EVA2004 Moscow 1

INTAS Project A Distributed Database and Processing

System for Watermarks(July 2001 – June 2004)

Emanuel Wenger1, Victor Karnaukhov2

1Austrian Academy of Sciences, Commission for Scientific Visualization, Vienna, Austria

2Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Moscow, Russia

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Watermark project

• artefacts in European handmade paper• dating of paper (books, documents,

prints, …)• important for libraries (old books),

museums (prints, paintings), auction houses, historians

• comparizon of undated wm with wm in catalogues (Briquet, Mojin, Piccard, Ligachev,…)

• computer: improvement – quality (images)– speed (search)– quantity (network of databases)

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Watermark catalogue

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Teams

• CO: Austrian Academy of Sciences, Commission for Scientific Visualization, Commission of Paleography and Codicology of Medieval Manuscripts, Vienna, Austria (Haidinger, Stieglecker, Wenger)

• CR1: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, The Netherlands (vanThienen)

• CR2: Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Moscow, Russia (Victor Karnaukhov)

• CR3: State Historical Museum, Department of Manuscripts and Old Books, Moscow, Russia (Elena Oukhanova, Elena Popova)

• CR4: Russian Academy of Sciences, Laboratory of Conservation and Restoration of Documents (Dmitrij Erastov), and National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg, Russia (DenisTsypkin).

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Project Aims

• Improve all steps of wm processing– Research in recording technology– Distributed database– Develop and extend an integrated wm

processing system

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Starting Situation

• Database in Vienna of medieval watermarks from manuscripts in Klosterneuburg (Haidinger)

• Watermark database and processing tools (Victor Karnaukhov)

• Database of wm of Dutch incunabula (vanThienen)

• Invention and research of betaradiography in St. Petersburg (Dmitrij Erastov) and image processing (Denis Tsypkin)

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Watermark Recording

• rubbing• beta radiography• electron radiography

• digital camera– special illumination– multispectral images (infrared)– image processing

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Rubbing

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Rubbing

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Rubbing

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Rubbing

• (poor) image quality depending on quality of paper

• removal of overlapping text

• very cheap

• fast procedure

• portable equipment

• scanning of images required

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Beta radiography

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Beta radiography

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Beta radiography

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Beta radiography

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Beta radiography

• good image quality

• removal of overlapping text

• expensive (beta radiography plate, film)

• long exposure times (up to 8 hours)

• portable equipment

• scanning of images required

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Electron radiography

lead foil

film

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Electron radiography

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Electron radiography

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Electron radiography

• very good image quality

• removal of overlapping text

• very expensive (service, film)

• short exposure times (250-300 in 4 hours)

• big equipment, not portable everywhere

• scanning of images required

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State Historical Museum (E. Oukhanova)

Tools:1. Digital camera Olympus C-3030Zoom2. Slimlight device3. A scale, a little weight

(a piece of marble)

Resolution for processing: folio – 170-210 dpi, quarto – 200-250 dpi

Digital camera

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Slimlight

• 1mm foil

• electroluminiscence

• flexible

• homogenous illumination

• no heat and ultraviolet radiation

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Digital camera

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Digital camera

• good image quality, BUT• no removal of overlapping text (only by

sophisticated software)• very cheap (digital camera, illumination)• short processing time• portable equipment• no scanning of images required, no

hardcopy

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Watermark Processing

• preprocessing– contrast enhancement– standardized quality

• geometric corrections– orientation– crop

• extraction (segmentation)

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Watermark database

• Databases: libraries, books, types, watermarks, ...

• Classification of wm into types, subtypes (6 levels)

• Multilingual (problem of miss. standards)

• Search for identical wms or variants

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Type/Subtypes

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Watermark database and toolkit

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Results

• Enlargement and improval of the wm databases and processing systems in TheHague and Vienna

• Watermark database at the Historical Museum in Moscow

• Watermark database at the Russian State Library in St. Petersburg

• Multilingual database (English, German, Russian)• Combination of all four watermark databases

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Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna

• Alois Haidinger, Maria Stieglecker, Emanuel Wenger

• watermark database (7000 images from monasteries e.g. Klosterneuburg, Nationalbibliothek, …), Paradox, MYSQL

• betaradiography

• online db (7000 betaradiography images) http://www.oeaw.ac.at/ksbm/wz/_adm/php/wzma2.htm new webpage since end of November

• Piccard online (Stuttgart)

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Koninklijke Bibliotheek,The Hague

• Gerard van Thienen

• Watermarks in incunabula printed in the low countries 2000 incunabula, 800 dated

• rubbing, electron radiography

• biggest online watermark database (16 000 records), MS-Access

• very nice webpage (http://watermark.kb.nl/)

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Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow

• Victor N. KARNAUKHOV, Olga V. KIREEVA, Andrei V. KARNAUKHOV, Olga MELIKOVA

• implementation of watermark toolkit (image enhancement, measurement, geometrical corrections, ...)

• database design

• coordination of Russian teams

• mirror of Russian databases

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State Historical Museum , Moscow

• Elena V. Oukhanova, Elena V. Popova, Elena S. Kondrashkina, Elena N. Kazakova

• digital cameras + slimlight

• manuscript collections (Eparkhialnoe) contains 200 manuscripts of the 15th century

• 1054 watermarks in database

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National Library of Russia, St. PetersburgRussian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg Scientific Center,

Department of Document Restoration and Conservation

• Dmitrij P. Erastov, Denis O. Tsypkin, Mikhail A. Shibaev

• beta radiography (Technitium)

• digital television recording in visible and infrared areas of the spectrum

• 1000 pictures from Russian and West-European manuscripts of 15th -16th centuries (500 Polish documents of the 16th centuries from the important P. P. Dubrovsky’s collection of autographs )

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Future

• Continuation of the wm database project• Intensify international cooperation by a

wider EU project• Link together watermark databases (portal)

– Distributed database– Standards– Exchange of processing tools (image

processing, measurements)

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Watermark Database Portal

Vienna

Portal webpage

The Hague

Moscow St. Petersburg