1. Emanuel Wenger1, Victor Karnaukhov2
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
EVA2004 Moscow

2. 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)
EVA2004 Moscow

3. Watermark catalogue
EVA2004 Moscow

4. 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).
EVA2004 Moscow

5. Project Aims Improve all steps of wm processing
Research in recording technology
Distributed database
Develop and extend an integrated wm processing system
EVA2004 Moscow

6. 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)
EVA2004 Moscow

7. Watermark Recording rubbing beta radiography electron radiography
digital camera
special illumination
multispectral images (infrared)
image processing
EVA2004 Moscow

8. Rubbing
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9. Rubbing
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10. Rubbing
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11. Rubbing (poor) image quality depending on quality of paper
removal of overlapping text
very cheap
fast procedure
portable equipment
scanning of images required
EVA2004 Moscow

12. Beta radiography
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13. Beta radiography
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14. Beta radiography
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15. Beta radiography
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16. 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
EVA2004 Moscow

17. Electron radiography
film
lead foil
EVA2004 Moscow

18. Electron radiography
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19. Electron radiography
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20. Electron radiography very good image quality
removal of overlapping text
very expensive (service, film)
short exposure times ( in 4 hours)
big equipment, not portable everywhere
scanning of images required
EVA2004 Moscow

21. Digital camera State Historical Museum (E. Oukhanova) Tools:
1. Digital camera Olympus
C-3030Zoom
2. Slimlight device
3. A scale, a little weight
(a piece of marble)
Resolution for processing:
folio – dpi,
quarto – dpi
EVA2004 Moscow

22. Slimlight 1mm foil electroluminiscence flexible
homogenous illumination
no heat and ultraviolet radiation
EVA2004 Moscow

23. Digital camera
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24. 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
EVA2004 Moscow

25. Watermark Processing preprocessing geometric corrections
contrast enhancement
standardized quality
geometric corrections
orientation
crop
extraction (segmentation)
EVA2004 Moscow

26. 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
EVA2004 Moscow

27. Type/Subtypes
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28. Watermark database and toolkit
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29. 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
EVA2004 Moscow

30. 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) new webpage since end of November
Piccard online (Stuttgart)
EVA2004 Moscow

31. 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 ( records), MS-Access
very nice webpage (
EVA2004 Moscow

32. 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
EVA2004 Moscow

33. 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
EVA2004 Moscow

34. Dmitrij P. Erastov, Denis O. Tsypkin, Mikhail A. Shibaev
National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg Russian 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 )
EVA2004 Moscow

35. 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)
EVA2004 Moscow

36. Watermark Database Portal
Vienna
The Hague
Portal webpage
St. Petersburg
Moscow
EVA2004 Moscow