Winners
Vesuvius Challenge has awarded $1,837,000 in prizes since the competition started in 2023! This page lists all the prizes awarded so far.
$33,500 Progress Prizes (July 2026)
Goal: Improve the tools and training methods needed to read the scrolls.
$20,000
ScrollFiesta: Ben Kyles / @hari_seldonContinued development of the automatic surface mesher: now villa-compatible (zarr in, tifxyz out), snaps to papyrus in the CT scan, and produces constraints for spiral fitting.
$2,500
Optimising patch connectivity: William StevensIdentifies and removes problem areas that cause sheet switching, leaving a scaffolding of known-good patches; run across all of Scroll 4.
$1,000
Portable GPU kernels for ScrollFiesta: Alan ThompsonA Rust/CubeCL driver for ScrollFiesta's MLS-midpoint projection hotspot that runs on AMD, NVIDIA, and WGPU.
$1,000
Zarr 3 read fixes: Prasad KhakeFixes multiscale zarr 3 reads in the Python vesuvius Volume and restores an opt-in chunk cache.
$1,000
Ink detection validation harness: Hyojun KwonA reworked ink-detection tutorial with proper held-out validation splits, plus an upstream OOM fix.
$1,000
windcheck: Josep CarrerasDetects self-intersections in tifxyz surfaces, catching silent wrap-crossing errors for large-scale filtering.
$1,000
TIFXYZ Doctor: Aviad CohenA deterministic QA and triage tool for tifxyz surface grids: metadata, consistency, distortion, and topology checks, plus a merged VC3D bounds fix.
$1,000
Faster decohesion augmentation: J. Miguel GiraldoVectorized the DecohesionTransform training augmentation, replacing a per-iteration GPU kernel loop.
$1,000
Reproducibility fixes & ROI inference: TAUIL Abd ElilahAssorted merged fixes and ROI inference support, plus a negative-result analysis of cross-scroll ink-signal measurement.
$1,000
Spiral fitting on consumer GPUs: Shuhan YangMakes the official spiral fitter run on 12 GB cards and without the native vc C++ extension.
$1,000
tifxyz repair & tracing fixes: Erwin NieuwlaarFixes tifxyz meta.json bounding boxes and rescales neural-tracing displacements for non-training voxel sizes.
$1,000
scroll-data-audit: Matteo BulloniDefect-hunting across the open-data catalog and volume-cartographer, with catalog metadata checks and merged VC3D fixes.
$1,000
fit_spiral fixes: Nicolas DolegieviezFour merged fixes making fit_spiral work on Windows and turning silently zeroed losses into loud failures.
$3,000 Progress Prizes (June 2026)
Goal: Improve the tools and training methods needed to read the scrolls.
Announcement: Blog post
$2,000
3D augmentations & ScrollFiesta speedups: Paulo Sergio Camillo / @pscamilloMore CT-scan-artifact-inspired augmentations for training 3D segmentation models, plus performance improvements to ScrollFiesta.
$1,000
Fiber format converter: Joseph BalmacedaConverts skeleton-annotated fibers from NML into CSV, JSON, and SWC, with length, branching, and orientation analysis.
$12,000 Progress Prizes (May, 2026)
Goal: Improve the tools and training methods needed to read the scrolls.
Announcement: Blog post
$10,000
Scroll Fiesta: Ben Kyles / @hari_seldonAn automatic mesher of surface predictions that attempts to fix topological mistakes.
$2,000
3D augmentations: Paulo Sergio Camillo / @pscamilloScroll Decohesion, Realistic Warp, and Squeeze transforms for training ML models on CT scans.
$200,000 Kaggle Surface Detection (March, 2026)
Goal: Optimize topologically accurate papyrus surface detection methods.
