Project

Artemis. Advanced Research Tools for Environmental studies in an open Mapping Infrastructure for historical maps of the Scheldt valley.

Code
I000124N
Duration
01 May 2024 → 30 April 2028
Funding
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Research disciplines
  • Natural sciences
    • Computer vision
  • Humanities and the arts
    • Archival, repository and related sciences
    • Landscape and ecological history
  • Engineering and technology
    • Cartography
    • Geospatial information systems
Keywords
IIIF and Linked Open Data Research Infrastructure Automated extraction of visual content Historical handwritten and printed maps
 
Project description
Historical maps are not only unique heritage objects but also containers of precious data on the evolution of the cultural and natural landscape. From the 16th century onwards, in present-day Belgium, handwritten local maps were produced in great numbers, followed by the famous Ferraris and printed Vandermaelen map series, as well as large numbers of large or medium scale cadastral maps. What is left of this unique heritage is dispersed over public and private collections, making users of digital historical maps struggle to use these maps to their full potential. Artemis is convinced that this wealth of detailed maps and map series has great potential to investigate landscapes, their evolution over time and their possible future(s) - a potential that could be used in varying fields of research such as Historical Geography, Ecology (biodiversity and water management) and Spatial Planning. Artemis aims to process, digitally enrich, make available and valorize well-defined corpora of both handwritten and printed maps before ca. 1880, using state of the art extraction techniques - as automated localization, toponym recognition and (landscape) feature extraction - with in finality, publication in a IIIF-enabled Linked Open Data Research Infrastructure. The project joins forces of both the University of Antwerp and Ghent University, backed up by the main Belgian map collection holders (ARA/KBR/NGI), focussing on the Scheldt River Valley which connects Antwerp to Ghent.