The DLA-RMR dataset: Annotated subset of RMR notebooks for CVC development

What’s new in this version: Some annotations were missing one of the visual attributes (orientation or writing implement). All missing attributes have been added in this version.<br>
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This dataset is structured into four components, each serving a distinct role in the development of a document analysis system. 

<strong>Word-level annotations</strong> are provided in the file <code>word_annotations_for_cropped_images.json</code>. These annotations describe the images contained in the <code>cropped_images</code> folder. Each entry specifies the location of a word as a polygon, together with its orientation (horizontal, vertical, or tilted) and the type of writing implement used (ink or pencil). Additional metadata, such as bounding boxes and segmentation areas, is also included.

<strong>Cropped images</strong> are stored in the <code>cropped_images</code> folder. This set comprises 50 images, each containing only the primary page extracted from the corresponding full notebook scans.

<strong>Full images</strong> are located in the <code>full_images</code> folder. This collection also contains 50 items, representing the complete notebook scans in which the primary page appears alongside other material.

<strong>Page-level annotations</strong> are contained in the <code>page_annotations</code> folder. These are provided in YOLO format, with a single class (<code>page</code>) defined in <code>classes.txt</code>. Each annotation file specifies the bounding box of the primary page within the corresponding image in the <code>full_images</code> folder.

Examples illustrate the annotation structure. In the JSON file, a typical word annotation records polygon coordinates, the attribute <code>"orientation": "horizontal"</code>, and <code>"writing_tool": "pencil"</code>. In the YOLO annotations, a sample entry such as <code>0 0.499023 0.500776 0.777344 0.816912</code> denotes the normalised coordinates of the primary page bounding box.

<strong>Acknowledgement:</strong>

The research for this work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy - EXC 2176 ‘Understanding Written Artefacts: Material, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures’, project no. 390893796. The research was conducted within the scope of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at Universität Hamburg.<br>
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The images are taken from notebook pages of Rainer Maria Rilke, from the Deutsche Literaturarchiv Marbach (DLA), A:Rilke-Archiv Gernsbach. 

We thank Hui Xu for her support in annotating the images.