Announcement: Blog post / Kaggle competition / Kaggle leaderboard
$60,000
1st: Vesuvius Team$40,000
2nd: risk of overfitting$30,000
3rd: W & A$20,000
4th: Starry$15,000
5th: Dieter$10,000
6th: #hui$10,000
7th: DECEM$5,000
8th: lingyundev$5,000
9th: 阿對對對對隊$5,000
10th: Vibes & Scrolls Trade-off$1,000 Open Source (March, 2026)
Goal: Improve virtual unwrapping for the Surface Detection challenge.
Announcement: Blog post
$1,000 Open Source (July, 2025)
Goal: Improve virtual unwrapping
Announcement: Blog post
$2,500 Open Source (June, 2025)
Goal: Improve virtual unwrapping
Announcement: Blog post
$7,000 Open Source (May, 2025)
Goal: Updates to tooling
Announcement: Blog post
$5,000
VC3D stability improvements: Philip Allgaier / @spacegaier
$1,000
Volume masking pipeline: Marcel Roth / @_mvrcii
$1,000
neuroglancer-mini: Hsiao Yao and Dalufish / @.yaohsiao and @dalufish$60,000 First Title Prize (May, 2025)
Goal: Discover the end title of a sealed Herculaneum scroll.
Announcement: Blog post
$7,000 Open Source (April, 2025)
Goal: Get us closer to reading entire scrolls
Announcement: Blog post
$2,500
Further work on ball and spring surface growing and analysis: Will Stevens
$2,500
Mask-3D fork and work on synthetic data generation: Lachlan Parker
$1,000
Surface refinement in khartes: Stephane Gouttebroze
$1,000
Simplified fork of neuroglancer: Yao Hsao
$10,500 Open Source (February, 2025)
Goal: Get us closer to reading entire scrolls.
Announcement: Blog post
$2,500
vesuvius-gui developments: Johannes Rudolph / @jrudolph
$2,500
Improved FASP segmentation: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$2,500
VC3D improvements: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$1,000
Masked scroll Zarrs: Forrest McDonald / @verditelabs
$1,000
Particle-based flattening: William Stevens / @Will Stevens
$1,000
Ink detection refinements: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$60,000 First Automated Segmentation (December, 2024)
Goal: Reproduce the 2023 Grand Prize segmentation result, but faster.
Announcement: Blog post
$30,000
Gold Aureus++: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz, Sean Johnson / @sean (bruniss)
$30,000
Gold Aureus++: Paul Henderson / @pmh47
$13,500 Open Source (December, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$2,500
Volumetric segmentation model: Tim Skinner / @Tim S, Lachlan Parker, John Skinner
$2,500
Ink labels: Nicola Bodill / @polytrope
$2,500
Interactive mesh refinement: James Darby / @james darby
$1,000
vesuvius-render: Johannes Rudolph / @jrudolph
$1,000
Electric field-based flattening: Yao Hsiao / @Yao Hsiao, Dalufishe / @Dalufish
$1,000
Data overlays in Khartes: Chuck / @khartes_chuck
$1,000
Optimized ink detection: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$1,000
Supervoxel-based segmentation methods: Forrest McDonald / @verditelabs$1,000
Segmentation tools: William Stevens / @Will Stevens
$29,000 Open Source (November, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$10,000
Segment patch generation: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$10,000
vesuvius-c library: Forrest McDonald / @verditelabs$2,500
Electric potential scroll flattening: Yao Hsiao / @Yao Hsiao, Dalufishe / @Dalufish
$2,500
Various datasets: Sean Johnson / @sean (bruniss), Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$1,000
phalanx: Marcel Roth
$1,000
2D -> 3D labeling tool: James Darby / @james darby
$1,000
zarr_to_ome script: Chuck / @khartes_chuck
$1,000
New segment in title region: Elian Rafael Dal Prá / @err, Sean Johnson / @sean (bruniss)
$18,500 Open Source (October, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$2,500
Segmentation models: Sean Johnson / @sean (bruniss)
$2,500
Optimizing surface models: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$2,500
Surface mesh refinement: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$2,500
C library: Forrest McDonald / @verditelabs
$2,500
Zarr support in vesuvius-gui: Johannes Rudolph / @jrudolph
$1,000
Self-supervised pretraining for ink detection: Jorge García-Carrasco / @jgcarrasco
$1,000
Interactive segmentation improvements in Volume Cartographer: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$1,000
