualization, we are using a tool called SandDance created by Microsoft Research and released through the Microsoft Garage, Microsoft’s small-scale innovation group. It is now available as an open-source component here. We chose SandDance because it offers a poetic 3D visualization with animation that went well with the 3D nature of Galeryst. SandDance invites users to explore the data visually in a fun way.
Visitor Analytics
When a visitor enters a gallery, moves around, and clicks on artwork, that stream of data is recorded anonymously by Microsoft Application Insights. That data is then represented in a 3D column chart where the x axis is the date, the size of a block is the amount of time spent, and the color is the number of artwork touches (interactions). Clicking on a block shows detail about a the timeline of a visitor session on the rigth, wings entered, and artwork touched.
The fun of SandDance is that users can easily switch between 8 different chart types and see the same data in different ways. The same visitor data in a grid chart below.
To get started with Galeryst analytics, sign in with your Adobe ID on Galeryst and you can see the Galleries, Artworks, and Content Labels data visualizations. If you are a paid subscriber at any level, you can see other charts with analytics for your galleries, your artwork and your visitors for all of your galleries or specific ones.
For users and subscribers, to see the Galeryst analytics and analytics for your galleries, go to the My Galleries page, and click on the menu button for any gallery and you should see a new Analytics in the user menu in the upper right:
Exploring Data
Exploring the data in Galeryst can be fun and insightful. If you explore the Content labels chart as shown below, you can see that artworks that have been label by AI as “colorful” got more interactions on average than many other types of content over the past week.
The SandDance control is meant to be used for data exploration so you can easily change which parameters are shown on which axis, how color is used, what color scheme is used, and how the sizes of cubes are determined, to name a few parameters. We invite you to play with the data, experiment and find a visualization that’s insightful for you. It’s very easy for us to add another visualization so please reach out if you have created a useful one that you’d like to share. We are looking into adding capabilities to enable users to save chart options as well.
Our goal in launching Galeryst was to enable any artist to create a beautiful gallery to share their artwork with the world. Now those artists can see what part of the world is appreciating their work. We invite you to create a gallery (anyone can create one for free), share it with the world, and explore the analytics that come from it. With the various subscription plans, you can create a gallery with an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 7-day free trial, try out Galeryst for with a 1-month Artist plan, and see who comes to see your artwork!
Customization Update 1/27/2023
Enabling saving user customized charts was easier to do than I thought. Now Galeryst user can save any chart configuration as a custom chart. Artists can modify any of the parameters (chart type, column mapping, color schemes, etc.) and press the save button next to the source selector to save a custom chart. If you modify the chart, press the save button again to save updates to it.
We are excited to announce a new feature on Galeryst to enable people who create galleries to add sculptures to their galleries. This is a feature enabled for users who subscribe to artist, curator, or museum plan and will allow them to add .GLB 3D model files stored in the Adobe Creative Cloud Libraries to specific locations in gallery layouts.
Though there are many 3D file formats, we chose to enable GL Transmission Format Binary ( .glb) files because they contain geometry, lighting, materials, and animations and there are many software tools available today that can be used to create these files. As Adobe has a number of 3D tools their Creative Cloud tool set, they’ve enabled their Creative Cloud to support the .glb format and Galeryst leverages the Adobe ID for authentication as well as the Photoshop Lightroom API and Creative Cloud API for content.
.glb Files
For the dinosaur model above, I took a 3D topographic model that I created with the Topographic app I built a few years ago, loaded it into the Paint 3D app and then inserted a 3D dinosaur from Paint 3D’s model gallery. I then exported it as a .glb file and saved it to a Creative Cloud Library. Most modern 3D applications like or Blender or 3D Builder can generate .glb files and there are lots of models available in the format today.
Adding 3D sculptures to your galleries involves a few steps if you are already a subscriber (if you are not, check out the artist, curator and museum plans here).
- Add at least one .glb file to an Adobe Creative Cloud Library (not your Lightroom albums).
- Create a new gallery if you don’t have one yet. (There is not an option yet to create a new gallery with sculptures.)
- Customize the gallery you have already created and add sculptures to any of the wings in the new Sculptures tab.
