Herbar Digital
Herbarium Digital is a 2006-2011 research project taking place at the Fachhochschule Hannover (FHH ) to rationalize the virtualization of botanical specimen material ( cf. virtual herbarium or herbarium ) and its use by process optimization and automation.
Aim of the project
In the Botanical Gardens store in the world ( a conservative estimate ) about 500 million dried plants - known as herbarium vouchers - under scientifically controlled conditions. The aim of the third-party funds -funded research project is to automate the process of virtualization of herbarium records and their management in order to make them botanists and biologists available digitally can. Through an exemplary individual case solution using the example of the herbarium of the Botanical Garden Berlin -Dahlem (about 3.5 million herbarium vouchers ) it is possible to work structures, the software used and the applied technique to generalize so that general reference solutions for efficient scanning with can be derived and defined high quality for all scientifically well-kept museum objects.
Work routine
In various places for some time herbarium documents are scanned. However, these solutions of the level of automation is very low, so that only a low throughput is achieved. The FH Hannover industrial production processes are analyzed and solutions for scanning of herbarium vouchers. The automation then divided into three development priorities:
The herbarium vouchers are, with a scanning software is scanned with a standard PC to which a scanner camera is plugged in raw data format and stored on a server. On a second PC, the scanned raw data according to color, contrast and brightness are optimized, converted into a readable format and saved back to the server. The result is checked for a profiled graphics monitor.
A base machine is suitable for sheet sizes from A3 to A2 and is equipped with area lights, a standard camera column and a scanner camera. The use of a controlled, embedded in the base table round table here provides opportunities to improve performance. The rotary table enables you to load a new herbarium document while another document is scanned. Also, the accessibility is much easier, since not directly under the area lights a herbarium specimen is reloaded. In addition to the times required for scanning and the rotation of 180 °, the user determines the cycle of the machine ( 3-12/min ). The control of the rotary table can be connected via a USB interface to a standard PC. On this PC, the scanner software is installed. With the software Herbarium Digital Control (HDC ) can be controlled easily from this computer to the rotary table.
Project partners
- Herbarium specimen material: Botanical Museum Berlin -Dahlem
- Development of automation: Fachhochschule Hannover
- Technology management and scanning software: LaserSoft Imaging
- Hardware for digitizing: Kaiser photo technique, Pentacon and Quato
- Control and Systems Engineering: isel
- Simulation: DELMIA