iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 03/09/2026

Last chance to register for our second meeting of SCOOP - ATR network. If you’re interested in HTR or what comes next, definitely check it out. Keynotes will be streamed via Zoom if you can’t make it to Vienna. For more information, check our website: scoop-network.org.

Event poster on a pale mint background. Top line reads 'International Network for Automated Text Recognition of Historical Sources.' A geometric grid of dark grey and light green bars forms an abstract hashtag-like symbol, with three faint characters set in its cells: a Chinese character (行), a Latin letter 'a', and a Hebrew letter (א). Below: '2nd Exchange Meeting of SCOOP – Source Codes of the Past, September 7–9, 2026, University of Vienna, Währinger Straße 29, 1090 Vienna.’

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 07/08/2026

Yesterday me and @vanlinduist.bsky.social had an amazing day meeting colleagues from Otsuma Women’s University in Tokyo, teaching Transkribus and showing some of our projects - MANU and Translucens. It was a wonderful experience. Now we are enjoying bits of Tokyo before travelling back to Europe.

Martin, wearing glasses, a black t-shirt, and white sneakers, stands in a presentation room pointing toward a projected slide displaying a digitized historical manuscript page.

Katrin, wearing a patterned white top, dark pants, and red athletic shoes, gestures with her hands while presenting in front of a projector screen showing an ancient manuscript document.

A wide gravel pathway lined with dense green trees leads toward a grand wooden Torii gate, with visitors walking beneath it.

An outdoor selfie of Katrin and Martin on a sunny day, with a scenic stone arch bridge over a moat and imperial palace in the background

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 01/08/2026

Wonderful talk of @vanlinduist.bsky.social in the last session at #DH2026. And concluding ceremony with traditional Korean dance - Talchum. Can’t wait to see all the people in Galway next year.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 27/07/2026

Finally got my registration package! If anyone would like to meet and discuss DH projects or Design/UX, I’m in Daejeon! #DH2026 Unfortunately no MANU or Translucens talk on schedule (hopefully next year!).

A folding fan and a wrapped gift box rest on a beige DH2026 conference tote bag, alongside a name badge reading 'Martin Roček, Austrian Academy of Sciences' and a DH2026 Engagement program booklet, with a blurred view of high-rise apartment buildings in the background.

A teal and red twin-arch pedestrian bridge crosses a calm river at dusk, reflecting in the water, with a tall glass skyscraper on the right and cloudy blue skies above, hills visible in the background.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 13/07/2026

We've got an idea... would you use it?

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 11/07/2026

We were excited to hear that some people at @imc-leeds.bsky.social already used Translucens! 🤯 Here are some new things that we have been working on in the meantime. Working on a paper with @vanlinduist.bsky.social! #DigitalHumanities #DH #Translucens

Screenshot of the Translucens tool interface displaying a segment of a medieval manuscript. The image is visually split into four vertical strips using different blending modes, demonstrating how users can adjust settings to reveal hidden or faded text within the historical document.

Close-up of a computer keyboard focusing on the Command (⌘) and 'Z' keys, used to illustrate keyboard shortcuts for comparing image states: 'ctrl/cmd + z' to go backwards and 'ctrl/cmd + y' to go forwards.

Screenshot of the Translucens tool interface, showing a historical manuscript fragment split down the middle: the left side displays the original, dark-toned parchment, while the right side shows an inverted, bright blue-toned view to improve legibility. A floating toolbar with zoom and toggle buttons is visible over the image.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 09/07/2026

And that’s it, what a blast! So many wonderful papers at #IMC26!

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 08/07/2026

I just found THE remote control! Call Axel.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 07/07/2026

Second day at #IMC2026. Finally saw some rabbits; so far, they seem quite peaceful compared to their medieval counterparts. 😮‍💨

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 03/07/2026

Finally managed to show @vanlinduist.bsky.social some of the gems of my country. 😊

The interior of a Gothic church featuring a central, light-colored stone baptismal font. A vibrant stained-glass window on the right casts colorful blue, purple, and orange light reflections across the tiled stone floor in the foreground. In the background, a large stone gothic archway frames a dimly lit corridor leading to wooden doors.

A wide, slightly elevated view of the grand Gothic facade of St. Barbara's Church. The building's intricate stone architecture, towering arched windows, and sharp central spire dominate the frame. In front of the cathedral, a manicured green lawn features an ornamental flowerbed arrangement, surrounded by a gravel courtyard where a few people walk. Lush green trees frame the scene on both sides under a highly textured, cloudy sky.

