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
The next chapter of HyperImage
Pictures are not endpoints. They are connections.
Yenda is an open-source virtual research environment and toolsuite for the scholarly analysis of image corpora. It integrates HyperImage’s proven model for linking (audio-)visual objects, texts, and mixed-media documents into a broader, modern platform that remains fully backwards compatible.
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.
In the current build
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.
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
Planned extensions
Built to connect. Ready to evolve.
Yenda’s modular architecture creates a durable foundation for interoperability and new modes of research. Planned capabilities extend the platform additively: existing HyperImage projects and their authoritative data remain intact.
IIIF & FAIR interoperability
IIIF Image and Presentation manifests, Web Annotation mappings, stable identifiers, rights metadata, and documented linked-data exports.
Faceted research navigation
Indexed discovery across types, groups, tags, and languages—with combined criteria, saved searches, and highlighted results.
Modern account security
Secure browser sessions, account recovery, and optional multi-factor or passkey authentication alongside the compatible legacy interface.
Human-reviewed research assistance
Traceable suggestions for OCR, transcription, metadata, vocabularies, similarity, and image regions—accepted deliberately, never applied silently.
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
Coming at the end of 2026