Segmentation toolkit improvements: William Stevens / @Will Stevens
$1,000
Umbilicus Maker: James Darby / @james darby
$1,000
Meshing high curvature segmentations: James Darby / @james darby
$1,000
Visualization canvas: Yao Hsiao / @Yao Hsiao, Dalufishe / @Dalufish
$48,500 Open Source (September, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$20,000
Fiber following: Sean Johnson / @sean (bruniss)
$10,000
Inkalyzer: Youssef Nader / @YoussefNader
$2,500
Fragment ink labeling: Youssef Nader / @YoussefNader
$2,500
Fast meshing and flattening: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$2,500
Meshes from volumetric labels: James Darby / @james darby
$2,500
vesuvius-gui improvements: Johannes Rudolph / @jrudolph
$2,500
Self-supervised ink detection: Jorge García-Carrasco / @jgcarracsco, Andoni Irazusta-Garmendia / @theleprechaun25
$1,000
Segmentation optimization: Hendrik Schilling / @waldkauz
$1,000
Volumetric labeling improvements: James Darby / @james darby
$1,000
Scroll Sleuth: Paul Geiger / @PaulG
$1,000
Small surface segmentation: William Stevens / @Will Stevens
$1,000
Data streaming in Khartes: Chuck / @khartes_chuck
$1,000
Vesuvius Ink Generator: Seth Stewart
$41,000 Open Source (August, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$10,000
Segment Browser: Johannes Rudolph / @jrudolph
$10,000
Volumetric instance labeling: James Darby / @james darby
$10,000
Khartes3D: Chuck / @khartes_chuck
$2,500
Rescaled fragment surface volumes: Johannes Rudolph / @jrudolph
$2,500
Flood fill for segmentation: Will Stevens / @Will Stevens
$2,500
Convert volumetric segmentations to meshes: James Darby / @james darby
$2,500
Ink detection patch aggregation report: Arefeh Sherafati / @arefeh, Lou Schlessinger / @ls_96
$1,000
wj-wt-ftt: Yao Hsiao / @Yao Hsiao, Dalufishe / @Dalufish
$11,000 Open Source (July, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$2,500
3D instance segmentation improvements: James Darby / @james_darby
$2,500
Vesuvius GP+: Jared Landau / @tetradrachm
$2,500
DINO ink detection: Jorge García Carrasco / @jgcarrasco
$2,500
Hraun updates: Forrest McDonald / @verditelabs
$1,000
Web volume annotator: Yao Hsiao / @Yao Hsiao, Dalufishe / @Dalufish$12,500 Open Source (June, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$2,500
Volumetric segmentation tools: James Darby / @james_darby
$2,500
Volume Cartographer improvements: Philip Allgaier / @spacegaier
$2,500
Segmentation pipeline: Santiago Pelufo / @spelufo
$1,000
Scroll volume alignment: Paul Geiger
$1,000
Updated 3D ink detection volume: Sean Johnson / @Bruniss
$1,000
Web volume viewer: Huang Cheng Jiun / @pocper1, Yao Hsiao / @Yao Hsiao
$1,000
Seam carving for densification: James Darby / @james_darby
$1,000
Mesh chunking: James Darby / @james_darby
$29,000 Open Source (May, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$10,000
Volume Cartographer improvements: Philip Allgaier / @spacegaier
$10,000
Khartes improvements: Chuck / @khartes_chuck$2,500
Scroll 2 segments: Sean Johnson / @Bruniss
$2,500
vesuvius-gui: Johannes Rudolph / @jrudolph$1,000
Scroll compression and masking: Oliver Daubney / @O_D
$1,000
Volumetric segmentation architecture investigation: James Darby / @james_darby
$1,000
Browser-based scroll viewer: Yao Hsiao / @Yao Hsiao$1,000
3D segmentation prototype: Forrest McDonald / @VerditeLabs$35,000 Open Source (April, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$20,000
3D ink detection: Ryan Chesler / @emel_ryan
$2,500
Mesh merging: Giorgio Angelotti / @Jordi
$2,500
Instance segmentation labels: James Darby / @james darby
$2,500
Unsupervised pretraining: Ryan Chesler / @emel_ryan
$2,500
New segments: Sean Johnson / @Bruniss
$1,000
Volumetric processing tools: Forrest McDonald / @VerditeLabs
$1,000
Point cloud comparison: Giorgio Angelotti / @Jordi
$1,000
Instance segmentation experiments: James Darby, Ryan Reszetnik, Liamo Pennimpede, Lucas Nelson
$1,000
Meshing and chunking: Santiago Pelufo / @spelufo$1,000
Pipeline Visualize: Yao Hsiao / @Yao Hsiao$42,500 Open Source (March, 2024)
Goal: Increase the probability we read 90% of four scrolls in 2024.
