Digital Excavation of Mediatized Urban Heritage: Automated Recognition of Buildings in Image Sources

Digital technologies provide novel ways of visualizing cities and buildings. They also facilitate new methods of analyzing the built environment, ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) to crowdsourced citizen participation. Digital representations of cities have become so refined that they challenge our perception of the real. However, computers have not yet become able to detect and analyze the visible features of built structures depicted in photographs or other media. Recent scientific advances mean that it is possible for this new field of computer vision to serve as a critical aid to research. Neural networks now meet the challenge of identifying and analyzing building elements, buildings and urban landscapes. The development and refinement of these technologies requires more attention, simultaneously, investigation is needed in regard to the use and meaning of these methods for historical research. For example, the use of AI raises questions about the ways in which computer-based image recognition reproduces biases of contemporary practice. It also invites reflection on how mixed methods, integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches, can be established and used in research in the humanities. Finally, it opens new perspectives on the role of crowdsourcing in both knowledge dissemination and shared research. Attempts to analyze historical big data with the latest methods of deep learning, to involve many people - laymen and experts - in research via crowdsourcing and to deal with partly unknown visual material have provided a better understanding of what is possible. The article presents findings from the ongoing research project ArchiMediaL, which is at the forefront of the analysis of historical mediatizations of the built environment. It demonstrates how the combination of crowdsourcing, historical big data and deep learning simultaneously raises questions and provides solutions in the field of architectural and urban planning history

Computer Vision and Architectural History at Eye Level:Mixed Methods for Linking Research in the Humanities and in Information Technology

Information on the history of architecture is embedded in our daily surroundings, in vernacular and heritage buildings and in physical objects, photographs and plans. Historians study these tangible and intangible artefacts and the communities that built and used them. Thus valuableinsights are gained into the past and the present as they also provide a foundation for designing the future. Given that our understanding of the past is limited by the inadequate availability of data, the article demonstrates that advanced computer tools can help gain more and well-linked data from the past. Computer vision can make a decisive contribution to the identification of image content in historical photographs. This application is particularly interesting for architectural history, where visual sources play an essential role in understanding the built environment of the past, yet lack of reliable metadata often hinders the use of materials. The automated recognition contributes to making a variety of image sources usable forresearch.<br/

Computer Vision and Architectural History at Eye Level:Mixed Methods for Linking Research in the Humanities and in Information Technology

Information on the history of architecture is embedded in our daily surroundings, in vernacular and heritage buildings and in physical objects, photographs and plans. Historians study these tangible and intangible artefacts and the communities that built and used them. Thus valuableinsights are gained into the past and the present as they also provide a foundation for designing the future. Given that our understanding of the past is limited by the inadequate availability of data, the article demonstrates that advanced computer tools can help gain more and well-linked data from the past. Computer vision can make a decisive contribution to the identification of image content in historical photographs. This application is particularly interesting for architectural history, where visual sources play an essential role in understanding the built environment of the past, yet lack of reliable metadata often hinders the use of materials. The automated recognition contributes to making a variety of image sources usable forresearch.<br/

Computer Vision and Architectural History at Eye Level:Mixed Methods for Linking Research in the Humanities and in Information Technology

Information on the history of architecture is embedded in our daily surroundings, in vernacular and heritage buildings and in physical objects, photographs and plans. Historians study these tangible and intangible artefacts and the communities that built and used them. Thus valuableinsights are gained into the past and the present as they also provide a foundation for designing the future. Given that our understanding of the past is limited by the inadequate availability of data, the article demonstrates that advanced computer tools can help gain more and well-linked data from the past. Computer vision can make a decisive contribution to the identification of image content in historical photographs. This application is particularly interesting for architectural history, where visual sources play an essential role in understanding the built environment of the past, yet lack of reliable metadata often hinders the use of materials. The automated recognition contributes to making a variety of image sources usable forresearch.<br/

Computer Vision and Architectural History at Eye Level:Mixed Methods for Linking Research in the Humanities and in Information Technology

Information on the history of architecture is embedded in our daily surroundings, in vernacular and heritage buildings and in physical objects, photographs and plans. Historians study these tangible and intangible artefacts and the communities that built and used them. Thus valuableinsights are gained into the past and the present as they also provide a foundation for designing the future. Given that our understanding of the past is limited by the inadequate availability of data, the article demonstrates that advanced computer tools can help gain more and well-linked data from the past. Computer vision can make a decisive contribution to the identification of image content in historical photographs. This application is particularly interesting for architectural history, where visual sources play an essential role in understanding the built environment of the past, yet lack of reliable metadata often hinders the use of materials. The automated recognition contributes to making a variety of image sources usable forresearch.<br/

International Conference Water as Heritage. 27-31 May 2019, Chiayi, Taiwan

The 2019 International Conference "Water as Heritage" took place 27-31 May 2019 in Chiayi, Taiwan. Organized by the Taiwan International Institute for Water Education, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) Netherlands and the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Global Heritage and Development, it brought together key water-focused organizations and heritage groups with a concern for water-related heritage in order to develop networks and build working relationships across the diversity of sectors and disciplinary fields. With participants from 25 countries and six continents, the conference explored the mutual benefits arising from such collaborative efforts. A key issue of the conference was the consideration of water-related heritage as an essential element in addressing current and future challenges of water management