title: Inselect: Automating the Digitization of Natural History Collections.
abstract: The world's natural history collections constitute an enormous evidence base for scientific research on the natural world. To facilitate these studies and improve access to collections, many organisations are embarking on major programmes of digitization. This requires automated approaches to mass-digitization that support rapid imaging of specimens and associated data capture, in order to process the tens of millions of specimens common to most natural history collections. In this paper we present Inselect-a modular, easy-to-use, cross-platform suite of open-source software tools that supports the semi-automated processing of specimen images generated by natural history digitization programmes. The software is made up of a Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux desktop application, together with command-line tools that are designed for unattended operation on batches of images. Blending image visualisation algorithms that automatically recognise specimens together with workflows to support post-processing tasks such as barcode reading, label transcription and metadata capture, Inselect fills a critical gap to increase the rate of specimen digitization.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Lawrence N
authors.initials: LN
authors.lastname: Hudson
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Blagoderov
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Heaton
authors.affiliation: Division of Applied Mathematics, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa.
authors.forename: Pieter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Holtzhausen
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Livermore
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Benjamin W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Price
authors.affiliation: Division of Applied Mathematics, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa.|Berkeley Institute for Data Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Stéfan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: van der Walt
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Vincent S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001331:Automation; D003196:Computer Graphics; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D007313:Insecta / Q000502:physiology*; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D009036:Moths; D009144:Museums; D019021:Natural History / Q000379:methods*; D012984:Software