DSAI PhD student Dilara Zeynep Gürer’s project titled “AI-Based Analysis of Calligraphic Artworks: Understanding Cultural Heritage and Improving Accessibility” has been accepted under TÜBİTAK 3005 – Innovative Solutions Research Projects Support Program in the Social Sciences and Humanities.

With this project, it will become possible to digitize Arabic-script calligraphic inscriptions found in historic architectural structures in Türkiye and around the world, automatically recognize their content using artificial intelligence, and interpret them through multilingual translation. Through an AI-powered mobile application, users will be able to instantly obtain information from inscription images captured on their phones; at the same time, the database will be enriched through community contributions.

The project will employ advanced AI methods such as content-based image retrieval (CBIR), open-set classification, visual question answering (VQA) systems, and large language models (LLMs). By creating a dataset of artistic inscription images not currently available in the literature, the project will contribute—as a first in Türkiye—to the digitization and sustainability of cultural heritage. Its outputs will be shared with society through academic publications as well as innovative, real-world technological applications.

In addition to the project lead Dilara Zeynep Gürer, our faculty member Dr. Şaziye Betül Özateş, Prof. Erchan Aptoula from Sabancı University, and Prof. Murat Sülün from Marmara University will contribute to the project as researchers.