- In each wing, select layouts that have sculpture locations.
- Regenerate the gallery.
Here are the details:
Adding a sculpture
- Select a wing in the first column.
- Press the + to add a new sculpture.
- Select a .GLB file from one of your Creative Cloud Libraries and the model will load on the right next to a person figure to give some scale.
- Press the Height button to show a grabbable arrow gizmo to move the sculpture up and down.
- Press the Scale/Rotate to show a bounding box gizmo to rotate and scale the sculpture.
- You can drag with the mouse or touch to change the orientation of the view and mouse wheel to zoom out.
- Update the name and description and check the option to show them in your gallery when a visitor points at it.
Adding a Layout with Sculpture Locations
On the Wings tab go to the Layouts section in your wing and add a layout that has a red dot on it showing a sculpture location. You can now have multiple different layouts in a gallery wing. Each room in a wing can have up to four sculptures.
Rebuild your Gallery
Rebuild your gallery by pressing the Update Gallery button and when your gallery is updated, you and your visitors should see sculptures in the wings. See the Dinosaurs Gallery.
Just the Beginning
This is just the start – please send your feedback and share your galleries with sculptures – we’re so excited to see what this enables!
I could imagine all kinds of uses for this new feature:
- Presenting an architectural design for review or a critique like the kind that is held in architecture schools.
- Showing a 3D scanned model of the artist welcoming people to the gallery.
- Share collections of models you’ve made for as a portfolio surrounded by sketches and renderings of them.
- Find .glb models to complement your images on sites like Turbosquid, Sketchfab, or cgTrader.
I can’t wait to share what the community of gallerists on Galeryst creates! Stay Tuned!!!
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Artist Spotlight: Julie West
Julie West is a humanitarian, travel art photographer, and owner of a travel company. Julie, lives in Australia near a small village called Tyalgum (tie-al-gum) in Northern NSW, about halfway between the tourist city of Gold Coast and the backpacker haven of Byron Bay. She lives on a small rural (lifestyle) farm in the Tweed Valley which is home to the Nganduwal people of the Bundjalung nation, who are the first nations people and the traditional owners and custodians of the land where she lives.
Julie has spent many years travelling through SE Asia and would like others to see the varied lives of the many people and cultures there. Her aim as a photographer, is to show the world that we are all family, and we all have stories to tell. While traveling, she supports local businesses and communities, as well as helping to aid in the education of children in rural areas of Laos. She prefers to experience a place deeply and often, rather than see everything once, skimming the surface, especially when photographing and getting to know her subjects.
Julie has an upcoming photography exhibition titled ‘Asiatique’ as part of the Murwillumbah ARTS Trail in Australia on the last weekend in May 2022 and this was her impetus to create an online gallery on Galeryst for her many friends and family who live too far away to attend, but wanted to see the exhibition.
I came across Galeryst while searching for software to create my own online space. As an Adobe Lightroom user, I found it easy to create and use this amazing and yet simple program. Michael and his team assisted with a few glitches I had, and my online gallery is now something I am delighted with.
Julie West
It’s clear from viewing her gallery you are seeing something special in her photographs. You go on a trip without ever having to get on a plane. Her images allow an intimate peek into lives of people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos you may never get with a casual visit.
Julie’s use of the description card in her gallery wing adds another layer of depth and interest as well. She uses each card to share a story or backstory for each image. This allows us to learn about the lives of her subjects and connects us to strangers we would otherwise never know. Her goal of sharing a real world that tourists never see is realized and it is a glimpse into a world that that is moving and beautiful.
Visit Julie’s gallery Asiatique on Galeryst.
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Artist Spotlight: David Schneider
David Schneider, a photographer in Albuquerque, New Mexico has started to use Galeryst to exhibit his photography of nature, adventure, history and journeys to augment his existing site Fringe Photograpy. I really love the variety of subjects that he has captured with an eye on storytelling as a key component.
I focus on the light, beauty, mystery, and magic of the world around us. Our world is filled with extraordinary beauty if we know where to look and take the time to do so. I apply the impactful maxim “the mark of a good archer is knowing when not to shoot the arrow” to my photography and am careful about what I photograph. From small vignettes to soaring vistas, I bring passion and joy to each moment.
