API

This folder contains the code for the worker API.

Development

Run bash setup.sh to execute scripted install

Copy the file .env.template to a file .env. Change its content to match your setup (especially regarding the paths).

Install redis and python:

sudo apt-get install redis-server python3-venv python3-dev

Initialize submodules:

git submodule init
git submodule update

# once initiate, update the submodule code with
git submodule update --remote

Create a python virtual environment and install the required packages:

python3 -m venv venv
./venv/bin/pip install -r requirements-dev.txt

You can now run the API worker:

./venv/bin/dramatiq app.main -p 1 -t 1

And the server:

./venv/bin/flask --app app.main run --debug

Adding new demo

1. Create a new demo folder, containing at least a __init__.py, routes.py and tasks.py files
2. Add relevant variables in .env.template and generate the corresponding .env file
3. If necessary, configure a new xaccel redirection in the nginx configuration file
4. Add the demo name (i.e. folder name) to the list INSTALLED_APPS in .env

Updating the documentation

You need to install sphinx and the furo theme:

./venv/bin/pip install sphinx furo

You can then generate the documentation with make:

cd docs
make html

Deployment

See docker/README.md for deployment instructions.

Citation

If you find this work useful, please consider citing:

@article{albouy2025aikon,
    title={{AIKON : A Modular Computer Vision Platform for Historical Corpora}},
    author={
        Albouy, Ségolène and
        Norindr, Somkeo and
        Kervegan, Paul and
        Aouinti, Fouad and
        Delanaux, Rémy and
        Champenois, Robin and
        Lazaris, Stavros and
        Guilbaud, Alexandre and
        Husson, Matthieu and
        Aubry, Mathieu
    },
    url={https://hal.science/hal-05248250},
    year={2025},
    month={Sep},
    number={hal-05248250},
    journal={HAL Pre-Print},
    keyword={Digital Humanities, Computer Vision, Historical Documents, Visual Analysis},
}