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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · 7d

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...

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · 8d

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...

GitHub - recogito/pdf-annotator-js: PDF annotation in the browser, using PDF.js and the Recogito Text Annotator.

PDF annotation in the browser, using PDF.js and the Recogito Text Annotator. - recogito/pdf-annotator-js

github.com

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Reposted by Rainer Simon

Mareike König @mareike2405.fedihum.org.ap.brid.gy · 8d

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 […]

Original post on fedihum.org

fedihum.org

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · 8d

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...

GitHub - recogito/text-annotator-js: A JavaScript library for text annotation.

A JavaScript library for text annotation. Contribute to recogito/text-annotator-js development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · 13d

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:

An example annotated PDF, before the improvements to our annotator renderer. Annotation highlights are messed up with gaps, uneven lines and overlapping box artefacts.

An example annotated PDF, after the improvements to our annotator renderer. Annotation highlights are now clear, continuous lines.

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Reposted by Rainer Simon

Frederik Elwert @felwert.fedihum.org.ap.brid.gy · 16d

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?

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Reposted by Rainer Simon

Performant Software Solutions @performant.bsky.social · 18d

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

Performant Studio

We partner with scholars in the humanities to build software for research and education.

www.performantsoftware.com

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · 19d

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.

An example of an annotated image, in a customized annotation frontend.

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Sep 8

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

IMMARKUS

An image annotation environment for the MARKUS platform. Developed by Prof. Dr. Hilde De Weerdt, Dr. Rainer Simon, Dr. Lee Sunkyu, Dr. Iva Stojević, Meret Meister, and Xi Wangzhi with funding from the...

immarkus.xmarkus.org

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Sep 2

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...

Real-time Collaborative Annotation for IIIF Collections

Collaborate in real-time on IIIF image collections. Annotate, view, and explore high-resolution images with your team. Even without a login.

liiive.now

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Aug 27

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/...

Annotorious access statistics for August 2025: 3.185.874 file loads (205.6% growth from July)

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Aug 27

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

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Aug 26

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!

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Aug 25

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...

Cut Perfect Outlines with Smart Scissors

Introducing a Photoshop-style magnetic lasso tool that snaps to object edges as you move your cursor. Available now in all rooms!"

liiive.now

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Aug 12

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.

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Aug 8

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

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Aug 7

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...

openai/gpt-oss-20b · Hugging Face

We’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science.

huggingface.co

Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Aug 6

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!

On the left: a medieval manuscript, with overlaid annotations. On the right: the new IMMARKUS multi-select dialog user interface.

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Jul 31

The smart scissors in #liiive are just old-school computer vision (edge detection). But I want to add SegmentAnything later, too. It's already available in IMMARKUS (and works with #IIIF)!

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Jul 31

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

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Reposted by Rainer Simon

Katie McDonough @kmcdono.bsky.social · Jul 31

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

Challenging maps and exploration symposium

Join us for a day of expert panels discussing the connections, historical and contemporary, between maps and exploration.

www.rgs.org

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Jul 30

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...

Digitise.Transform.Inspire – Shaping The Archives Of Tomorrow | ICARUS

www.icar-us.eu

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Jul 30

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!

Screenshot of the new configuration dialog for using HuggingFace Spaces as transcription services in IMMARKUS.

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Jul 30

It's currently in a branch called "hf-spaces". I'll send you a DM!

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Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Jul 29

Quick update: I started working on IMMARKUS connectors for HuggingFace Inference Provides as well as Spaces. I think the "Spaces" interface should actually work against local endpoints, too. Let me know in case you want to give this a try! bsky.app/profile/abou...

Rainer Simon @aboutgeo.bsky.social · Jul 29

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!

A screenshot of the IMMARKUS transcription interface. The left side shows the document preview. The right side shows the configuration dialog for the (work-in-progress) "HuggingFace Spaces" integration.

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