Announcement: Blog post
$20,000
Rendering improvements: Giorgio Angelotti / @Jordi
$10,000
Multiresolution chunked volumes: Chuck / @khartes_chuck
$2,500
Volumetric ink detection: Jorge Villaescusa / @mojonero$2,500
Volumetric segmentation labels: Tim Skinner / @Tim S
$2,500
Data improvements: James Darby / @james darby
$1,000
Segment-to-segment label mapping: Oliver Daubney / @O_D
$1,000
Cell viewer and segmentation comparison: Yao Hsiao / @Yao Hsiao$1,000
Superpixels and cells: Santiago Pelufo / @spelufo
$1,000
Other segmentation axes, 3D ink labels: Sean Johnson / @Bruniss
$1,000
Colab notebook and ink labels: Nicola Bodill / @polytrope
$850,000 Grand Prize 2023 (December 31, 2023)
Goal: Reveal four passages within the scrolls.
Announcement: Announcement page
$700,000
Winner: Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor, and Julian Schilliger
$50,000
Runner up: SQ Mah
$50,000
Runner up: Lou Schlessinger and Arefeh Sherafati
$50,000
Runner up: Elian Rafael Dal Prá, Sean Johnson, Leonardo Scabini, Raí Fernando Dal Prá, João Vitor Brentigani Torezan, Daniel Baldin Franceschini, Bruno Pereira Kellm, Marcelo Soccol Gris, and Odemir Martinez Bruno
$12,000 Open Source (December 31, 2023)
Goal: Increase the probability the Grand Prize gets awarded.
Announcement: Blog post
$3,000
Segment maps by Yao Hsiao / @Yao_Hsiao
$3,000
Large segments and colab notebook by Sean Johnson / @Bruniss
$3,000
Crackle Viewer by Julian Schilliger / @RICHI
$3,000
Segment maps by Youssef Nader / @YoussefNader
$25,000 Open Source (November 30, 2023)
Goal: Increase the probability the Grand Prize gets awarded.
Announcement: Blog post
$8,000
Next-gen Volume Cartographer: Philip Allgaier / @spacegaier
$5,000
Segment Browser: Johannes Rudolph / @jrudolph
$5,000
Ink Detection Masks: Anton Repushko / @repushko
$1,000
Sharkbite fix: Chuck / @khartes_chuck
$1,000
Vesuvius Kintsugi: Giorgio Angelotti / @jordi45698
$1,000
Crackle Labels: Sean Johnson / @bruniss
$1,000
Omit: Timo Meireman / @timo_71099
$1,000
Segment Viewer by Yao Hsiao / @Yao_Hsiao and Dalufishe / @Dalufish
$1,000
Single-sheet Segmentation: Brett Olsen / @brett_olsen
$1,000
Multiple Contributions: Santiago Pelufo / @spelufo
$60,000 First Letters & Ink (October 12, 2023)
Goal: Find the first letters within the scrolls.
