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

Having way too much fun designing a new #DH project... it's turing out to be a bit of a change from my usual stuff 😄

On the way to Leeds #IMC2025 for this roundtable with Chinese and European historians imc-leeds.confex.com/imc/2025/mee... and also looking fwd to discussing the potential of our image collection, annotation and transcription platform IMMARKUS in global medieval studies (immarkus.xmarkus.org) /1

Lovers of logbooks, practitioners of every art, rejoice and clip away!

It has come to my attention that some people (scandalously!) want to work with their image annotations OUTSIDE of #IMMARKUS. If you're so inclined, you might enjoy our upcoming copy-and-paste feature!

If you haven’t checked in on #IMMARKUS lately—we’ve added even more transcription services. Run OCR or transcription using: • Anthropic Claude • Azure Computer Vision • Google Gemini • Google Vision • LLaMA & Qwen via kluster.ai • OCR.space • OpenAI GPT • Volcano Engine More coming—stay tuned!

And we've now added Chinese models in IMMARKUS. Results vary, so try several. More to come, inc. a model for Han Nom. Check back regularly and send your favorites to add. Shown: performance on IIIF Chinese manuscripts maps and texts from @labnf.bsky.social & the National Palace Museum.

Great post on the first French translation of Confucian texts. The ms is accessible ‪@gallicabnf.bsky.social‬ @labnf.bsky.social and you can import, transcribe and edit transcriptions in a snap with a range of models in IMMARKUS (immarkus.xmarkus.org) 😃 www.linkedin.com/posts/bnf_co...

🧭 Building a lightweight sea-routing graph for historical GIS & DH use cases beyond simple port-to-port hops. Edges are weighted for ~5km coastal preference. Aiming for serverless exploration of connectivity in historical maritime trade. ⚓️ #MaritimeHistory #HistoricalGIS #DigitalHumanities

Small enhancement to #IMMARKUS’ Google Vision integration: You can now choose the level of detail when importing OCR results—words, paragraphs, or full blocks. #OCR #IIIF #ImageAnnotation #DigitalHumanities

Everyone’s dropping VLM-based OCR models lately… But are they actually better than traditional OCR engines, which output XML for historical docs? I built OCR Time Machine to test it! 📄 Upload image + ALTO/PAGE XML ⚖️ Compare outputs side by side 🔗 huggingface.co/spaces/davan...