event: Turning the Pages 2.0: 3D digital audio-facsimile of manuscripts and rare books

A 3DVisA seminar with Michael Stocking, Armadillo Systems
Organised by the JISC 3D Visualisation in the Arts Network (3DVisA)

Turning the Pages is a technology for creating interactive 3D facsimile of books. It powers an ongoing digitisation programme of the most treasured, illuminated manuscripts and rare books in the British Library, National Library of Ireland, USA National Library of Medicine, and other libraries and archives. For more information and links see 3DVisA Index of 3D Projects, http://3dvisa.cch.kcl.ac.uk/project19.html.

Introduced in 1998, the technology was originally available on local terminals. Since 2001 it has been developed for the web by Armadillo Systems. Michael Stocking will discuss the new version of software, TTP 2.0, launched in 2007, which provides a more realistic 3D environment for the books as well as new analytical tools. The partnership with Microsoft indicates its future potential.

Some issues to be covered: 3D environment, the problem of scale, how do you integrate 1000 books; how important is the user interface design, especially for academic research? Features versus reach; the current use of markup (XML) and potential for further development, open source versus proprietary, technical standards (scanning, file formats and resolutions).

Alberto Campagniolo, an MA Digital Culture and Technology student at King's will give an overview of the existing 3D techniques for the visualisation of books.

It will be helpful if you use TTP in advance of the seminar and note any questions you may have.

Seminar room, 2nd floor

Centre for Computing in the Humanities
King's College London
26-29 Drury Lane
London WC2B 5RL

Recommended reading/listening on the British Libary website (http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html): Jane Austen's history of England 'by a partial, prejudiced and ignorant Historian', a manuscript completed in 1791, when she was just 15 years old.

Free, but registration required. To reserve a place please email
anna.bentkowska@kcl.ac.uk