ABBYY Recognition Server and Contemporary Art

Everything original is absolutely sudden.
Once the Dutch experimental designer Simon Heydens visited the muse of modern art. And then he called ABBYY and said that in order to create the “Cafe-Espresso” interior, he really needs our product - the one that “is intended for streaming the entry of forms and organizing an electronic archive in companies”. About non-standard use of ABBYY Recognition Server read under a cat.



Interior design through the eyes of tables ...
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The project “Wordweaving” is a living history of a cozy corner where tables readily read everything they put on their surface, remember various things (from newspaper headlines to cigarette names) and share them with new cafe visitors. Words and phrases read along with the guests are displayed on the ceiling (just above the surface of each table) and twist into rings. The more popular the table, the more memories it has - i.e. the more rings in the text lace above it.

The process of mutual communication between the table and the visitor does not end there: the words that your silent companion liked, fly away to the cashier and are printed at the bottom of your account. Now it is not just a check, but a kind of souvenir. And proof that you have become part of the history of "Café Espresso".

... and through the eyes of Recognition Server

Technically, the project “Wordweaving” looks like this. Motion sensors built into the surface of the tables are connected to the camera — it takes pictures of the reading piece that guests place in front of them. Recognition Server grabs text from snapshots, recognizes it, and displays the result on a projecting display. If the photo turns out to be fuzzy or small, if it is made at an angle or “above the legs”, then before converting it into text, the program will “clean” it and turn it over, and also correct words that look blurry. Huge arrays of data coming from all eight tables in the head center are processed at a record speed - 32 images in 5 seconds.

Capture and text processing takes place on a Windows server. What happened is sent to another server, where Linux is located - here words and phrases are twisted into a spiral and projected onto the ceiling. Everything works autonomously, without the intervention of programmers and Mr. Haydens. At the same time, for unobtrusive monitoring of the process, a remote console is provided, and to prevent all sorts of errors - automated fault tolerance (AO). The AO algorithm is extremely simple: the system intelligently distributes tasks and checks their execution. If a problem arises, the program throws the stalled task further, bypassing the blocking or failure. AO is resistant to the fall of operating systems and, if anything, can bring itself to life.

" Make the mood yourself"

With the installation and configuration of sensors, cameras, servers and software, Mr. Heydens did a great job himself - it took him a month (including the design of the rest of the room). As a result, the project “Wordweaving” turned into an original installation that embellished the Dutch Museum of Modern Art in Rotterdam. In the first week alone, the “reading” tables received almost 3,000 reading visitors - and nothing broke. Now “Cafe Espresso” boasts an impressive archive of its own memories and panoramic text lace on the ceiling.

And we learned how else to use our product :)

Elena Agafonova,
Translator