HyperImage is part of Yenda
Its visual annotation, semantic linking, multilingual metadata, collaborative authoring, and publication model form the proven core of the expanded Yenda platform.
Planned release · End of 2026
Connected visual scholarship
Pictures are not endpoints. They are connections.
Yenda is an open-source environment for connected visual scholarship: annotate image regions, describe and relate them semantically, compare them across a corpus, collaborate on their interpretation, and publish the resulting research.
For digital humanities, eScience, archives, museums, and image-led research.
01
Identify a region
02
Describe its meaning
03
Connect the corpus
One vision. A new foundation.
HyperImage now lives inside Yenda—and grows beyond it.
Successor, integration, expansion.
Yenda is not a break with HyperImage. The established product vision, goal, core concepts, research model, and proven capabilities have been integrated into the new Yenda toolsuite and research platform. Yenda retains them, makes them web-native, and expands the space around them with a modern architecture and new tools.
The proven idea
Yenda
The active future
Your projects carry forward
Yenda is fully backwards compatible with HyperImage projects, data structures, and established workflows. Existing research does not need migration-only preprocessing or a fresh start.
The same vision, expanded
The HyperImage 3 branch is discontinued. All ongoing development now belongs to Yenda: a modern foundation, new tools, and a wider future—without abandoning the original goal or core concepts.
Image
Context
Relation
Picture knowledge
Research begins where the image refuses to be just an illustration.
Mark complex subregions within images, describe them in multiple languages, and construct visual argumentation chains by linking them to other regions, images, groups, texts, websites, inscriptions, or light tables. Yenda turns a collection into a navigable corpus of evidence, relations, and interpretation.
What hypertext does for text, Yenda extends to the image—and to the relations within image corpora.
Built for visual scholarship
From close reading to connected publication.
Yenda carries HyperImage’s complete model for managing image corpora, metadata, and relationships into a modern browser workflow—and extends its modes of scholarly analysis and indexing.
Available in current beta
Annotate what matters—down to the region
Draw complex polygonal regions across multiple layers, assign colours and opacity, add rich multilingual annotations, tags, and precise link targets. AI-assisted segmentation can propose a shape while the researcher remains in control.
Link across the corpus
Create 1:1, 1:n, and n:n semantic relationships between regions, images, objects, texts, groups, URLs, inscriptions, and light tables—then make those annotations accessible through indices and backlinks.
Shape metadata around the research
Use flexible, extensible metadata templates, multiple schemas per element, multilingual project metadata, tags, and rich text instead of forcing heterogeneous research material into one rigid catalogue.
Organise visually
Build curated groups and light tables, arrange images with annotations, browse by tags, and search project content while preserving the visual structure of scholarly argumentation.
Research together
A server-based research and publication environment supports both individual scholarship and collaborative projects, with role-aware access, live notifications, project users, and protected editing.
Publish and keep your work portable
Compile interim results or final versions as navigable online/offline hypermedia publications, and exchange complete projects through the established PeTAL 3 format—including large, resumable export jobs.
A living platform
What works now—and what comes next.
Yenda’s capabilities are grouped by their actual maturity. The current beta already supports the central workflow of connected visual scholarship; development and research goals remain clearly identified.
Available in current beta
10- Visual region annotation
- Semantic linking
- Flexible multilingual metadata
- Groups and light tables
- Collaboration
- Publication and export
- Indexed and faceted research search
- Saved searches and recent navigation
- Browser sessions, account recovery, MFA and passkeys
- HyperImage compatibility
In active development
04- IIIF, Web Annotation and FAIR interoperability
- Stable, citable scholarly identifiers
- Authority-data integration
- Docker quick start
Research roadmap
03- Human-reviewed OCR and transcription
- Vocabulary and similarity assistance
- Further multimodal and 3D integration
Browser-native by design
No Java launcher. No legacy installation ritual.
Yenda opens where contemporary research happens: in the browser. The interface preserves the depth of HyperImage’s authoring model while adding guided onboarding, contextual help, live German/English UI switching, accessible controls, and resilient long-running workflows.
- Current stable web stackPHP 8.4+ · Symfony 8.1
- Safe, additive compatibilityLegacy data remains authoritative
- Reproducible and inspectableOpen-source publication planned
Yenda
Continuity by design
For existing HyperImage projects
Backward compatibility is a first-class capability in Yenda—not a migration footnote. Existing projects, data structures, and established research workflows remain authoritative while gaining access to Yenda’s browser-native environment and current beta features.
- Continue from existing HyperImage projects
- Preserve established structures and workflows
- Move into a modern browser-based research environment
Interoperability
Standards are commitments, not decoration.
Yenda is being prepared to connect with established scholarly and cultural-heritage ecosystems. These are explicit implementation and validation targets; none is presented as accepted conformance until it passes Yenda’s acceptance suite.
IIIF Presentation 3
W3C Web Annotation
FAIR-oriented metadata
PeTAL 3
Authority URIs
JSON-LD
CIDOC-CRM mapping
Try Yenda
Choose the path that fits your research.
Hosted Yenda
No installation required. The hosted Yenda environment is currently available to selected research projects and beta testers.
Request beta accessSelf-host Yenda
Run Yenda on infrastructure controlled by your institution. The public source release will be available under an open-source license.
Docker
An official container-based installation is being prepared for straightforward evaluation and institutional deployment.
Open by principle
Research infrastructure should be inspectable, portable, and shared.
Like HyperImage before it, Yenda is being developed as open-source research infrastructure. Its implementation will be made publicly inspectable and reusable together with the public release.
Source publication
Planned with the public release
Available to selected beta projects