Relationship between JCR and DAM - Is the DAM part of the JCR

The DAM is certainly part of the AEM JCR and the structure of the DAM is nodes in the JCR:

[img]DAM.png[/img]

Like other JCR nodes - you can use various APIs - like QueryBuilder API to search for nodes. 

 // create query description as hash map (simplest way, same as form post)
  Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();
      
  //set QueryBuilder search criteria                   
  map.put("type", "dam:Asset");
  map.put("path", "/content/dam/car"); 
  map.put("property.value", "image/png");
        
  builder= resourceResolver.adaptTo(QueryBuilder.class);
   //Invoke the Search query
    Query query = builder.createQuery(PredicateGroup.create(map), session);
    SearchResult sr= query.getResult();
         

You can use AssetManager to create new nodes. For example:

 ResourceResolver resourceResolver = resolverFactory.getAdministrativeResourceResolver(null);
     
    //Use AssetManager to place the file into the AEM DAM
    com.day.cq.dam.api.AssetManager assetMgr = resourceResolver.adaptTo(com.day.cq.dam.api.AssetManager.class);
    String newFile = "/content/dam/travel/"+fileName ; 
    assetMgr.createAsset(newFile, is,"image/jpeg", true);

All content in AEM - including content in the DAM - are resources and part of the AEM JCR.