But there is more than the photograph itself, and I write a short story for each one. Sometimes fanciful and sometimes factual, these stories add a unique dimension, and each one brings its photograph to life.This collection represents my favorite pieces. Some are from my earlier work, and some are recent. Galeryst is the perfect format for this and allows me to achieve my vision. I hope you enjoy exploring it as much as I enjoyed creating it for you.
David Schneider
When you visit his Fringe Photography gallery on Galeryst, clicking on the card next to each piece will bring you to a page on his website where you can buy the photograph choosing a framing option and size.
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Using Artwork for Gallery Covers
We just added a new feature which enables gallery exhibitors on Galeryst to use any of their artworks as the cover image for their gallery. There are now three different ways to set the cover image for your gallery:
- Press the Camera button on the bottom bar while browsing your own gallery to take an image directly from your gallery.
- When customizing your gallery, subscribers can choose an image do upload from their system on the details page.
- (New) When customizing your gallery, on the Assets tab, select the row for the artwork and press the Set gallery cover button to use a specific asset in the gallery.
Here is a short demo of how to set the gallery cover from an asset.
Update your gallery cover today!
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Customizing Gallery Foyer Signage
We’ve just added a new feature requested by a photographer who wanted a logo on the signage in his gallery foyer. I was able to do this with using the same customization method for gallery cards, by providing an editor for the Babylon JS GUI XML that I use to define the text for the title and description. In the sample below, I inserted this XML to put the “Your Logo” image hosted on the imgur.com free image hosting site. Subscribers could put their logo, an image of themselves, or any other images hosted on imgur.com to personalize their gallery foyer.
<Image width="800px" height="250px" source="https://i.imgur.com/pISp53o.png" horizontalAlignment="Control.HORIZONTAL_ALIGNMENT_LEFT"/>
This customization is now available as a Foyer Title tab when you customize a gallery.
Give it a try and make your foyer even more unique.
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Gallery Cover Images
Based on an artist suggestion, we just added a new feature to enable Galeryst subscribers (Artist, Curator, or Museum plan) to upload a custom image used for the gallery cover.
- Customize the gallery, select the Details page
- Press Choose file button to select an image
- Press the Update cover button
I’m looking forward to seeing how artists use this!
Keep the suggestions coming!
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Gallery Navigation Update
We’ve been getting feedback from users that navigating the gallery with a mouse/keyboard/touch pad is not great, so I’ve been working to improve it and we’d love to see how you like it.
Now when you open a gallery 3D view in the foyer or a wing and click in the gallery view, the mouse cursor is hidden, and the mouse directly controls the camera rotation without having to click and drag. This is now using a browser feature called “pointer locking.” When moving around, a small white circle appears in the center of the screen which you can use to point and click on artwork to move you to stand in front of it. As before you can use the cursor keys or W|A|S|D keys to move forward, backwards, left and right and the mouse wheel to move forward and backwards. You can press Esc at any time to get the cursor back and interact with any of the UI. This is similar to 3D games like Minecraft.
You may need to refresh the gallery page once (F5) to load the new code. Please give it a try and post any feedback to the Github Issues site for Galeryst.
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Artist-Driven Enhancements
We’ve been getting lots of feedback from artists who have started exhibiting their work on Galeryst and have been hard at work making it better. Artists have been creating issues on the GitHib portal, both bugs and feature requests, and we’ve been working hard to fix and improve Galeryst based on this feedback. If you have an idea or have a problem with Galeryst, please create an issue of the Github portal! Here are a few new items to notice:
Additional room layouts
Two new room layouts have been added (– and –|), we improved the icon for each layout icon to add outer walls, and showed the total number of artworks for the layout including the exterior walls.
Gallery Visitor Analytics
Now we are showing the visitors and visitors for your gallery
Gallery Title in Foyer
We fixed some issue with the gallery title and wing labels where they weren’t being displayed or the text was cut off.
Deleted Assets in Lightroom
When you deleted an asset in Lightroom from an album it was still showing up in the gallery. That is fixed now.
Improved Loading Time of Pages
We’ve been doing lots of work to decrease the loading time of pages across the site.