This article focuses on the description of the objectives of the ARTISTE project (for "An integrated Art Analysis and Navigation environment") that aims at building a tool for the intelligent retrieval and indexing of high resolution images. The ARTISTE project will address professional users in the fine arts as the primary end-user base. These users provide services for the ultimate end-user, the citizen.
Critical Arguements
CA "European museums and galleries are rich in cultural treasures but public access has not reached its full potential. Digital multimedia can address these issues and expand the accessible collections. However, there is a lack of systems and techniques to support both professional and citizen access to these collections."
Phrases
<P1> New technology is now being developed that will transform that situation. A European consortium, partly funded by the EU under the fifth R&D framework, is working to produce a new management system for visual information. <P2> Four major European galleries (The Uffizi in Florence, The National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Louvre related restoration centre, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Mus├®es de France) are involved in the project. They will be joining forces with NCR, a leading player in database and Data Warehouse technology; Interactive Labs, the new media design and development facility of Italy's leading art publishing group, Giunti; IT Innovation, Web-based system developers; and the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. Together they will create web based applications and tools for the automatic indexing and retrieval of high-resolution art images by pictorial content and information. <P3> The areas of innovation in this project are as follows: Using image content analysis to automatically extract metadata based on iconography, painting style etc; Use of high quality images (with data from several spectral bands and shadow data) for image content analysis of art; Use of distributed metadata using RDF to build on existing standards; Content-based navigation for art documents separating links from content and applying links according to context at presentation time; Distributed linking and searching across multiple archives allowing ownership of data to be retained; Storage of art images using large (>1TeraByte) multimedia object relational databases. <P4> The ARTISTE approach will use the power of object-related databases and content-retrieval to enable indexing to be made dynamically, by non-experts. <P5> In other words ARTISTE would aim to give searchers tools which hint at links due to say colour or brush-stroke texture rather than saying "this is the automatically classified data". <P6> The ARTISTE project will build on and exploit the indexing scheme proposed by the AQUARELLE consortia. The ARTISTE project solution will have a core component that is compatible with existing standards such as Z39.50. The solution will make use of emerging technical standards XML, RDF and X-Link to extend existing library standards to a more dynamic and flexible metadata system. The ARTISTE project will actively track and make use of existing terminology resources such as the Getty "Art and Architecture Thesaurus" (AAT) and the "Union List of Artist Names" (ULAN). <P7> Metadata will also be stored in a database. This may be stored in the same object-relational database, or in a separate database, according to the incumbent systems at the user partners. <P8> RDF provides for metadata definition through the use of schemas. Schemas define the relevant metadata terms (the namespace) and the associated semantics. Individual RDF queries and statements may use multiple schemas. The system will make use of existing schemas such as the Dublin Core schema and will provide wrappers for existing resources such as the Art and Architecture thesaurus in a RDF schema wrapper. <P9> The Distributed Query and Metadata Layer will also provide facilities to enable queries to be directed towards multiple distributed databases. The end user will be able to seamlessly search the combined art collection. This layer will adhere to worldwide digital library standards such as Z39.50, augmenting and extending as necessary to allow the richness of metadata enabled by the RDF standard.
Conclusions
RQ "In conclusion the Artiste project will result into an interesting and innovative system for the art analysis, indexing storage and navigation. The actual state of the art of content-based retrieval systems will be positively influenced by the development of the Artiste project, which will pursue the following goals: A solution which can be replicated to European galleries, museums, etc.; Deep-content analysis software based on object relational database technology.; Distributed links server software, user interfaces, and content-based navigation software.; A fully integrated prototype analysis environment.; Recommendations for the exploitation of the project solution by European museums and galleries. ; Recommendations for the exploitation of the technology in other sectors.; "Impact on standards" report detailing augmentations of Z39.50 with RDF." ... ""Not much research has been carried out worldwide on new algorithms for style-matching in art. This is probably not a major aim in Artiste but could be a spin-off if the algorithms made for specific author search requirements happen to provide data which can be combined with other data to help classify styles." >
SOW
DC "Four major European galleries (The Uffizi in Florence, The National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Louvre related restoration centre, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Mus├®es de France) are involved in the project. They will be joining forces with NCR, a leading player in database and Data Warehouse technology; Interactive Labs, the new media design and development facility of Italy's leading art publishing group, Giunti; IT Innovation, Web-based system developers; and the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. Together they will create web based applications and tools for the automatic indexing and retrieval of high-resolution art images by pictorial content and information."
