Archive Specifications
Scope and Protocol Version
These specifications apply to recordings and drawings created beginning July 15, 2025 unless a metadata row documents a deviation.
The corresponding metadata identifier is:
acquisition_protocol_version = standard-2025-07-15
The identifier records the governing protocol. It does not imply that every published file has identical encoded dimensions, orientation, codec, audio, or post-processing history.
Capture Configuration
The documented standard acquisition intent is:
- Capture orientation: Landscape
- Capture resolution class: 2160p UHD (4K)
- Still-image size: 4000 × 3000
- Exposure: Locked
- White balance: Locked
Capture versus published encoding
Capture orientation and stored pixel orientation are separate properties.
metadata.csv fields width_px, height_px, and orientation describe the
published encoded file. Many canonical files are stored as portrait video,
including records that historical evidence identifies as rotations or crops of
landscape sources.
Do not infer a rotation, crop, or transcode solely from dimensions. Such a transformation should be asserted only when supported by provenance evidence.
Timing and Calibration Status
The current protocol documentation does not yet provide a complete calibrated time base for motor-control or physical-trajectory measurement. In particular, the following may be unknown for a recording unless separately documented:
- original frame-capture interval
- real drawing-session duration
- time-lapse acceleration factor
- source-frame timestamps
- removed pauses or edit decisions
- dropped-frame history
- camera model, lens, and mount geometry
- pixel-to-physical coordinate mapping or homography
encoded_frame_rate is playback rate only. It must not be treated as original
drawing-time sampling.
Drawing Surfaces
9 × 12 in
- Strathmore 300 Series Bristol
- Smooth surface
- 100 lb (270 g/m²)
- Acid free
11 × 14 in
- Strathmore 300 Series Bristol
- Smooth surface
- 100 lb (270 g/m²)
- Acid free
30 × 40 in
- Strathmore 500 Series Illustration Board
- Heavyweight vellum surface
- 20-ply
- White
Other support sizes and materials may appear when identified in the canonical filename and metadata.
Open 30 × 40 support review
Fifteen canonical records currently encode support = Paper and
dimensions = 30x40, while the documented standard surface above is
Illustration Board. This is an unresolved semantic conflict. Downstream users
must not silently relabel those rows, and the archive must not claim the
difference is an acquisition exception until the curator verifies the physical
support or corrects this specification.
Drawing Instruments and Ink
Ballpoint
- Pelikan 337 Giant Ballpoint Refill
- Black
- Medium, 1.0 mm
- Document-proof ink conforming to ISO 12757-2
Fountain pen
- Pilot Custom 823
- Aurora Black fountain pen ink
Additional tools and media are recorded at the individual-record level.
Audio
Audio presence is a stored-file property, not a required part of the acquisition
protocol. has_audio records whether an audio stream exists. It does not
describe the stream's contents or establish redistribution rights for music,
speech, notifications, or other incidental sound.
Exceptions and Evidence
Known departures from the protocol should be documented in the affected
metadata row. A deviation claim should identify its evidence in notes and,
where applicable, provenance fields.
When a property is not documented, it must remain unknown rather than being reconstructed from visual appearance alone.