This document introduces Mirador, an open-source, community-driven image viewer that allows users to view and compare images from multiple online repositories that support the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF). Mirador provides a multi-window workspace to display images from different sources side by side for comparison. It is extensible and works with any IIIF-compliant repository. The document demonstrates how Mirador can benefit humanities scholars in tasks like manuscript analysis, creating critical editions, and studying medieval literature and books of hours. Future enhancements may include transcription viewing, annotation capabilities, and support for additional media types.

1. Introducing Mirador
Interoperability in practice: a cross-repository image viewer
DLF Fall Forum, November 2013
Stuart Snydman, Stanford University
Andrew Winget, Stanford University
Michael Appleby, Yale University
Benjamin Albritton, Stanford University
Christopher Jesudurai, Stanford University

2. Imagine you are a manuscript scholar

3. Beinecke MS 310, New Haven, CT
Ms. lat. oct. 121, Collegeville, MN
BNF Français 1728, Paris, France
Walters MS 34, Stanford, CA

8. Imagine an image viewer…

9. that can show content from all four
repositories…

10. and let you compare…

11. and inspect in detail.

12. Say hello to Mirador

13. Mirador is a multi-window image
viewing and comparison workspace,
that is…
•
•
•
•
•
Open source
Community driven
Javascript
Extensible
Interoperable
And works with any IIIF-compatible repository

14. Interoperability
=
Image and metadata sharing across
institutions and collections.

15. International Image Interoperability Framework
http://iiif.io

19. ARTstor
Biblissima
Bodleian Libraries
British Library
Codices Electronici Sangallenses
Harvard University
Johns Hopkins University
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Stanford University
Yale University

24. Demo

25. Digitally Enabled Scholarship with
Medieval Manuscripts
1. An Edition of the First Recension of Gratian’s Decretum
– Professor Anders Winroth, Professor of History
– … and a team of graduate assistants
2. A Literary History of the English Book of Hours
– Jessica Brantley, Professor of English
3. Creating English Literature, ca. 1385-ca. 1425
– Alastair Minnis, Professor of English
– Holly Rushmeier, Professor of Computer Science
4. Manuscript Analysis of Books of Hours
– Holly Rushmeier, Professor of Computer Science

26. Creating a Critical Edition
• Scholars compare manuscripts in detail to establish the Latin text
• Manuscripts are scattered throughout Europe (and beyond):
Admont, Barcelona, Florence, Paris, St. Gall, etc.
• Team’s previous working method was to use online viewers and/or
local copies of images
• Mirador is perfectly suited to this use case
• Viewer instance configured for use by the project team

28. Viewing Books of Hours
• Investigation of the culture of reading shaped
by these books and vernacular literature in
the later Middle Ages
• About 800 manuscripts from late medieval
England
• Each contains a standard set of Latin prayers,
but also other texts, illustrations, marginal
notes
• Mirador facilitates comparison of manuscripts

30. Creating English Literature,
ca. 1385-ca. 1425
• Study of texts by leading authors of the day – namely,
Chaucer, Gower, Langland and Hoccleve
• How were they produced, who produced them, and
where?
• Non-invasive scientific analysis of the inks and
pigments used by scribes and decorators in England
(especially London)

31. Multispectral Images
• Each band is processed into a black and
white TIFF
• Viewer presents the user with a choice
of alternate images for the page

32. Multispectral Images in Mirador

33. Manuscript Analysis of
Books of Hours
• Holly Rushmeier, Professor of
Computer Science
• Develop custom algorithms
to segment the manuscript
images into areas of text and
areas of individual illustration
• Detect text layout
• Analyze the image content
Image from: ATHENA: Automatic Text Height ExtractioN for the Analysis of old handwritten manuscripts, R. Pintus, Y. Yang, and H. Rushmeier, Conference Paper: Digital Heritage 2013 (2013)

34. Detecting Significant Features of
Manuscript Materials
• Detect text orientation and de-skew images
• Detect main text block of the page
• Automatically determine the line height of the text
• Detect non-text areas (image vs. text)
• Features will be viewable as annotations in Mirador
• Mirador will allow rapid feedback of results to
humanities scholars

35. Image Annotations

36. Image Annotations

37. Implementing the IIIF Image API
– Started project with no scalable
image support
– Deployed Djatoka image server
– Developed IIIF protocol adapter
– In production for about 6 months
– Easy!
– Friendly, helpful IIIF community

38. Looking Ahead

39. 8 manuscripts, 6 repositories

40. Mirador in 3 Easy Steps
Step 1: Deploy an IIIF compliant image server
Step 2: Publish objects using IIIF metadata
Step 3: Deploy Mirador

41. ContentDM
Djatoka
FSI Viewer
IIPImage Server
Loris
Luratech

42. What’s next?

43. Mirador 1.0
• Image Viewing
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–
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–
Basic zoom and pan
Thumbnail view
Scroll view
Metadata view
Image choice
• Comparison Features
– Configurable window environment
– Locked zoom
– User-configurable size and scale
• Annotations
– Annotation viewing for externally created annotations
• State
– Saved state of workspace
• Interoperability
– Ability to display content from multiple hosting sources

44. Transcription viewing

45. Multiple text representations

46. Workspace Sharing

47. Other media types
*Image/video credit: The British Library

48. Annotation making
Annotate*
*Image credit: annotorius.github.io

49. Get involved
• Learn more: iiif.io
iiif.io/mirador
• Discuss: iiif-discuss@googlegroups.com
• Contribute: github.com/iiif/Mirador
• Give it a try

50. Acknowledgements
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•
•
•
Ben Albritton, Stanford University
Christopher Jesudurai, Stanford University
Rob Sanderson, Los Alamos National Labs
Tom Cramer, Stanford University

51. Thank you