event: Turning the Pages 2.0 - A 3DVisA seminar with Michael Stocking, Armadillo Systems

Colleagues and students with interests in manuscripts, rare books, 3D
visualisation and electronic resources may be interested in attending

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)

Wednesday, 20 February 2008, 4pm

Seminar room, 2nd floor

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

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.

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