Trying a new approach to my overlapping annotations problem: • No more stacked underlines • Instead, overlaps get small start markers • Exact overlaps show a tiny count number • Color density still hints at overlap Try it live: dense-annotations.netlify.app One caveat… see next post 👇

Here's my main dilemma with overlapping text annotations: Underlines become a mess once you stack more than three. At the same time, there's really no way around them if you want to show where overlap starts and ends. I guess the Q is how/when to drop underlines without losing too much information?

Task for today: brainstorming better ways to visualize heavily annotated text. The more I think about it, the harder it gets... • Partial overlaps → clutter & a11y issues • Exact overlaps → even worse • Stacked underlines → work great... until they don't. Seen elegant solutions? I’d love to chat!

Check out this amazing project so many of us at Performant Software have been working on for the past couple of years. We can't wait for the launch and for everyone to see it!

Had the chance to join a workshop on image annotation in IMMARKUS led by @hildedw.bsky.social, Rainer Simon, Sunkyu Lee, and Dawn Zhuang today. This was great fun and definitely a tool I will use when working with visual media and texts in the future! #digitalhumanities

We’re improving accessibility in the Recogito Text Annotator, our open source text annotation library. Keyboard support is solid, but highlights aren’t directly tied to the text. They're a floating layer above it, breaking screen reader access. If you’ve faced similar a11y issues, I’d love to chat!

Arrows between annotations - a recurring feature request I’ve revisited a few times. Building yet another version in a current project: • Hand-drawn (no auto layout) • Can snap to annotations - or not • Works as both a visual tool & a semantic/data-model link This feels like the nicest version yet!

New in #IMMARKUS: when you import a #IIIF manifest, IMMARKUS now imports existing annotations (embedded or referenced) into your workspace. We'd love to test with real-world examples. If you know of IIIF collections with annotations, let us know. Annotated manifests still seem rare in the wild...

And while we're at it: the Recogito PDF Annotator – our open source library for interactive PDF annotation in the browser – finally has docs, too! If you're looking for an easy way to add PDF annotation to your web app, do check it out! 👉 github.com/recogito/pdf...

Kennt jemand Studien über die "Haltbarkeit" von digitalen Projekten der Geisteswissenschaften? Also wieviel Prozent ist nach wie vielen Jahren nicht mehr online? Ich meine, mal etwas gelesen zu haben, finde aber nur Studien über das Verschwinden von OA-Journals und allgemein #linkrot […]

The Recogito Text Annotator, our open source JS library for interactive text annotation, finally has developer documentation! Check it out here: github.com/recogito/tex...

The Recogito PDF Annotator now applies better post-processing to the annotation highlights. The differences are subtle. But I like how those gaps, uneven line height and messy overlapping box artefacts are now smoothed into clean, continuous lines. Before vs. after:

A question for #DigitalArtHistory: If you were to create a small online image database (with IIIF support) right now, which software would you choose? Fylr (ex easydb), Coneda KOR, something completely different?

We’re pleased to announce Performant Studio, an open source, standards-based software toolkit for #digitalhumanities projects. Check it out: www.performantsoftware.com/studio/

Working on exciting stuff with @performant.bsky.social. We're extending #RecogitoStudio to support fully custom annotation environments! Need a UI unique to your project? Make it a plugin and get the rest for free: doc/corpus mgmt, users/groups/tasks, multi-format support, realtime collab & more.

We just released IMMARKUS 1.0 - our first full release! An open-source tool for semantic image annotation: multi-image workbench, AI-powered selection tools, ontology builder, knowledge graph, #IIIF support. Runs fully local–no login, no-signups, no data sent to the cloud! 👉 immarkus.xmarkus.org

Been using the Smart Scissors tool in liiive.now for a while & it's been working pretty well. There's still a small memory leak somewhere... If it hangs after longer use: refresh the page. (Nice thing about liiive: annotations are always saved, you won't lose data.) ✂️ liiive.now/blog/2025-08...

Totally wild: #Annotorious v2 (the old version of my open source image annotation library) did 1.5M page loads this month 🤯 (2 files=3M requests). Bot traffic included, for sure. But the real pain: no way to know who’s using it or what for. Such is open source... www.jsdelivr.com/package/npm/...

Question to the hive mind: does anyone have experiences with auth0.com they can share? (Perhaps even when used in combination with Supabase?) I started looking into it as possible way to support institutional logins in liiive.now. Interested about

Ok, so annotations are sometimes hard to see in #liiive. That's why I added a new button: calling it X-Ray mode for lack of a better name. (Let me know if you have ideas!) Try it now on liiive.now!

Introducing a new #liiive feature: cut perfect outlines with the Photoshop-style Smart Scissors tool! Read more on the liiive blog: liiive.now/blog/2025-08...

With #IMMARKUS, you can already use popular AI services for image transcription. Now, you can also use them for translation! Transcribe a historic source, select the annotation—and translate it with a click.

Reminder: Annotorious brings Photoshop-like selection tools to your browser! • Intelligent Scissors • Magnetic Cursor • WebGPU-powered SegmentAnything I just wrote proper docs! Usage guides, examples, full API: github.com/annotorious/... github.com/annotorious/... #OpenSeadragon #IIIF

Tried to use #IMMARKUS with new GPT-OSS model, via #HuggingFace inference providers. But either I'm missing something, or the model (or the providers?) don't support vision capabilities? Model card doesn't seem to say anything specific about it... huggingface.co/openai/gpt-o...