A high-angle, scenic view of the historic town of Kutná Hora under a dramatic blue sky filled with thick, fluffy white clouds. On the left, the tall stone tower of St. James's Church stands prominently above surrounding red-roofed buildings. In the center-right, the long beige facade of the Jesuit College and other historic structures rest behind a stone wall. The foreground is filled with the dense green canopy of trees, with a few domestic rooftops peeking through at the bottom.

A low-angle shot of the iconic St. Barbara's Church in Kutná Hora, showcasing its unique three-peaked, tent-like Gothic spires rising against a bright blue sky filled with dramatic white clouds. To the right, the grand white facade of the Jesuit College is visible, topped with a red-tiled roof and an elegant baroque tower. The lower portion of the image shows a grassy hillside and green trees.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 04/06/2026

A little addition to my Lord of the Rings collection.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 01/06/2026

If you’re in Prague, definitely visit the exhibition on medieval colophons in National library! I did a few apps for it, and you can see MANU in action too!

A visitor — a young woman with long brown hair, seen from behind — interacts with a touchscreen kiosk in a dimly lit museum gallery. The screen displays a digitised manuscript page titled “Vše dohromady” on a cyan background. To her left, a large yellow exhibition panel numbered “2” is titled “Kolofony / Colophons”, with Czech and English explanatory text and reproductions of historical manuscript colophons. A glass display case containing open historical books is visible in the lower left.

A blue vertical banner mounted on the wall of a building passageway, advertising the exhibition “Tired, Thirsty, Thoughtful”, running 26 May – 5 July 2026, Tuesday–Sunday 10:00–18:00, free entry. The banner features a comic-style illustration of a medieval scribe reading from a manuscript at a lectern, with a left-pointing arrow at the bottom directing visitors. In the background, a sunlit courtyard or street is visible through an arched gate with ornate ironwork, with people walking outside.

Interior of a museum exhibition room with vaulted ceilings. On the left, an interactive touchscreen kiosk on a dark pedestal displays a bilingual Czech interface with blue illustrated icons. On the right, a large yellow exhibition panel numbered “8” is titled “Střídání jazyků / Code-switching”, featuring text and facsimiles of historical manuscript excerpts. A glass display case with open historical books is visible in the foreground on the right.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 22/05/2026

I think some developers should really stop and think if a vibe-coded animation is the right thing to do. 🙄 This animation in Transkribus in idle state eats about 14% of the M3 Pro CPU in Vivaldi... almost all of the CPU on slower machines (basic Intel 2019 MacBook Pro), rerendering on every frame.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 17/05/2026

I've refactored a few components in #MANU and in an ideal world you shouldn't notice a difference. Plus, this refactoring helped me to introduce two new features, actually three: -tools can now be invoked by keyboard shortcuts -manuscripts can be embedded on any website #DigitalHumanities #IIIF

Detail of the MANU platform interface demonstrating manuscript annotation. A vertical toolbar with editing icons is on the left, with the cursor tool active. On the manuscript canvas, a bounding box selects a red rubricated Lombardic initial 'A'. An adjacent popover dialog contains an active text editor titled 'Initial letter A', showing a paleographic description of the letter alongside rich text formatting options and save controls.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 14/05/2026

While @vanlinduist.bsky.social is creating awesome presentations on design, I've been inspired by one of her designs and decided to try to recreate a medieval font from a real manuscript. I'm not sure if this ever became a proper font (probably not), it was just fun to try.

A promotional graphic for a medieval-style font set against a red background. A central cream-colored card features the letters "Aa" in a large, red, gothic style. Below it, text in red and black reads, "from medieval manuscript to digital edition, real medieval font based on medieval handwriting." At the bottom of the card, smaller grey text reads, "Praha, Národní knihovna České Republiky, IV C 3."

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 12/05/2026

Feedback is important to me 😊 And because not everyone has a GitHub account, it was only a matter of time until I implemented a feedback form directly in the app. So from today you can request features or report bugs directly from MANU. #IIIF #DigitalHumanities #MANU

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 05/05/2026

MANU got a few quality of life improvements; now you don't need to go through registration, but you can simply log in via your Google or Microsoft account (more accounts soon; wish there was a BlueSky/ATproto OAuth extension for Better-Auth). #DigitalHumanities #MANU #IIIF 1/2

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 24/04/2026

Did I mention you can change the colours of the highlights and background? You can also switch on/off real-time collaboration for a single manifest.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 23/04/2026

Another feature for MANU, this time something I had on my mind since I've started working on it. Realtime collaboration! You can follow other users and see what they're annotating or even typing. #IIIF #DigitalHumanities #MANU

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 15/04/2026

Flying over frozen Greenland was something!

