"Inside the Bible": Segmentation, Annotation and Retrieval for a New Browsing Experience

In this paper we present a system for automatic segmentation, annotation and image retrieval based on content, focused on illuminated manuscripts and in particular the Borso D'Este Holy Bible. To enhance the interaction possibilities with this work, full of decorations and illustrations, we exploit some well known document analysis techniques in addition to some new approaches, in order to achieve good segmentation of pages into meaningful visual objects with the relative annotation. We wanted to extend the standard keyword-based retrieval approach in a commentary with a modern visual-based retrieval by appearance similarity: an entire software user interface for exploration and visual search of illuminated manuscripts.