Search Interface to a Mayan Glyph Database Based on Visual Characteristics

摘要

During years, the community of Mayan researchers was not open to the usage of computer tools. Still, the progress of the computer science and the current state of Mayan research proves the necessity of this type of software. We present the project related to the development of Mayan script database, which is the first necessary step in development of computer representation of Mayan script data. The database contains several tables and allows for various queries. The main idea of the project is the development of the system that would allow managing Mayan script data for specialists and as well for persons without any previous knowledge of Maya. The system includes structural visual description of glyph images and search facilities based on the structural description, along with traditional database search facilities. The user can define any set of visual characteristics. The glyphs are characterized using a "naive" feature set. Fully working prototype is presented. Preliminary evaluation of the efficiency is carried out. In fact, the system can be applied to any set of images that can be assigned structural features.