Iiif Digital Collections

IIIF Digital Collections: Manifest Parsing and Image Access

TL;DR — Work programmatically with IIIF Presentation and Image APIs: parse manifests from Europeana, BnF, Wellcome, and British Library; download image regions; extract W3C Web Annotations; and build thumbnail grids for cross-institution comparison.

When to Use

Use this Skill when you need to:

• Fetch and parse IIIF Presentation API 3.0 manifests from any institution
• Download full images or specific spatial regions using the IIIF Image API URL syntax
• Extract scholarly annotations (transcriptions, tags, commentary) from annotation pages
• Build cross-institution search workflows using IIIF-compliant endpoints
• Create thumbnail grids for comparative art historical research
• Parse manifest metadata: title, creator, date, rights, description

Background

IIIF Standards Overview

The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) defines a family of open APIs that enable institutions to share digital objects in a standardized way.

Presentation API 3.0 defines how to describe and structure a digital object:

Manifest (the digital object)
  ├─ id: manifest URL
  ├─ label: human-readable title (multilingual)
  ├─ metadata: list of {label, value} pairs (creator, date, rights, etc.)
  ├─ thumbnail: array of image services
  └─ items: list of Canvases (pages/views)
       └─ Canvas
            ├─ id: canvas URL
            ├─ width, height: pixel dimensions
            ├─ label: page label (e.g., "f. 3r")
            └─ items: AnnotationPage
                 └─ Annotation (motivation: "painting")
                      └─ body: Image resource (IIIF Image API service URL)

Image API 3.0 provides a RESTful URL pattern for image delivery:

{server}/{prefix}/{identifier}/{region}/{size}/{rotation}/{quality}.{format}

• region: full | square | x,y,w,h (pixels) | pct:x,y,w,h (percent)
• size: max | w, | ,h | w,h | pct:n
• rotation: 0 | 90 | 180 | 270
• quality: default | color | gray | bitonal

W3C Web Annotation Model

Scholarly annotations on IIIF resources follow the W3C Web Annotation Data Model:

{
  "@type": "Annotation",
  "motivation": "commenting",
  "target": {
    "source": "https://example.org/canvas/1",
    "selector": {"type": "FragmentSelector", "value": "xywh=100,200,300,400"}
  },
  "body": {"type": "TextualBody", "value": "This figure depicts..."}
}

Motivations: painting (the primary image), commenting, tagging, transcribing, describing, bookmarking.

Environment Setup

conda create -n iiif-env python=3.11 -y
conda activate iiif-env
pip install "requests>=2.28" "Pillow>=10.0" "pandas>=1.5" "matplotlib>=3.6"

# Test connectivity to a public IIIF endpoint
python -c "
import requests
url = 'https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/presentation/v3/b18035723'
r = requests.get(url, timeout=10)
print(f'Status: {r.status_code}, Type: {r.headers.get(\"Content-Type\", \"\")}')
"

Core Workflow

Step 1 — Manifest Fetch, Canvas List, and Metadata Extraction

import requests
import pandas as pd
from typing import Dict, List, Optional


def fetch_manifest(manifest_url: str, timeout: int = 30) -> dict:
    """
    Fetch a IIIF Presentation API 3.0 (or 2.x) manifest from a URL.

    Args:
        manifest_url: Full URL to the manifest JSON.
        timeout:      Request timeout in seconds.

    Returns:
        Parsed manifest as a Python dict.

    Raises:
        requests.HTTPError: If the server returns a non-2xx response.
    """
    headers = {
        'Accept': 'application/ld+json;profile="http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json",'
                  'application/json',
        'User-Agent': 'iiif-research-client/1.0',
    }
    response = requests.get(manifest_url, headers=headers, timeout=timeout)
    response.raise_for_status()
    return response.json()


def extract_manifest_metadata(manifest: dict) -> dict:
    """
    Extract key metadata fields from a IIIF Presentation API manifest.

    Handles both v2.x and v3.0 label/metadata structures.

    Args:
        manifest: Parsed manifest dict.

