Abstract: Transcribing ancient inscribed texts is a complex task. The “e-Science, Imaging Technology and Ancient Documents” project aims at supporting Classicists in this task. The resulting intelligent system will offer image processing facilities tailored to the Classicists’ needs as well as ways to handle reasoning under uncertainty and share transcriptions and documents. We present here our first steps towards building such a system, concentrating on the imaging processing functionality, in particular illumination and background correction. Regular transcription sessions allow us to evaluate if these processed images respond to the Classists’ requirements and their impact on the legibility of the documents. By Ségolène Tarte, Michael Brady, Henriette Roued Olsen, Melissa Terras and Alan Bowman

The abstract for the Digital Humanities Conference in June 2009. Has been accepted for the conference. By Roued Olsen, H.; Tarte, S. M.; Terras, M.; Brady, J. M.; Bowman, A. K.

Poster for the Interface 2009, the 1st Internationan Symposium for Humanities and Technology, 9th-1-th July 2009, University of Southampton, UK. By Henriette Roued-Cunliffe.  

The aim of the project was to enable the use of eSAD developed image-processing algorithms within theframework developed within the VRE-SDM. This means bridging the gap between the use of the NGS for imageprocessing and the web based access mechanisms used by this research community. [paper accepted for presentation at AHM 2009] by Wallom, D.;  Tarte, S. M.; Hu, P.; Tang, K. and Ma, T.

Abstract: Linking up two projects that are dedicated to facilitate the work of documentary scholars, this paper presents image processing algorithms tailored to the study of ancient documents and how they have been made available to the users through a portal that calls upon a web-service exploiting grid computational power. To that end, image processing algorithms were wrapped to fit into the National Grid Service (NGS) Uniform Execution Environment; the data model of an existing Virtual Research Environment (VRE-SDM) was extended; JSR-168 compliant portlets were developed to facilitate secure and seamless distributed image analysis; and a GridSAM interface between the portal and the NGS-installed algorithms was developed. The outcomes of the project include:  a web-based application, a proof of concept for the usability of the VRE-SDM platform, an opportunity for wider dissemination for the eSAD algorithms, and a proof of feasibility for the use of the NGS for Humanities applications.[paper accepted for presentation at the 5th IEEE e-Science conference 2009] by Tarte, S. M.; Wallom, D.;  Hu, P.; Tang, K. and Ma, T.