Digitization of the Hortus Nitidissimis

The digitization of the Hortus Nitidissimis was mostly performed in-house, with the use of contract personnel for transcription and translation of the text.

Digital images

Images of the book pages were captured using a Sinarcam 2 shutter and Sinarback 44 digital chip on a specially modified book stand and cradle created by Icam Archive systems. The lighting system selected was Balcar Duolites. Images were captured and processed using a Mac G4 workstation. This particular system was chosen to meet with conservation standards and to produce a fast, efficient image capture system.

Images were captured at a resolution of 4080×4080 pixels and cropped to create a master image of 3900×2800 pixels. The images were saved as 24 bit Adobe 98 RGB uncompressed TIFF files. The resulting master image files are currently stored on CD-R.

The master images were processed to create JPEG images for the website. These have been created at three different resolutions, thumbnail, small preview and large web viewing image.

Image Storage

Information about the images was recorded using an internal data standard. Accurate names for the flowers depicted in the plates were researched and recorded as part of this process.

Text digitization

The German text was translated into English and the Latin text transcribed. The text is stored as HTML files.