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| Image as appeared with original article |
Today is Halloween
and I just couldn’t bring myself to do a piece on cemetery records and so
wanted to share an article (NPR website) about the use of computer technology
to reconstruct shredded files ...
When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989,
East Germany
More than two decades later, the vast array of secret papers collected
by the Stasi is still in huge demand. So far this year, 70,000 people have
applied for access to the Stasi archives.
Many are young Germans — some searching for information about relatives,
others just eager to know more about their country's past.
To help meet this demand, archivists are now using groundbreaking
computer technology to reconstruct those shredded files.
Do read the full article as it talks about E-puzzler which
is a fascinating bit of software being used to help reconstruct the shredded
files ...
There's another option: pattern recognition computer technology
developed by German scientists, called the E-puzzler.
The E-puzzler is basically a shredding machine in reverse. You scan
torn-up documents into it. It matches up the pieces using color, paper texture,
fonts, tear lines and other details.
"The E-puzzler works in the way that a person doing a 1,000-piece
puzzle would work. You start at the edge. You look for the forest, you look for
the lake and the sky, and that is exactly how the E-puzzler works," says
Joachim Haeussler, the archivist in charge of digital reconstruction.
Though most of us don’t have ancestors from East Germany
Have you ever opened a folder or box at an archives to find
that you essentially have a pile of document pieces? Wouldn’t it be neat to scan those and have
something like e-puzzler re-create the original documents?
What other technology or apps are out there that help with
the reconstruction of partially destroyed documents?
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Editor’s Note: If you
still feed the need for a piece about “cemeteries” for Halloween, here are some
past Upfront with NGS posts where “cemeteries” are mentioned:
·
UpFront with NGS: Going digital at
the cemetery
·
UpFront with NGS: America's Only
Jewish Military Cemetery
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