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 13/04/2026

Last update for a week (as I'm heading to Canada). Added tooltips for each tool so you can get a better grasp of how to use it. And an additional demonstration of the new measurement tool – you can manually calibrate it so you can get real dimensions. #IIIF #DigitalHumanities #Manu

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 13/04/2026

Have you ever wondered how big the initial is in a digital manuscript? Say no more! #DigitalHumanities #IIIF #Manu

A screenshot of a digital interface measuring a historical manuscript. In the top left corner is the word 'MANU' in bold black text. On the left is a vertical software toolbar with the ruler tool selected. The background shows an aged parchment document with black gothic calligraphy. In the center is a large, decorative red initial letter, which is being measured by a white digital line indicating a height of '16.6 mm'.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 12/04/2026

While I’m building my home in Warcraft, behind me @vanlinduist.bsky.social conquered the whole world. 😬

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 03/04/2026

It is slowly coming together! "Beta" hopefully next week. 😊 #IIIF #DigitalHumanities

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 01/04/2026

Great talk by @vanlinduist.bsky.social on data visualisation in DH in Prague!

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 31/03/2026

Iceland today. Yeah, I don’t know, maybe it’s really not a good time to do gardening. You might lose some dwarves out there.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 25/03/2026

I had this though since we had the Ruse of Reuse workshop in Vienna. Can I use current VLMs to provide me with transcription of text in MANU and add it as a transcription block? Seems I can. This one is done with Gemini 3 Flash, quite impressive. #IIIF #DigitalHumanities

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 23/03/2026

Another update on Manu! Licences are now displayed throughout the app ensuring proper credit for the institution owning the images. Additionally, support for IIIF exports (with and without annotations) has been added. The design of settings page is still quite bare-bone. #IIIF #DigitalHumanities

A screenshot of a web application called "MANU". The dashboard displays a user's manuscript collection. There are tabs for "All", "Owned", "Shared with me", and "Public". Below, there are two sections: "Your manuscripts" with a button to "+ Add IIIF manifest" and several cards representing different manuscripts like "ARME DI CARDINALI...", "SOMNIALE DANIELIS...", and "ST AUGUSTINE, HOMILIES". A second section, "Shared with me", shows cards for "BIP - GROUP 2" and "SBÍRKA SPISŮ LÉKAŘSKÝCH...". A blue "+ Add IIIF Manifest" button is prominent in the top right.

A screenshot of the "MANU" application showing the "Export" settings for a specific manuscript titled "ARME DI CARDINALI, ARCIVESCOVI E VESCOVI FIORENTINI". A sidebar menu on the left highlights "Export". The main area provides options to download the "Original IIIF manifest", download a "IIIF manifest with annotations", and view/copy the "Source URL".

A screenshot of the "MANU" application's document viewer. The central area displays a digitized page of a manuscript featuring an ornate coat of arms above a block of handwritten text. On the left is a toolbar with various annotation and viewing tools. On the right, a text editor panel is open with formatting options and a "Save" button, indicating the user can add or edit annotations for the manuscript page. The editor currently has the language set to English.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 22/03/2026

Finally found some time to dust off my Behance page. A few recent pieces of what I do when I don't do programming - Bloom and Decay. Full project on Behance: www.behance.net/gallery/2462...

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 20/03/2026

I’m slowly bringing my latest project out of private mode! The dashboard now offers two modes: cards and rows. The preview I showed a few months ago has been slightly updated and most importantly user and group permissions have been introduced. 😮‍💨 #IIIF #DigitalHumanities

A list view of the "MANU" dashboard, similar to the previous image but displaying the manuscripts in a tabular format instead of a grid. The sections remain the same ("Your manuscripts", "Shared with me", "Public manuscripts"). Each row in the table represents a manuscript and includes columns for "TITLE", "OWNER", and "ACTIONS". The "ACTIONS" column contains icons for viewing, editing, and sharing the manuscript. The titles and descriptions match those seen in the grid view.

