Winners

Since the Vesuvius Challenge launched in March 2023, we have awarded $1,397,000 in prizes!

In 2023, the $850,000 Grand Prize made history by revealing text from inside a rolled Herculaneum scroll for the first time.

This page lists all the prizes awarded so far:

$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

$5,000

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

Hard-Hearted Scrolls (PhD dissertation) by Stephen Parsons

Volume Cartographer by Seth Parker and many others

ink-id by Stephen Parsons