We are extending the multi-select options in #IMMARKUS! Merge and subtract selections, batch-tag and batch-delete, and (new!) compare annotation data side-by-side. The multi-select panel is getting a small facelift, too!

Feature alert: ✂️ #liiive just got a new tool: Photoshop-style Smart Scissors! Automatically trace shape outlines and annotate complex objects in seconds. Try it now at liiive.now #IIIF #ImageAnnotation

Wonderful event on 30 Oct in London: "Challenging maps and exploration symposium" @rgsibg.bsky.social @kparkerhistorian.bsky.social & co-organised w/ the amazing Sunderland Collection (oculi-mundi.com). www.rgs.org/events/upcom... #maps #histsci #skystorians

Just registered for the "Shaping the Archives of Tomorrow" event, Sept 1–2 in Vienna. If you’re there too, let’s grab a coffee and chat! Archives, IIIF, annotation, digital humanities... or anything else at the intersection of libraries, archives, museums, and tech. 📍 www.icar-us.eu/en/english-d...

Quick update: Plugging your own transcription service into #IMMARKUS via Hugging Face Spaces is now available for testing on our dev server! It’s a bit DIY/hacky... But if you’re building your own HF Spaces, you’re probably ready for that 🙂 Ping me if you’d like to try it out!

Back to work after a short break & working on two new #IMMARKUS transcription extensions: • Transcribe via HuggingFace Inference Providers • Plug in your own HuggingFace Space! The second one’s experimental... If you run your own Space and want to try it in IMMARKUS, give me a shout!

Sketching out an idea for a future #liiive feature: • Write about a IIIF object • Embed annotation snippets (links or images). • Everything stays connected—click a snippet to move the viewer. Maybe even a bit of #scrollytelling? Curious what you think—would you use this? #DigitalHumanities #IIIF

This is a really really cool tool for collab IIIF things

CVS prints tiny posters… but we are here! #DH2025 @aboutgeo.bsky.social working in the background to make the chatbot available soon… More at machina.rainersimon.io

Coming up at the poster session later today...... #DH2025

Chatbot project starting to take shape... #DigitalHumanities #DH2025 #IIIF #LLM

Image annotation with LLMs is a big trend at #DH2025. Work being done across several projects, including our humble poster tomorrow, featuring work on emblem classification and RAG with Michela Vignoli at AIT and @aboutgeo.bsky.social.

Possibly of interest for folks at #DH2025. Dan is using Rainer's magic liiive.now. Give it a whirl.

The amazing Dan Pett has been at it again. Using @aboutgeo.bsky.social liiive.now Dan explains how to DIY your own IIIF: add image to cms, create manifest, put manifest into Rainer's magic, download annotations, paste text into cms, manifest recreates. Try it yourself! museologi.st/blog/iiif-di...

We’re pleased to announce Performant Studio, an open source, standards-based software toolkit for #digitalhumanities projects. Ask @nicklaiacona.bsky.social about it if you see him at #dh2025! www.performantsoftware.com/studio/

#liiive is a platform for collaborative #IIIF annotation. But sometimes you might want to share work once it’s done, without allowing further edits. Now you can! After you switch rooms to read-only mode, visitors can view annotations, but only the room owner can make changes. Try now: liiive.now

Time to look for an alternative.

Check out my student’s poster at #DH2025! It will flaunt this amazing logo designed by @aboutgeo.bsky.social

Not at #DH2025 this year but following from afar. If you’re there, check out work from friends & partners: • @jamiefolsom.bsky.social on #RecogitoStudio at the DHTech this afternoon. • Kathryn Wilson on #DigitalCamerarius. (Ok, didn’t contribute much, but I think my logo made it onto the poster 😉)

Another frequently requested feature is coming to #liiive later this week: read-only rooms! Visitors can view rooms and read annotations, but adding new annotations or replies is locked–except for the room owner. Perfect for sharing your work when it’s done.

New post on the #liiive blog: Introducing the Path drawing tool. liiive.now/blog/2025-07...

Had an idea over the weekend for a new #liiive feature that’s going to TOTALLY REVOLUTIONIZE IMAGE ANNOTATION! Okay, maybe not quite. But seriously—had an idea for something that could be pretty useful for teaching & scholarly work. Need to wrap up a few other things first but I’ll keep you posted!

The new Path tool is now available for testing on liiive.now! Smooth curves and precise control for annotating complex shapes. 🚀

Because sometimes you want that extra bit of precision: Bezier curve drawing is coming—pixel-perfect annotations for #IMMARKUS, #liiive, and all tools powered by #Annotorious

As I'm tinkering on a small chatbot project on the side, I'm wondering: there must be real potential for chat-based inquiry on annotation corpora, eg. #IIIF collections. (Maybe more for AV than still images?) Are there any projects doing this already? Would love to try it on a real-world dataset...

Not huge news I guess, but might be useful to some #Annotorious users: a plugin for drawing lines and polylines with (optinally) bezier curves! Ping me if you want to test. #ImageAnnotation #IIIF