VIRTUAL VELLUM: online viewing environment for the Grid and Live Audiences

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Arts and Humanities scholars working on international collaborative research projects involving large-scale image collections held on local and/or distributed databases often need to consult one another to explore questions of mutual interest (e.g. aspects of iconography, discrete art-historical features, definition of image content, real-time comparison of similar or related images). The Access and Data Grids afford the ideal framework (and computing power) for rapid and efficient handling of such large-scale collections of high-resolution images, permitting real-time close-up scrutiny of single or juxtaposed (2+) images, with independent zooming control and other functionalities such as hotspotting, highlighting and blogging. Such tools do not yet exist; to develop them poses a considerable but appealing challenge. A robust but customisable environment is needed for desktop working, configured to address the particular needs of Arts & Humanities researchers and compatible with different kinds of platform. Secondly, in all fields involving the image (manuscript studies, art history, iconography, theatre, museums and galleries are just a few that come to mind), scholars presenting papers live at conferences or delivering online seminars that incorporate reference to the image (typically for side-by-side comparison) are largely dependent on PowerPoint. Good as it is, it does not afford the ideal tool for such presentations, and once again what is missing is the active involvement of scholars in the design process. A more flexible, robust viewing environment is urgently needed, compatible with Windows XP, Mac and Linux platforms, to allow scholars to present papers with confidence in a manner which allows them to manipulate the image files quickly, efficiently and flexibly. Such an environment might have the additional benefit of encouraging scholars to use otherwise dormant datasets.