Abstract
Images are an important source of scientific knowledge in many disciplines.
E.g. you want to analyse satellite photographs or x-ray images
of human livers or symbols of death in Dutch baroque paintings.
You study the relevant images closely and compare details of one image
with details of another. When you want to share your knowledge
you will necessarily also communicate about image details. Using paper
images, you can just mark up details of interest with a pencil. But
with digital images you either have to make marks by employing an
image manipulation software, which is not as widespread and easy to
use as current text processing software is. Or you have to describe
your findings verbally, such as "... above left is an interesting dark
spot in picture No. 1 ... now compare it to picture No. 2 where a similar
dark spot can be found nearly in the centre of the picture ..." and so
on. Neither the employment of a complex image manipulation software
package nor the time consuming and not very precise verbal description
is satisfactory and appropriate for everyday use in science.
Additionally, any technical solution to the lack of easy-to-use technology
has to be Web-based in order to support collaborative research on
images.
The HyperImage project is concerned with the currently unsolved
technical problem of establishing links between image details. Our
goal is to develop a Web-based workspace that will enable scientists in
any image-oriented discipline to create simple and precise links
between images and image details, in a fashion similar to that which
until now has been the privilege of text. The HyperImage editor permits
scientists to mark details of pictures and create links between images
and image details of any scale. It is programmed as a platform independent
Java application and is open source (GNU Lesser General
Public Licence). Any work in progress can be stored within the Hyper-
Image system by an author or group of authors, or it can be exported
as XML for further usage outside the HyperImage system. Currently
we are testing our software prototype with our HyperImage partners
from the faculties of Art History and Biology.
