The VISEUM project will use high-speed networks to combine image archives in museums in Europe and Canada into a single virtual museum. This will allow the R&D laboratories of the Louvre, National Gallery London, of several museums in Vancouver and Birkbeck College to access the large banks of high-quality digital images at each others sites via ATM links and to facilitate collaboration. Within the time-span of the project, the Virtual Museum will be open to professional staff from the participating institutions. A client/server system will be developed with the following key technical objectives:
Remote browsing, viewing and downloading of very large, high-resolution images (more than 100 MB), colorimetric images, i.e. support of device-independent colour images, allowing colour judgements to be made from the comparison of two images from different institutions on the computer screen, integration with existing database structures at the museums. Realization of a simple `best of' meta-database to allow searches of all participating image archives with a single query, enhancing the performance of an existing CD-ROM Jukebox to adapt it to ATM level, and use of a transatlantic ATM link between Canada and Europe.
At the beginning of the project, the ATM networking infrastructure will be established and tested: in-house, national public ATM access, international and intercontinental. In Canada, the Research Networking Association of British Columbia and CANARIE will realize the coast-to-coast link from Vancouver to the East Coast, in Europe the JAMES project will realize the international part of the links. In parallel to these activities, the VISEUM application will be specified in detail. The next step is the deployment of content on servers with CD-ROM Jukeboxes on each site, followed by a first trial of a basic prototype of the VISEUM system. After an evaluation of the initial results, the system will be refined, leading to a second, final trialing phase of the "Virtual Museum International" at the end of the project.
The trials will be conducted with real world users located in three countries (Britain, France, and Canada), with Germany as networking hub. In addition to realizing a working prototype of a Virtual Museum system for professional users, also the basis will be laid for later on opening up to a larger user community, including at first other museums and research institutions, and then maybe also the general public. But this is outside of the scope of VISEUM.
Christian Hellwig
DeTeBerkom
Voltastr. 5
D-13355 Berlin
GERMANY
Tel.: +49.30.46701-352
Fax.: +49.30.46701-354
E-mail: hellwig@deteberkom.de