    Returns:
        Dict with keys: title, creator, date, rights, description,
        canvas_count, manifest_id, api_version.
    """

    def _label_to_str(label) -> str:
        """Convert IIIF label (str, list, or language map) to plain string."""
        if label is None:
            return ''
        if isinstance(label, str):
            return label
        if isinstance(label, list):
            return str(label[0]) if label else ''
        if isinstance(label, dict):
            # language map: {'en': ['Title'], 'none': ['Title']}
            for lang in ('en', 'none', 'fr', 'de'):
                if lang in label:
                    v = label[lang]
                    return v[0] if isinstance(v, list) else str(v)
            # any language
            first_val = next(iter(label.values()))
            return first_val[0] if isinstance(first_val, list) else str(first_val)
        return str(label)

    title = _label_to_str(manifest.get('label', ''))
    api_version = '3.0' if manifest.get('@context', '').endswith('/3/context.json') else '2.x'

    # Parse metadata block
    metadata_raw = manifest.get('metadata', [])
    meta_dict: Dict[str, str] = {}
    for item in metadata_raw:
        k = _label_to_str(item.get('label', ''))
        v = _label_to_str(item.get('value', ''))
        meta_dict[k.lower()] = v

    # Canvas count
    items = manifest.get('items', manifest.get('sequences', [{}]))
    if isinstance(items, list) and items:
        if api_version == '3.0':
            canvas_count = len(items)
        else:
            # v2: sequences[0].canvases
            canvas_count = len(items[0].get('canvases', []))
    else:
        canvas_count = 0

    return {
        'title': title,
        'creator': meta_dict.get('creator', meta_dict.get('author', meta_dict.get('artist', ''))),
        'date': meta_dict.get('date', meta_dict.get('year', '')),
        'rights': manifest.get('rights', meta_dict.get('rights', meta_dict.get('license', ''))),
        'description': _label_to_str(manifest.get('summary', manifest.get('description', ''))),
        'canvas_count': canvas_count,
        'manifest_id': manifest.get('id', manifest.get('@id', '')),
        'api_version': api_version,
    }


def list_canvases(manifest: dict) -> List[dict]:
    """
    Return a list of canvas descriptors from a manifest.

    Args:
        manifest: Parsed IIIF manifest dict.

    Returns:
        List of dicts: {canvas_id, label, width, height, image_url}
    """
    api_version = '3.0' if '3/context.json' in manifest.get('@context', '') else '2.x'
    canvases = []

    if api_version == '3.0':
        items = manifest.get('items', [])
        for canvas in items:
            image_url = _extract_image_url_v3(canvas)
            canvases.append({
                'canvas_id': canvas.get('id', ''),
                'label': _label_to_str(canvas.get('label', '')),
                'width': canvas.get('width', 0),
                'height': canvas.get('height', 0),
                'image_url': image_url,
            })
    else:
        for seq in manifest.get('sequences', []):
            for canvas in seq.get('canvases', []):
                image_url = _extract_image_url_v2(canvas)
                canvases.append({
                    'canvas_id': canvas.get('@id', ''),
                    'label': canvas.get('label', ''),
                    'width': canvas.get('width', 0),
                    'height': canvas.get('height', 0),
                    'image_url': image_url,
                })
    return canvases


def _extract_image_url_v3(canvas: dict) -> str:
    """Extract painting annotation body URL from a v3 canvas."""
    for anno_page in canvas.get('items', []):
        for anno in anno_page.get('items', []):
            if anno.get('motivation') == 'painting':
                body = anno.get('body', {})
                if isinstance(body, list):
                    body = body[0]
                # Try IIIF Image API service
                for svc in body.get('service', []):
                    if isinstance(svc, dict) and 'id' in svc:
                        return svc['id'] + '/full/max/0/default.jpg'
                return body.get('id', '')
    return ''


def _extract_image_url_v2(canvas: dict) -> str:
    """Extract image resource URL from a v2 canvas."""
    for image in canvas.get('images', []):
        resource = image.get('resource', {})
        svc = resource.get('service', {})
        if '@id' in svc:
            return svc['@id'] + '/full/max/0/default.jpg'
        return resource.get('@id', '')
    return ''