Type
Electronic Journal
Title
The Dublin Core Metadata Inititiative: Mission, Current Activities, and Future Directions
Metadata is a keystone component for a broad spectrum of applications that are emerging on the Web to help stitch together content and services and make them more visible to users. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) has led the development of structured metadata to support resource discovery. This international community has, over a period of 6 years and 8 workshops, brought forth: A core standard that enhances cross-disciplinary discovery and has been translated into 25 languages to date; A conceptual framework that supports the modular development of auxiliary metadata components; An open consensus building process that has brought to fruition Australian, European and North American standards with promise as a global standard for resource discovery; An open community of hundreds of practitioners and theorists who have found a common ground of principles, procedures, core semantics, and a framework to support interoperable metadata.
Type
Report
Title
D6.2 Impact on World-wide Metadata Standards Report
This document presents the ARTISTE three-level approach to providing an open and flexible solution for combined metadata and image content-based search and retrieval across multiple, distributed image collections. The intended audience for this report includes museum and gallery owners who are interested in providing or extending services for remote access, developers of collection management and image search and retrieval systems, and standards bodies in both the fine art and digital library domains.
Notes
ARTISTE (http://www.artisteweb.org/) is a European Commission supported project that has developed integrated content and metadata-based image retrieval across several major art galleries in Europe. Collaborating galleries include the Louvre in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the National Gallery in London.
Edition
Version 2.0
Publisher
The ARTISTE Consortium
Publication Location
Southampton, United Kindom
Accessed Date
08/24/05
Critical Arguements
<CA>  Over the last two and a half years, ARTISTE has developed an image search and retrieval system that integrates distributed, heterogeneous image collections. This report positions the work achieved in ARTISTE with respect to metadata standards and approaches for open search and retrieval using digital library technology. In particular, this report describes three key aspects of ARTISTE: the transparent translation of local metadata to common standards such as Dublin Core and SIMI consortium attribute sets to allow cross-collection searching; A methodology for combining metadata and image content-based analysis into single search galleries to enable versatile retrieval and navigation facilities within and between gallery collections; and an open interface for cross-collection search and retrieval that advances existing open standards for remote access to digital libraries, such as OAI (Open Archive Initiative) and ZING SRW (Z39.50 International: Next Generation Search and Retrieval Web Service).
Conclusions
RQ "A large part of ARTISTE is concerned with use of existing standards for metadata frameworks. However, one area where existing standards have not been sufficient is multimedia content-based search and retrieval. A proposal has been made to ZING for additions to SRW. This will hopefully enable ARTISTE to make a valued contribution to this rapidly evolving standard." ... "The work started in ARTISTE is being continued in SCULTEUR, another project funded by the European Commission. SCUPLTEUR will develop both the technology and the expertise to create, manage, and present cultural archives of 3D models and associated multimedia objects." ... "We believe the full benefit of multimedia search and retrieval can only be realised through seamless integration of content-based analysis techniques. However, not only does introduction of content-bases analysis require modification to existing standards as outlines in this report, but it also requires a review if the use of semantics in achieving digital library interoperability. In particular, machine understandable description of the semantics of textual metadata, multimedia content, and content-based analysis, can provide a foundation for a new generation of flexible and dynamic digital library tools and services. " ... "Existing standards do not use explicit semantics to describe query operators or their application to metadata and multimedia content at individual sites. However, dynamically determining what operators and types are supported by a collection is essential to robust and efficient cross-collection searching. Dynamic use of published semantics would allow a collection and any associated content-based analysis to be changed  by its owner without breaking conformance to search and retrieval standards. Furthermore, individual sites would not need to publish detailed, human readable descriptions of available functionality.  
SOW
DC "Four major European galleries are involved in the project: the Uffizi in Florence, the national Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musees de France (C2RMF) which is the Louvre related restoration centre. The ARTISTE system currently holds over 160,000 images from four separate collections owned by these partners. The galleries have partnered with NCR, leading player in database and Data Warehouse technology; Interactive Labs, the new media design and development facility of Italy's leading art publishing group, Giunti; IT Innovation, a specialist in building innovative IT systems, and the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southhampton." 
Type
Web Page
Title
An Assessment of Options for Creating Enhanced Access to Canada's Audio-Visual Heritage
CA "This project was conducted by Paul Audley & Associates to investigate the feasibility of single window access to information about Canada's audio-visual heritage. The project follows on the recommendations of Fading Away, the 1995 report of the Task Force on the Preservation and Enhanced Use of Canada's Audio-Visual Heritage, and the subsequent 1997 report Search + Replay. Specific objectives of this project were to create a profile of selected major databases of audio-visual materials, identify information required to meet user needs, and suggest models for single-window access to audio-visual databases. Documentary research, some 35 interviews, and site visits to organizations in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal provided the basis upon which the recommendations of this report were developed."
