Graphical rendering

The research project focuses on the Library's collection of medieval and Renaissance Royal illuminated manuscripts. The project, a collaboration with The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, will culminate in a major exhibition at the British Library in 2011-2012; the research will become part of the British Library's free illustrated online Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts (CIM); and will also support and deliver a virtual exhibition and online introductory 'tours' of the Royal collection for visitors to the British Library website. [read more]

project: Medieval Warfare on the Grid: The Case of Manzikert

Grant Holder: Professor Vince Gaffney

The Medieval Warfare on the Grid project (MWGrid) employs e-science methods and tools to support historical research into logistics of medieval war. The battle of Manzikert (modern Malazgirt, Turkey) in 1071, between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Turks, is the subject of this investigation. This key event, which paved the way for Turkish settlement in eastern Anatolia, has been previously studied through comparative historical analysis. However, due to limited sources and the lack of comprehensive analytical methods, its logistics remain a subject of speculation. [read more]

project: Regnum Francorum Online

Grant Holder:

Regnum Francorum Online: interactive maps and sources of early medieval Europe, is a geospatial database with the aim of referencing historical events of Late Antiquity and Early Medieval (western) Europe to evidence in source-documents, compiling meta-data about the events, such as time, space and agency, and visualizing the events on interactive maps. This far, meta-data about more than 14.000 events are maintained in the database and avilable for further temporal and spatial analysis. [read more]

project: Great Britain Historical GIS project

Grant Holder:

The Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System is a unique digital collection of information about Britain's localities as they have changed over time. Information comes from census reports, historical gazetteers, travellers' tales and historic maps, assembled into a whole that is much more than the sum of its parts. [read more]

tool: ArcGIS

Purpose:

ArcGIS is a suite of software that comprises of Desktop GIS, Server GIS, Mobile GIS, and Online GIS. ArcGIS is a platform for building a complete geographic information system (GIS) that lets you easily create, edit, and analyse geographic knowledge on the desktop; publish data, maps, globes and models to a GIS server and/or share them online; and use them on the desktop, on the Web, or in the field.

Features:

• View and query maps
• Manipulate shapefiles and geodatabases
• Data manipulation, editing and analysis
• Mobile device enabled

A&H use case 1 description:

ArcGIS was used in the Mapping Medieval Chester project to integrate geographical and literary mappings of the medieval city using cartographic and textual sources and using these to understand more how urban landscapes in the Middle Ages were interpreted and navigated by local inhabitants.

A&H use case 2 description:

ArcGIS was used in the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project to investigate the relationship between people and their environment, from the Neolithic period to the present day on the island of Cyprus. ArcGIS was used to gather, analyse and map geomorphological data.

Publisher:

Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)

Creator:

Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)

Data capture:

Geophysical survey

GPS and total station surveys

Specifications:

eXtensible Markup Language (XML)

HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

Java

Microsoft's .NET Framework

COM

Visual Basic

TCP/IP

Unified Modelling Language (UML)

Visual C++

Delphi

Data publishing and dissemination:

Disk publishing

Desktop publishing and pre-press

Collaborative publishing

Resource sharing

Communication and collaboration:

Audio-visual interaction (synchronous)

Resource sharing

Graphical interaction (synchronous)

Software/programming languages used:

Discipline:

Data analysis:

Spatial data analysis

Data structuring and enhancement:

Cataloguing and indexing

2d modelling - raster

2d modelling - vector

3d modelling - interactive

3d modelling - vector

Geo-referencing and projection

Graphical rendering

Alternate tool(s):

GRASS (Geographic Analysis Support System) GIS, ThinkGeo

Tags:

GIS

Geospatial computing

Geospatial technology

Strategy and project management:

Documentation

Practice-led research:

3d modelling - vector

Platform:

All major operating systems

lifecycleStage:

Licence:

Suite:

By natalie.hutchinson at Mon, 29/03/2010 - 10:08

Read more about ArcGIS

tool: RivEx

Purpose:

RivEx is a river network tool designed to run under ESRI ArcMap 9.1. It allows for quality control and analysis of the river network and creation of node layers.

Features:

• Process connected river centre lines
• Generate new node layers for the nodes of the network
• Attribute your network including stream order
• Convert your network to a measured network
• Re-orientate (flip) network polylines
• Quality controlled snapping of sites to the river network
• Export river network data to KML (Google Earth) format

A&H use case 1 description:

RivEx was used in conjunction with ESRI ArcMap on the North Sea Palaeolandscapes project to map the river network that was part of the prehistoric landscape stretching from the English Channel to the Norwegian coast line.

