Introduction to Computer Vision for Digital Humanists

This hands-on session with Giles Bergel will showcase user-friendly tools developed by the University of Oxford’s Visual Geometry Group in collaboration with researchers in fields including book and art history, film, music and photography. Participants will leave with an understanding of the state-of-the-art in computer vision tasks such as visual search, classification and comparison; of how humanists and cultural heritage professionals are now using these methods and how they might be applied to other materials; and of critical and ethical issues such as bias and accreditation of curatorial labor. Users will need a laptop. No coding experience or prior knowledge of computer vision is required.

Giles Bergel is Senior Researcher in Digital Humanities in the Department of Engineering Science in the University of Oxford. A book historian by training, his research includes the application of computer vision to the study of print; digital textual editing; and the history of the book trades in Britain.