# --- Demo ---
manifest_url = 'https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/presentation/v3/b18035723'
manifest = fetch_manifest(manifest_url)
meta = extract_manifest_metadata(manifest)
print(f"Title:    {meta['title']}")
print(f"Creator:  {meta['creator']}")
print(f"Date:     {meta['date']}")
print(f"Canvases: {meta['canvas_count']}")

canvases = list_canvases(manifest)
df_canvases = pd.DataFrame(canvases)
print(df_canvases[['label', 'width', 'height']].head(10).to_string(index=False))

Step 2 — Image Region Download via IIIF Image API

import requests
from PIL import Image
from io import BytesIO
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.patches as patches
from typing import Tuple, Optional


def build_iiif_image_url(
    service_base: str,
    region: str = 'full',
    size: str = 'max',
    rotation: int = 0,
    quality: str = 'default',
    fmt: str = 'jpg',
) -> str:
    """
    Construct a IIIF Image API 3.0 URL.

    Args:
        service_base: Base URL of the image service (no trailing slash).
        region:       'full', 'square', or 'x,y,w,h' (pixel coords) or 'pct:x,y,w,h'.
        size:         'max', 'w,' (width-only), ',h' (height-only), or 'w,h'.
        rotation:     0, 90, 180, or 270.
        quality:      'default', 'color', 'gray', or 'bitonal'.
        fmt:          'jpg', 'png', 'tif', 'webp'.

    Returns:
        Full IIIF Image API URL string.
    """
    service_base = service_base.rstrip('/')
    return f"{service_base}/{region}/{size}/{rotation}/{quality}.{fmt}"


def download_iiif_region(
    service_base: str,
    x: int,
    y: int,
    w: int,
    h: int,
    output_size: str = '800,',
    output_path: Optional[str] = None,
) -> Image.Image:
    """
    Download a specific pixel region from a IIIF Image API endpoint.

    Args:
        service_base: Base URL of the IIIF image service.
        x, y:         Top-left corner of region in canvas pixels.
        w, h:         Width and height of region in canvas pixels.
        output_size:  Desired output size (IIIF size parameter).
        output_path:  If set, save the image to this file path.

    Returns:
        PIL Image of the requested region.
    """
    region = f"{x},{y},{w},{h}"
    url = build_iiif_image_url(service_base, region=region, size=output_size)
    print(f"Fetching: {url}")

    headers = {'User-Agent': 'iiif-research-client/1.0'}
    response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, timeout=60)
    response.raise_for_status()

    img = Image.open(BytesIO(response.content))

    if output_path:
        img.save(output_path)
        print(f"Saved region to: {output_path}")

    return img


def thumbnail_grid(
    image_urls: List[str],
    labels: Optional[List[str]] = None,
    thumb_size: str = '150,',
    cols: int = 4,
    output_path: str = 'thumbnail_grid.png',
) -> None:
    """
    Download thumbnails and display as a grid plot.

    Args:
        image_urls: List of IIIF image URLs (full image or region URLs).
        labels:     Optional list of caption strings.
        thumb_size: IIIF size parameter for thumbnails.
        cols:       Number of columns in the grid.
        output_path: Where to save the grid image.
    """
    images = []
    for url in image_urls:
        try:
            # Replace size parameter in URL or use as-is
            thumb_url = url.replace('/full/max/', f'/full/{thumb_size}/').replace(
                '/full/full/', f'/full/{thumb_size}/')
            r = requests.get(thumb_url, timeout=20, headers={'User-Agent': 'iiif-research/1.0'})
            r.raise_for_status()
            img = Image.open(BytesIO(r.content)).convert('RGB')
            images.append(img)
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Warning: could not load {url}: {e}")
            images.append(Image.new('RGB', (150, 150), color=(200, 200, 200)))

    rows = (len(images) + cols - 1) // cols
    fig, axes = plt.subplots(rows, cols, figsize=(cols * 2.5, rows * 2.5))
    axes = axes.flatten() if hasattr(axes, 'flatten') else [axes]

    for i, (img, ax) in enumerate(zip(images, axes)):
        ax.imshow(img)
        ax.axis('off')
        if labels and i < len(labels):
            ax.set_title(labels[i], fontsize=7, wrap=True)

    for ax in axes[len(images):]:
        ax.axis('off')

    fig.tight_layout()
    fig.savefig(output_path, dpi=150)
    plt.close(fig)
    print(f"Thumbnail grid saved to: {output_path}")


# --- Demo ---
# service_base = 'https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b18035723_0001.jp2'
# region_img = download_iiif_region(service_base, x=200, y=300, w=500, h=400,
#                                   output_path='detail_region.jpg')
# region_img.show()

Step 3 — Annotation Layer Parsing and Text Extraction

import requests
import pandas as pd
from typing import List, Dict, Optional


def parse_annotation_pages(manifest: dict) -> List[dict]:
    """
    Extract all W3C Web Annotations from all canvases in a manifest.