Publisher:

RivEx

Creator:

Duncan Hornby

Data publishing and dissemination:

Desktop publishing and pre-press

Specifications:

eXtensible Markup Language (XML)

Communication and collaboration:

Graphical interaction (asynchronous)

Data analysis:

lifecycleStage:

Discipline:

Data capture:

Use of existing digital data

Data structuring and enhancement:

2d modelling - raster

2d modelling - vector

3d modelling - interactive

3d modelling - vector

Geo-referencing and projection

Tags:

Strategy and project management:

Documentation

Human factors analysis

Alternate tool(s):

MotherPlanet

Practice-led research:

2d graphic design

2d illustration

3d graphic design

3d modelling - vector

Texture design and mapping

Virtual world modelling

Platform:

Microsoft Windows 2000

Microsoft Windows XP

Software/programming languages used:

Rivex

Licence:

commercial

By natalie.hutchinson at Fri, 19/03/2010 - 15:15

Read more about RivEx

tool: Exceed

Purpose:

Exceed is a PC X server system which allows for graphical user interface (GUI) interactions with networked computers. Exceed provides data exchange among applications on different platforms including UNIX, Linux, VMS, X Window Based System and IBM mainframes.

Features:

• Allows users to connect Microsoft Windows desktops to a wide variety of X Window-enabled servers and access X applications.

A&H use case 1 description:

Exceed was used the North Sea Palaeolandscapes project to link up different datasets that were available on different operating platforms.

Publisher:

Open Text

Creator:

Hummingbird Ltd.

Communication and collaboration:

Audio-visual interaction (synchronous)

Resource sharing

Graphical interaction (synchronous)

Textual interaction (synchronous)

Data capture:

Use of existing digital data

Data publishing and dissemination:

Collaborative publishing

Data analysis:

Searching and querying

Text mining

Specifications:

Microsoft Visual C/C++

lifecycleStage:

structuring

analysis

publishing

Data structuring and enhancement:

Cataloguing and indexing

Coding and standardisation

Data modelling

Geo-referencing and projection

Graphical rendering

Record linkages

Alternate tool(s):

MicroXwin, X Window System

Tags:

x window system

Graphical User Interface (GUI)

networked computers

x11

Strategy and project management:

General project management

Preservation

Software/programming languages used:

Microsoft Excel

Platform:

All major operating systems

Licence:

commercial

By natalie.hutchinson at Fri, 19/03/2010 - 11:22

Read more about Exceed

tool: Adobe Photoshop

Purpose:

Adobe Photoshop is an editor for still images. It is equipped with a diverse range of processing tools, enabling users to create or modify content through the use of drawing tools, filters, or other plug-ins.

Features:

• Tightly integrated with other Adobe suite software
• Photoshop functionality can be extended by add-on programs called Photoshop plugins which act like mini-editors that modify the image.
• Can utilise the colour models RGB, lab, CMKY, Greyscale, binary bitmap and duotone.
• Reads and writes raster and vector image formats

A&H use case 1 description:

“The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland” project has used Adobe Photoshop to edit digital images in both TIFF and high JPG formats of Romanesque sculpture in Britain.

Publisher:

Adobe Systems Incorporated

Creator:

Adobe Systems Incorporated

Specifications:

JPEG

Encapsulated PostScript (EPS)

Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)

Portable Network Graphics (PNG)

Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)

Bitmap (BMP)

Adobe Illustrator (AI)

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe After Effects

Adobe Fireworks

Data analysis:

Image feature measurement

Image segmentation

Visualisation

Data capture:

2d scanning and photography

Communication and collaboration:

Graphical interaction (asynchronous)

Software/programming languages used:

Adobe Photoshop LE

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe photoshop Elements

Suite:

Adobe

Data structuring and enhancement:

2d modelling - raster

2d modelling - vector

3d modelling - interactive

3d modelling - vector

Alternate tool(s):

GraphicConverter, 36-image converter

Tags:

Practice-led research:

2d graphic design

2d illustration

3d graphic design

3d modelling - vector

Platform:

Licence:

lifecycleStage:

By Valentina Asciutti at Tue, 02/02/2010 - 17:32

Read more about Adobe Photoshop

tool: OpendTect

Purpose:

A software application for analysing and visualising multi-volume seismic data. OpendTect may be used to analyse 2D, 3D and 4D pre- and post-stack seismic data.

Features:

Visualization and analysis of 2D and 3D seismic data in a single survey
2D and 3D horizon tracking including auto-tracking, plane-by-plane, line and manual tracking
On-the-fly calculation and visualization of various attributes and filters
Plug-in architecture

A&H use case 1 description:

The North Sea Palaeolandscapes project used OpendTect to produce a 3D seismic model of the British continental shelf. The model was used to visualise landscapes that may have been populated by humans in the late Quaternary and Holocene period, but which are now submersed underwater.

Publisher:

Freshmeat

Creator:

OpendTect project

Specifications:

Open Graphics Library (OpenGL)

Data capture:

Geophysical survey

Data analysis:

Content analysis

Software/programming languages used:

OpendTect