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• 1 2023-03-16T10:44:42-04:00 TopoS 49 teaching machines to read (lots and lots of) maps image_header 2025-09-23T00:47:45-04:00 Project Goal: Use machine learning methods to convert the most comprehensive large-scale map series produced during the imperial period, into usable spatial data (and the foundation for pathbreaking research).
  
  The Military-Topographic Survey of European Russia (MTSER) was tsarist in content but utterly trans-imperial in form. The middle of the nineteenth century was the golden age of topographic mapping, with grand projects conducted across several continents. In fact, as the century progressed it became clear that the world could be divided into states that could, and states that could not, demonstrate their mastery of space by producing large scale maps. Topographic surveys could make or break an empire's reputation.
  
  The MTSER, one of many mapping projects pursued in the late imperial period, produced thousands of maps. They are organized according to an index grid and are executed at a scale of 1:126,000 with the same cartography. It is possible to stitch them together into a mosaic - a master map - that will allow us to visualize all kinds of historical information.
  
  But it isn't easy.
  
  That is why this map series makes an excellent starting point for a long-term project that fuses historical expertise with technological innovation. Computers can't read maps; meanwhile, the human brain can't process thousands of maps at once. So why not deploy machine learning methods to bridge the gap?
  
  The payoff is exciting. Can you imagine knowing where all the forests were 150 years ago? Or seeing the systems of mills and bridges that connected factories and fields to markets from St. Petersburg to Odessa? Understanding the empire's spatial structure is as important as understanding its political and social hierarchies, ethnographic composition, cultural or economic capacity. The goal of the TopoS project is to help us all "see" imperial space and, as a result, better understand its history.

  At a Glance

  Phase 1: Produce high-resolution image files of the map series; complete and analyze the comprehensive catalog of map sheets.
  Phase 2: Harvard’s Arts and Humanities Research Computing Group will assist with testing and implementing a cutting-edge computer vision pipeline that will identify and extract a sample feature set.
  Phase 3: Expand the machine learning model to extract the full catalog of feature classes, wrapping up the project with the publication of the research products and the educational tools designed along the way. 

  Project Team

  Kelly O'Neill; Charles Pflieger; Paul Vădan 
• 1 2018-11-15T23:30:10-05:00 Military-Topographical Survey of European Russia 2 plain 2023-03-03T13:02:41-05:00 01/01/1846 - 01/01/1880 The systematic topographical mapping (at the scale of 3-versts (2-miles) per inch) of the Russian Empire began in 1846. Though the main survey and cartographic work was completed by 1863, it remained an ongoing project through the Soviet period. Within that larger initiative, there were several smaller projects. One of those was the mapping of European Russia. The 509 maps produced as part of this series were oriented to the Pulkovo meridian (the longitude of the Pulkovo Observatory near St. Petersburg) and executed at a scale of 1:126,000 (1 centimeter = 1,260 meters). In other words, they are large-scale maps containing an astonishing amount of spatial information.