    Searches for annotation pages with motivations other than 'painting'
    (i.e., scholarly comments, transcriptions, tags, descriptions).

    Args:
        manifest: Parsed IIIF Presentation API manifest dict.

    Returns:
        List of annotation dicts: {canvas_id, motivation, target_selector,
        body_text, body_language, body_type}
    """
    annotations = []
    api_v3 = '3/context.json' in manifest.get('@context', '')

    canvases = manifest.get('items', []) if api_v3 else \
        manifest.get('sequences', [{}])[0].get('canvases', [])

    for canvas in canvases:
        canvas_id = canvas.get('id', canvas.get('@id', ''))

        # v3: canvas.items = painting annotation pages; canvas.annotations = commentary pages
        anno_pages = canvas.get('annotations', [])
        # Also check items for non-painting annotations
        for anno_page in canvas.get('items', []):
            for anno in anno_page.get('items', []):
                if anno.get('motivation', '') != 'painting':
                    anno_pages.append(anno_page)
                    break

        for anno_page in anno_pages:
            # Annotation page may be a URL reference — fetch if needed
            if isinstance(anno_page, str):
                try:
                    r = requests.get(anno_page, timeout=15,
                                     headers={'User-Agent': 'iiif-research/1.0'})
                    anno_page = r.json()
                except Exception:
                    continue

            page_items = anno_page.get('items', anno_page.get('resources', []))
            for anno in page_items:
                motivation = anno.get('motivation', 'unknown')
                if motivation == 'painting':
                    continue

                # Parse target selector
                target = anno.get('target', '')
                selector = ''
                if isinstance(target, dict):
                    sel = target.get('selector', {})
                    if isinstance(sel, dict):
                        selector = sel.get('value', sel.get('@value', ''))
                    elif isinstance(sel, list) and sel:
                        selector = sel[0].get('value', '')

                # Parse body
                body = anno.get('body', {})
                if isinstance(body, list):
                    body = body[0] if body else {}

                body_text = ''
                body_lang = ''
                body_type = ''
                if isinstance(body, dict):
                    body_type = body.get('type', body.get('@type', ''))
                    body_text = body.get('value', body.get('@value', ''))
                    body_lang = body.get('language', '')
                elif isinstance(body, str):
                    body_text = body

                annotations.append({
                    'canvas_id': canvas_id,
                    'motivation': motivation,
                    'target_selector': selector,
                    'body_text': body_text,
                    'body_language': body_lang,
                    'body_type': body_type,
                })

    return annotations


def search_manifests_by_metadata(
    manifest_urls: List[str],
    search_term: str,
    fields: List[str] = None,
) -> pd.DataFrame:
    """
    Fetch multiple manifests and return those whose metadata contains a search term.

    Args:
        manifest_urls: List of IIIF manifest URLs to query.
        search_term:   Case-insensitive string to search for.
        fields:        Metadata fields to search (default: title, creator, description).

    Returns:
        DataFrame of matching manifests with their metadata.
    """
    if fields is None:
        fields = ['title', 'creator', 'description']

    results = []
    for url in manifest_urls:
        try:
            manifest = fetch_manifest(url, timeout=15)
            meta = extract_manifest_metadata(manifest)
            term_lower = search_term.lower()
            match = any(
                term_lower in str(meta.get(f, '')).lower()
                for f in fields
            )
            if match:
                meta['manifest_url'] = url
                results.append(meta)
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Warning: could not fetch {url}: {e}")

    return pd.DataFrame(results) if results else pd.DataFrame()


# --- Demo ---
manifest = fetch_manifest('https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/presentation/v3/b18035723')
annotations = parse_annotation_pages(manifest)
df_anno = pd.DataFrame(annotations)
if not df_anno.empty:
    print(f"Found {len(df_anno)} annotations")
    print(df_anno[['motivation', 'target_selector', 'body_text']].head(10).to_string(index=False))
else:
    print("No non-painting annotations found in this manifest.")

