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by brabel 566 days ago
They say they have Python and C APIs that can be used to explore the scroll. I had a look and they have a "tutorial" in a Python notebook: https://colab.research.google.com/github/ScrollPrize/vesuviu...

But I can't make any sense of that, unfortunately :( can someone perhaps explain in terms a programmer would understand, how would I go about using this API to find the text? As far as I can see the dataset just contains a bunch of vertical and horizontal slices of the scroll and I have a hard time understanding how that can provide anything about what's written in them.
1 comments
Doxin 566 days ago
This scroll hasn't ever and can't ever been unrolled. It's too fragile for that. The only thing we DO have is a high resolution scan. The trick then of course is how do you "unroll" the scan. Furthermore the scroll is damaged quite heavily. It has carbonized entirely. This means that even _when_ unrolled, it'd be very hard to read. Some progress has been made reading bits and pieces of the scroll using only the scan, but it's tough going.

Long story short: there's no API for the text, because the text is as of yet unknown. Those slices are all we have to go on.

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brabel 566 days ago
I think you misunderstood my question.

> because the text is as of yet unknown. Those slices are all we have to go on.

Yes, which is why I asked: "how would I go about using this API to find the text?"

That seems to be the crux of the challenge? Given a bunch of scroll cross-sections, find the text? My question is just how you would go about doing that! What techniques are used, algorithms etc.

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Doxin 566 days ago
I mean that's largely an unanswered question. Aparantly there's currently a semi-automated algorithm that works but needs a LOT of supervision, making it much too expensive to use to "unroll" all the rolls.

As to how you would even go about using the slices, keep in mind that a stack of slices gives you a volumetric model. The scan basically provides a high resolution volumetric model of the density of the scrolls. You'd need to somehow use this density information to trace a path along the curl of the scroll. This then gets you a density map of the scroll as if it was unrolled. Then the next trick is to somehow turn that into legible text.

The details of how to do the above are currently unknown. There's a prize for whoever figures it out.

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