Announcement: Announcement page
$40,000
First Letters: Luke Farritor / @lukeboi
$10,000
First Letters, 2nd place: Youssef Nader / @YoussefNader
$10,000
First Ink: Casey Handmer / @cjhandmer
$45,000 Segmentation Tooling 2 (October 3, 2023)
Goal: Help the segmentation team do larger and harder areas.
Announcement: Blog post
$10,000
VA Sheet Tracer by Trevor, Tom, Babak, and Boaz
$10,000
Extremely Fast Segmentation by Julian Schilliger / @RICHI
$10,000
Khartes by Chuck / @khartes_chuck$5,000
CT scanning campfire scrolls by Ahron Wayne / @WayneWayneHello
$5,000
Segment Viewer by Yao Hsiao / @Yao_Hsiao and Dalufishe / @Dalufish
$5,000
Ilastik integration by Santiago Pelufo / @spelufo
$12,000 Ink Detection Followup (September 8, 2023)
Goal: Take the models from the Ink Detection Prize (see below) and apply them to the scrolls, to find letters.
Announcement: Blog post
$3,000
Top Ink Detection Model Analysis by Ryan Chesler / @emel_ryan
$3,000
Fine Tuning by Luke Farritor / @lukeboi
$1,500
Crackle Viewer by Julian Schilliger / @RICHI
$1,500
Resolution Analysis by Team OverthINKingSegmenter
$1,500
Scroll Pretraining by Youssef Nader / @YoussefNader
$1,500
Vesuvius Challenge Whiteboard by Yao / @Yao_Hsiao and Dalufishe / @Dalufish
$45,000 Segmentation Tooling (June 27, 2023)
Goal: Help the segmentation team do larger and harder areas.
Announcement: Blog post
$10,000
Optical Flow Segmentation by Julian / @RICHI$10,000
Khartes by Chuck / @khartes_chuck$5,000
Masked data by James / @thatGuy
$5,000
Volume Viewer by Yao / @Yao_Hsiao
$5,000
VolumeAnnotate by Moshe / @moshelevy
$5,000
Scroll Viewer by Luke Farritor / @lukeboi
$5,000
vesuvius-build and vesuvius-blender by Santiago / @spelufo
$100,000 Kaggle Ink Detection (July 14, 2023)
Goal: Optimize fragment-based ink detection methods.
Announcement: Blog post / Kaggle competition / More info
$25,000
1st: ryches
$20,000
2nd: RTX23090
$15,000
3rd: wuyu
$10,000
4th: POSCO DX - Heeyoung Ahn
$5,000
5th: Aksell
$5,000
6th: chumajin
$5,000
7th: OverthINKingSegmenter
$5,000
8th: Luck is all you need
$5,000
9th: still 1 fold, 2 net
$5,000
10th: Feng Qilong
$10,000 Open Source (April 14, 2023)
Goal: Increase the probability the Grand Prize gets awarded.
Announcement: Blog post / Live stream
$2,500
Scroll Viewer by Luke Farritor / @lukeboi$2,500
2.5D Segmentation Baseline by Ryosuke Tanaka
$2,500
VolumeAnnotate by Moshe Levy / @moshelevy$2,500
Countless community contributions by Brett Olsen / @caethan
EduceLab tools
Before and during the competition, EduceLab has put out various works. With these tools, they have laid the foundation for the community. While EduceLab members are ineligible for prizes, we want to recognize their efforts.
Quick Segment by Bruno, Sydney, and Drew. © EduceLab/University of Kentucky.
Hard-Hearted Scrolls (PhD dissertation) by Stephen Parsons. © Stephen Parsons.
Volume Cartographer by Seth Parker and many others. © EduceLab/University of Kentucky.
ink-id by Stephen Parsons. © EduceLab/University of Kentucky.