imarking

Imarking is a term used in various industries to denote the practice of applying marks or identifiers to an object or its digital representation to indicate ownership, status, or classification. The term can refer to physical marking on products and packaging as well as to digital tagging and annotation used in data processing and machine learning.

In manufacturing and logistics, imarking encompasses a range of physical methods such as laser etching, ink stamping, barcodes, QR codes, and RFID tags, which support traceability, inventory management, and quality control. Digital variants include embedding identifiers in electronic records, or linking marks to supply-chain data to ensure provenance and verify authenticity.

In digital imaging and artificial intelligence, image marking or iMarking refers to the annotation of images with labels, boundaries, or other markers to create labeled datasets for training and evaluation of computer-vision systems. This use is typically done through annotation tools and may involve human annotation or automated labeling pipelines.

Because imarking is used across different domains, there is no single standard definition. The exact meaning depends on the context, ranging from physical marks on goods to metadata in software systems and annotated image data.

Related concepts include labeling, tagging, watermarking, barcode and QR code systems, and digital asset management.