Digitisation technologies
Considerable efforts and resources are being invested in digitisation across Europe, but these activities are highly fragmented and many technical and organisational obstacles jeopardise their success and economic sustainability. EU-funded research explores how ICTs can facilitate large-scale digitisation and make digitisation more cost-effective.
Projects are concerned both with new technology solutions and with best practice guidance, and are establishing centres of competence for digitisation. Tools and methodologies being developed range from recognition and enhancement of printed text and audiovisual material to ICTs for capturing and rendering tangible cultural artefacts.
- 3D-COFORM - Tools and Expertise for 3D Collection Formation
- 3D-COFORM will focus on digitisation of cultural heritage artefacts and deliver new tools in the areas of 3D-capture, 3D-processing, the semantics of shape, material properties etc., resulting in richer and more realistic representations, better documentation and increased cost effectiveness of the digitisation process.
- Website - Fact sheet
- EPOCH - Excellence in Processing Open Cultural Heritage
- This Network of Excellence has collected information on the use of ICTs in cultural heritage and performed research on toolkits for creating cultural heritage applications. EPOCH also helped spreading excellence through dissemination and training activities, studying the socio-economic impact of cultural heritage, and exploring mechanisms for ICT deployment in heritage organisations.
- Website - Fact sheet
- IMPACT - IMProving ACcess to Text
- This project brings together centres of competence in large-scale text digitisation in order to share know-how and best practices and to develop innovative tools enhancing the capabilities of OCR engines and the accessibility of digitised text and to lay down the foundations for future mass-digitisation programmes.
-
Website - Fact sheet
- PRESTOSPACE - Preservation towards storage and access. Standardised Practices for Audio-visual Contents in Europe
- Institutions traditionally responsible for preserving audio-visual collections (broadcasters, research institutions, libraries, museums, etc.) face major technical, organisational, resource related, and legal challenges in taking on the migration to digital formats and the preservation of already digitised holdings. The project has developed technical tools and a semi-automated integrated system, the 'Preservation factory', for digitisation and preservation of all types of audio-visual collections.
-
Website - Fact sheet
-
This page is maintained by the European Commission, unit 'Cultural Heritage and Technology Enhanced Learning'.
