ICDAR 2023Workshop on Computational Paleography in San José

21 February 2023

Photo: Adam Schultz

View of San José

From 21-26 August 2023, the 17th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition will take place in San José, California. The prestigious conference also includes the 2nd Workshop on Computational Paleography, which is co-organised by Hussein Mohammed.

Exchanges between manuscript specialists in the Humanities rarely overcome the chronological and geographical boundaries of each discipline. However, when it comes to applying optical, chemical, or computational analysis, these boundaries are often no longer relevant. Computer scientists are keen to confront their methodologies with actual research questions based on solid data. Natural scientists open new perspectives by focusing on the physical properties of the written artefacts. In many cases, only a collaboration between experts from the three communities yields significant results.

Accordingly, the goal of the 2nd Workshop on Computational Paleography is to bridge the gap between the different research fields analysing handwritten scripts in ancient artefacts. It is mainly targeting (but not limited to) computer scientists, natural scientists and humanists involved in the study of ancient writing systems (scripts and their components) as well as their material (characteristics of the physical inscribed objects). By fostering discussion between the three communities, it aims to favor future interdisciplinary collaborations that will tackle actual research questions on ancient manuscripts.

The workshop takes place as part of the 17th International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (ICDAR 2023), which is held from 21 to 26 August in San José, California. It is the sequel to a workshop that took place from 5 to 10 September in Lausanne, also within the framework of ICDAR. Both editions were organised by Hussein Mohammed, who is a computer scientist at CSMC and Principal Investigator of a project entitled 'Similarity Measurement of Visual Patterns in Written Artefacts', and Isabelle Marthot-Santaniello from the University of Basel.

For more information on the workshop and other events happening at ICDAR 2023, please visit the conference website.