A digital interface showing a modal window titled "OPEN IIIF MANIFEST". The window displays the metadata of a manuscript, including its title ("Doctrinale puerorum cum commentariis Ludovici d"), shelfmark ("Cod. 24."), and a detailed Latin description. On the right side of the modal, there is a grid of thumbnail images showing the pages of the manuscript, which appear to have illuminated initials and gothic script. Below the images, there is a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 4.0) and buttons for "Back" and "Open manifest". The background shows a blurred view of a web application called "MANU".

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 19/03/2026

Might be better with a full-size image; the seventh row from the bottom in the middle seems to be damaged beyond repair. Also, the burning around the hole seems to be way too close to the actual ink on the folio (the last image).

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 19/03/2026

While the automated alignment does most of the time a good job, it’s not perfect. So I thought, why not allow you to tweak the alignment'? P.S. No 3D goggles are required, though it can be fun.

A dark-themed screenshot of the TRANSLUCENS software interface used for analyzing historical documents. The central workspace displays a digital scan of a weathered manuscript page overlaid with a grid of control points for alignment. The left sidebar manages "Folios," showing thumbnails for recto and verso images. The right sidebar, labeled "Parameters," contains image processing controls, including an active "Illumination correction" toggle and "Ink Recovery" sliders for parchment smoothing, ink edge sensitivity, and brown ink detection.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 13/03/2026

We were sitting with @vanlinduist.bsky.social at breakfast, discussing hard-to-read manuscripts, then I realised that I once saw a presentation by Eyal Poleg where he was able to recover layers from pure JPEG... who am I not to try this? It needs a lot of tweaking, but I'd say good progress?

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 07/02/2026

If you’re in Iceland today, you have to stop by Harpa for UTmessan! The real magic is happening upstairs with the universities—we’re talking VR, 3D scanners, and interactive sims.The tech companies downstairs could honestly take some notes! Definitely don’t miss the @mshl-cdha.bsky.social stand.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 23/01/2026

Progress report on the XML database project: • Basic Auth: Done • Fulltext Search + Indexing: I'd say it works • XPath 1.0: Implemented (rough around the edges, but functional)

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 22/01/2026

I’ve been getting a bit annoyed trying to make ExistDB + TEI Publisher run in Docker behind ProxyPass. Honestly, it was pain. So I thought, why not inflict a little more pain on myself? Decided to try and create my own XML database in Rust.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 20/01/2026

A little bit of today’s and yesterday’s Northern Lights from Iceland.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 17/01/2026

Weekend! Finally found some time to open Figma and test out icon ideas for the Ack-AI extension. Which one you like most?

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 15/01/2026

AI writes code faster, but humans still need to own it. I built a small VS Code extension called Ack-AI. It forces a "Human-in-the-Loop" workflow by highlighting @ai-gen tags with a warning until you explicitly sign off on them.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 10/01/2026

Unexpected start of the year! 🌌🇮🇸

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 20/12/2025

After a great streak of vibe-coding for the IMAFO DigiLab Vibe Advent Calendar, I’m back to the classics! Currently refining the user dashboard for Manu, my IIIF manuscript viewer. It’s good to be back in the engine room. Still a lot of work, but that's the fun. 😊

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 11/11/2025

Everyone is looking up to Apple on how to do design, but guess what? Even they aren’t flawless. Without the console, we’d hardly be able to figure out what’s happening. 🥲

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 09/11/2025

Vocabula.lat and many other apps I'm working on were moved to a new, way more powerful server. The best part? It happened without you even noticing. Big thanks to @vildravn.dev for the huge help setting things up!

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 30/10/2025

Vocabula.lat, my Latin dictionary, now supports two new languages: Icelandic and German. Huge thanks to @vanlinduist.bsky.social for translating the interface! 🥳

New languages for Vocabula.lat: Interface of Vocabula.lat is now translated to two new languages – Icelandic and German!

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 01/09/2025

Here’s a quick update on my learning app: I had an idea, what if I used my Latin dictionary to fetch grammar information and allowed users to import an entire Latin text into the app so it could be tested on that text? Guess what… it’s done! Also extended the testing to include translations.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 30/08/2025

I’m kinda desperate in my tries to learn Latin, so I made simple iOS app to help me. Before you ask - it’s not in app store and it won’t be anytime soon. But could be extended with any words in any language.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 29/08/2025

Just a few random shots from our trip to Bergen. It’s though to be famous in Norway, sooner or later, seagulls will poop on your head.

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Martin Roček @martin.rocek.dev · 04/08/2025

Proud of @vanlinduist.bsky.social for presenting her research on the Scribe H1 at the 19th International Saga Conference! 🥳

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