DiViAS Project

Historical maps are important sources in our project for tracing movements. If you’re also interested in maps, the exhibition at Landesbibliothek Oldenburg shows a great variety of unique examples from the North Sea Coast. Open until October, 30th.

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

#DiViAS

This is one of the many logbooks of the Prize Papers Collection housed in the National Archives. The information kept in these helps our researchers trace ship routes during European expansion.

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

#DiViAS #prizepapers

Like all our team members, Max Herbers (l.) and Rieke Kaiser (r.) are very excited to welcome some new members to the DiViAS team! Anastasia Bauch is joining the Case Study Movement, and Paul Kirschstein takes on the coordination position at UOL.

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

#DiViAS

We are excited to be participating in the CIPA International Symposium in Seoul! Five days of exciting presentations, discussions and exchanges. Participants discussed innovative research into data acquisition, artificial intelligence, and conservation.
#CIPA2025

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

We are excited to share that Stefan Fuest, a researcher from the DiViAS project, recently presented different visualisation concepts developed in the context of the project at the International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2025) in Vancouver, Canada!

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen
#DiViAS

Looking through documents of the Prize Papers Collection, you sometimes stumble across objects such as this pin in this list of lading. 

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

#DiViAS #prizepapers

A malanggan frieze was digitised using SfM at the State Museum Nature and Human Oldenburg. Due to the large volume of data, it can be challenging to visualise high resolution 3D models. To meet this challenge, it is possible to derive images from the 3D model.

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

New article in the annual report of the Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch Oldenburg!
It shows how #DiViAS uses digital methods to trace the movements of ships, people & objects — from the Prize Papers to the Baudissin Collection.

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

#DiViAS #ColonialHistory

In our fortnightly meetings, the research associates discuss current project developments, exchange information on relevant publications and conferences and give updates on their ongoing work.

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

#DiViAS

Jennifer Tadge presented early results from the DiViAS case study “Movement” at Flinders University Adelaide, exploring ship routes & provenance of Papua New Guinea colonial collections. The trip expanded our research network with Australian museums for future collaboration.

#zukunftniedersachsen

The ship papers of the Prize Papers Collection housed in the National Archives are valuable sources for tracing the capture history during the European expansion. This example includes delicate drawings of a topsail schooner.

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

#DiViAS #prizepapers

The case study movement presented a poster at the UK-Ireland Digital Humanities Association's Annual Event with the theme "Collaboration beyond Boundaries". Lots of interesting talks and great discussions about #DigitalHumanities

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

#DiViAS #prizepapers

Max and Rieke presented the DiViAS project and the case study Movement in Space and Time at the Research Day hosted by the Institute of History, University of Oldenburg.
Great discussions and insights into digital historical research!

Funded by #zukunftniedersachsen

#DigitalHumanities #DiViAS

Join the DiViAS project! We're hiring coordinators at the University of Oldenburg (buff.ly/ipmKfIY) and the Jade University (buff.ly/e7p82Mb).

In the DiViAS project scanned raster maps are vectorised (manually, semi-/automatically with GIS/AI) to visualise historical ship routes on old maps. To visualise possible routes of the Albatross we vectorised the map "Der Nord-Westl. Theil v. Neu-Mecklenburg, 1889" using QGIS.
#zukunftniedersachsen

Jennifer Tadge will be presenting at the Germans in the Asia-Pacific Region conference, happening June, 2025 in Adelaide. Her talk is titled “Retracing Ship Routes in Provenance Research on Colonial-era Collections from Papua New Guinea.” More info: ghiworkshops.hypotheses.org/germans-in-t...

Visualising historical processes in maps is challenging, as the spatiotemporal localisation of events is often accompanied by uncertainties. The DiViAS project is therefore developing visualisation concepts that allow different types of uncertainties in the data basis to be communicated visually.

Together with researchers and records specialists of the National Archives and @prizepapers.bsky.social, we facilitated a workshop where we discussed digitisation processes and potentials of digital humanities to engage with the printed appeal papers in record series HCA 45 and PCAP 6.

This #3D model, made with Structure from Motion, shows carvings on a wooden flute. Its texture was mapped onto a cylinder and flattened into a 2D image. The flute reflects a colonial context, depicting the ship Albatross.

Transkribus is an important tool used in the DiViAS project. The case study “Movement in Space and Time” specifically benefits from the automatic transcriptions, which serve as the basis for subsequent named-entity recognition.
#DiViAS #transkribus
@rmkaiser.bsky.social

Excerpt of: Rizzi-Zannoni, G. A., & Lattré, J. (1762). Carte geo-hydrographique du Golfe du Mexique et de ses isles [Map]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/74690903/

Reconstructing shipping routes requires detective work! Place names like 'Vivoras' or 'Biboras' (now Pedro Bank) aren't always in modern gazetteers, but historical maps hold the key.

PNG meets DiViAS! 🌍
On April 7, researchers from Papua New Guinea, Oldenburg & Wilhelmshaven met at Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch for a workshop on colonial-era collections & digital access. Inspiring exchange & future ideas!

Provenance research is key to DiViAS! On April 9, join for Object Dating Provenance Research at Landesmuseum Natur und Mensch. Discover the histories of objects from North America & Oceania. Free entry!
www.arbeitskreis-provenienzforschung.org/tdp/landesmu...
📸 Martin Henze, LMNM

At the FOSSGIS Conference in Münster Stefan Fuest and Maximilian Herbers presented various methods for visualising ship routes with uncertain data.

Video of the presentation: media.ccc.de/v/fossgis202...

#fossgis2025 #DiViAS #AI

Different digitisation techniques capture different aspects. Jan-Niklas Richter, student at the Jade University of Applied Sciences, captures carvings on collection items, using a self-developed RTI dome.

Our researchers presented at #LeLa25 their work on transcriptions, analysis and reconstruction of shipping routes and let participants try a dashboard created by master students using AI extraction.

During #Dhd2025 in Bielefeld, DiViAS researchers held a workshop on spatiotemporal uncertainty and how to visualise movement data of the Gunboat Albatroß's (1886) with QGIS.

How can objects held in European museums be made accessible to the #Tlingit in Alaska? What role can #3D-digitisation play? We were honoured to welcome representatives of the Tlingit community, Joe Zuboff & Garfield George, researchers and museum professionals at the State Museum Nature and Human.

Developments in #3D-digitisation pave the way for new approaches to researching museum and archival objects that aren't possible to achieve with conventional 2D methods. In our workshop, experts from the humanities and technical sciences came together to address questions around #materiality.

As a transdisciplinary research network, DiViAS includes cross-sectional research on spatio-temporal data management, data infrastructure and visualisation, all of which are closely connected with the case studies. Meet our researchers who are working on these challenges!