Advanced Usage

Cross-Institution Manifest Search

INSTITUTION_ENDPOINTS = {
    'wellcome': 'https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/presentation/v3/{}',
    'harvard': 'https://iiif.harvardartmuseums.org/manifests/object/{}',
    'europeana': 'https://iiif.europeana.eu/presentation/{}/manifest',
}


def multi_institution_search(
    identifiers: Dict[str, List[str]],
    search_term: str,
) -> pd.DataFrame:
    """
    Search for a term across manifests from multiple institutions.

    Args:
        identifiers: Dict mapping institution key to list of object IDs.
        search_term: Term to search in manifest metadata.

    Returns:
        Combined DataFrame of matching manifests with institution column.
    """
    all_urls = []
    institution_map = {}

    for inst, ids in identifiers.items():
        template = INSTITUTION_ENDPOINTS.get(inst, '')
        for obj_id in ids:
            url = template.format(obj_id)
            all_urls.append(url)
            institution_map[url] = inst

    df = search_manifests_by_metadata(all_urls, search_term)
    if not df.empty:
        df['institution'] = df['manifest_url'].map(institution_map)
    return df

Extract Image Service URL from Canvas

def get_image_service_url(manifest: dict, canvas_index: int = 0) -> Optional[str]:
    """
    Extract the IIIF Image API service base URL for a specific canvas.

    Returns:
        Service base URL (suitable for constructing image region URLs).
    """
    canvases = list_canvases(manifest)
    if not canvases or canvas_index >= len(canvases):
        return None

    canvas = canvases[canvas_index]
    img_url = canvas.get('image_url', '')
    # Strip the path suffix to get service base
    if '/full/' in img_url:
        return img_url.split('/full/')[0]
    return img_url

Troubleshooting

External Resources

• IIIF Presentation API 3.0: https://iiif.io/api/presentation/3.0/
• IIIF Image API 3.0: https://iiif.io/api/image/3.0/
• W3C Web Annotation Data Model: https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/
• IIIF Cookbook (recipes and examples): https://iiif.io/api/cookbook/
• Europeana APIs: https://apis.europeana.eu/api/record-v3
• Wellcome Collection IIIF: https://developers.wellcomecollection.org/api/iiif
• Harvard Art Museums API: https://github.com/harvardartmuseums/api-docs
• iiif-prezi3 Python library: https://github.com/iiif-prezi/iiif-prezi3

Examples

Example 1 — Download First Five Canvases as Thumbnails

manifest_url = 'https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/presentation/v3/b18035723'
manifest = fetch_manifest(manifest_url)
meta = extract_manifest_metadata(manifest)
print(f"Loading: {meta['title']} ({meta['canvas_count']} canvases)")

canvases = list_canvases(manifest)
urls = [c['image_url'] for c in canvases[:8] if c['image_url']]
labels = [c['label'] for c in canvases[:8]]

thumbnail_grid(urls, labels=labels, thumb_size='200,', cols=4,
               output_path='wellcome_thumbnails.png')
print("Grid saved.")

Example 2 — Extract and Export All Transcription Annotations

import json

manifest = fetch_manifest('https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/presentation/v3/b18035723')
annotations = parse_annotation_pages(manifest)
transcriptions = [a for a in annotations if a['motivation'] in ('transcribing', 'commenting', 'describing')]

if transcriptions:
    df = pd.DataFrame(transcriptions)
    df.to_csv('annotations_export.csv', index=False)
    print(f"Exported {len(df)} annotations to annotations_export.csv")
    print(df[['motivation', 'body_text']].head(5).to_string(index=False))
else:
    print("No transcription annotations found. Try a manuscript manifest with editorial markup.")

# Save full annotation dump as JSON
with open('annotations_raw.json', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:
    json.dump(annotations, f, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False)
print("Raw annotations saved to annotations_raw.json")

Changelog