Creating assest via the database

Hi there-

I’m working with a client that has over 30K image assets in an old photo gallery not running on wordpress. I have exported the old database from his current working photo gallery and am going to be able to map the fields from the production database to the fields that next gen uses.

I have an understanding of EVERYTHING except for the Meta_data column inside the ngg_pictures table.

The data in this field I’m unsure how to populate this
It looks something like this

a:17:{s:5:\width\";i:94;s:6:\"height\";i:127;s:4:\"full\";a:2:{s:5:\"width\";i:94;s:6:\"height\";i:127;}s:9:\"thumbnail\";a:4:{s:5:\"width\";i:94;s:6:\"height\";i:90;s:8:\"filename\";s:31:\"thumbs_thumb_2_a_ems_28v229.jpg\";s:9:\"generated\";s:21:\"0.09519500 1386433495\";}s:8:\"aperture\";b:0;s:6:\"credit\";b:0;s:6:\"camera\";b:0;s:7:\"caption\";b:0;s:17:\"created_timestamp\";b:0;s:9:\"copyright\";b:0;s:12:\"focal_length\";b:0;s:3:\"iso\";b:0;s:13:\"shutter_speed\";b:0;s:5:\"flash\";b:0;s:5:\"title\";b:0;s:8:\"keywords\";b:0;s:5:\"saved\";b:1;}"

How can I programatically do this without causing some serious issues.

I don’t need HALF this information in here such as keywords, flash aperature and all that camera information. What values can be imported into Meta_data field and what is the best way to do this. There is no way I can do this via the interface given the fact there are 30K+ image assets.

Does anyone out there have a suggustion on how to do this. I have Meta data from old database but not sure the best way to go about this since its not neat and organized. Ideally Instead of having one column called meta_data it would be broken out into seperate columns such as width, height, thumbnail etc…

http://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/nextgen-gallery/