SharedCanvas: Dealing with Uncertainty in Digital Facsimiles

SharedCanvas: Dealing with Uncertainty
April 18 2013, The Hague, Netherlands
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SharedCanvas: Dealing with Uncertainty in Digital Facsimiles
Robert Sanderson
rsanderson@lanl.gov
Los Alamos National Laboratory
@azaroth42
Benjamin Albritton
blalbrit@stanford.edu
Stanford University
@bla222
http://www.shared-canvas.org/
This research was primarily funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

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Overview
•  Rethinking Digital Facsimiles
•  SharedCanvas Model
•  Issues:
•  Multiplicity of Resources, Authors and States
•  Uncertainty
•  Implementation (if time)
•  Or ask me for a demo :)

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Digital Facsimiles
Medieval manuscripts are increasingly being
digitized:
•  Preservation
•  Mitigate against physical disaster
•  Reduce need to handle original
•  Ease of Access
•  No need to travel to the manuscript
•  Digital Exhibitions for the public
•  Good Will
•  Open licenses for reuse
BNF f.fr 113, folio 1 recto

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Digital Facsimiles
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded many such projects.
Lots of aspects in common:
•  Held digitized images of medieval manuscripts
•  Inability to share data between systems
•  Inability to leverage existing infrastructure
•  No sustainability model
•  All reinvented the page-turning wheel
•  Only for their images
•  Only with their features
•  Consume only, no interaction
•  Expensive to maintain

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Project Status
First 2 years of Mellon funding:
•  Enlist partners
•  Gather requirements
•  Design data model
•  Build proof of concept implementation (rendering)
•  Engage with scholars and further communities
Current funding:
•  More partners
•  Slick front end (UI, UX) [July]
•  Annotation management [November]
•  Validation with scholars [ongoing]

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Interoperability Partners
Universities:
•  Stanford *
•  Cambridge
•  Oxford *
•  Harvard
•  Yale *
•  Johns Hopkins *
•  St Louis *
•  Drew *
•  Ghent
•  Prince Edward Island *
* actively building tools
Libraries and Archives:
•  British Library *
•  BNF *
•  National Library of Norway
•  UK National Archives
•  e-codices *
•  Walters Art Museum
Other:
•  Los Alamos National Lab *
•  Meertens Institute *
•  ArtStor

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Rethinking Digital Facsimiles
Walters Ms. W.188, Book of Hours in Dutch f16r
•  Distributed
•  Linked Data and Resources
•  Single Global Space
•  Interactive
•  Consumer as Producer
•  Interoperable
•  Seamlessly Interconnected
•  Open Source, Open Content

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Rethinking Digital Facsimiles
Walters Ms. W.188, Book of Hours in Dutch f16r
•  Distributed
•  Linked Data and Resources
•  Single Global Space
•  Interactive
•  Consumer as Producer
•  Interoperable
•  Seamlessly Interconnected
•  Open Source, Open Content
•  … 100% Buzzword Compliant

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Baseline Requirements
Basic requirement assumptions:
•  Transcribe a Text
•  … From an Image
•  Display Image+Text
•  … In the correct order
•  Allow commentary
Use Cases revealed two issues:
•  Multiplicity
•  Uncertainty
Ms MurF: 10.5076/e-codices-kba-0003

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Model: Canvas Paradigm
• A Canvas is an empty space in which to build up a display

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Model: Canvas Paradigm
• A Canvas is an empty space in which to build up a display
• A SharedCanvas's top left and bottom right corners correspond to
the equivalent corners of a [rectangular bounding box around a] page

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Model: Annotations to Paint Canvas
•  The Canvas represents the empty page
•  Annotation links Image with Canvas

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•  Annotation links Text with Canvas

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Naïve Assumption: Only One Image
Alignment of multiple
images of same object
•  Multi-spectral imaging
•  Multiple resolutions
•  Image tiling
•  Microfilm vs photograph
•  Multiple digitizations
Bonus naïvete:
•  Page has 1 orientation
•  Page has 1 text Archimedes Palimpsest Multi-Spectral Images
http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/

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Multiplicity Use Case: Multiple Images
A choice of Image to display

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Uncertainty Use Case: Multiple Images
A choice of Image to display … with a default option allowed

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Naïve Assumption: Image Exists
The page may not be digitized
•  Not "interesting" enough
•  Digitization destructive
•  Page no longer exists
•  Page only hypothetical
•  Lack of money, time, …
This page intentionally,
but unfortunately,
left blank
Countless manuscripts, all around the world!

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Uncertainty Use Case: Missing Pages

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Naïve Assumption: Image Equals Page
Only part of page may be
digitized
•  Only illuminations digitized
•  Fragments of pages
•  Multiple fragments per
image
•  Information about non-
digitized parts of page may
still exist
Cod. Sang. 1394: 10.5076/e-codices-csg-1394

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Multiplicity Use Case: Image Segments

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Uncertainty Use Case: Fragments

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Uncertainty Use Case: Texts

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Naïve Assumption: Only Images of Text
Transcription of:
•  Text
•  Music
•  Musical Notation
•  Performance
•  Diagrams
•  Drama
•  …
Parker CCC 008, f1r

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Multiplicity Use Case: Text + Audio + …

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Assumption: Only One Repository
Both Physical and Digital resources
held in different institutions,
different repositories
•  Manuscript disbound and
distributed
•  Digital and Physical repository
often different
•  Metadata, Texts and Images can
be held at different repositories
Cod Sang 730: 10.5706/e-codices-csg-0730a

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Multiplicity Use Case: Multiple Repositories

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Assumption: Only One Order
Pages in rebound manuscripts can
change order, intentionally or
unintentionally
New pages can be added, such as
flyleaves or new texts
Uncertainty of ordering for disbound
leaves and fragments
Cod Sang 730: 10.5706/e-codices-csg-0730a

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Multiplicity Use Case: Ordering

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Multiplicity Use Case: Ordering

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Uncertainty/Multiplicity Use Case: Rebinding

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Bonus Naïve Assumption: Page is Rectangular
Images are rectangular, pages
are not
•  Fashionable heart shaped
manuscripts
•  Fragments
•  Pages with foldouts
Remember: [rectangular
bounding box around the page]
Facsimile of BNF Rothschild 2973
http://www.omifacsimiles.com/brochures/montchen.html

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Commentary

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Implementation: Canvas
Empty space is not hard to implement!

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Implementation: Images

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Implementation: Texts

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Implementation: Audio

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Implementation: Ordering

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Implementation: Commentary

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Summary
Model:
• Canvas paradigm provides a coherent solution to modeling the
layout of medieval manuscripts
• Using primarily Open Annotation constructions
Solves Two Primary Challenges:
•  Multiplicity of Resources, Authors and States
•  Uncertainty of Reconstruction and Text
SharedCanvas brings digitized works to the desktop
in a powerful, extensible and interoperable fashion

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Thank You
Robert Sanderson
rsanderson@lanl.gov
azaroth42@gmail.com
@azaroth42
Web: http://www.shared-canvas.org/
Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.2925
http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.3687
Slides: http://slidesha.re/Y26sFJ
This research was funded primarily by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

SharedCanvas: Dealing with Uncertainty in Digital Facsimiles

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