The retrieval of text in 3D like damaged cuneiform tablets or weathered medieval headstones[9] using Multi Scale Integral Invariant (MSII)[10] filtering is a core function of the software.

[13] The name "GigaMesh" refers to the processing of large 3D-datasets and relates intentionally to the mythical Sumerian king Gilgamesh and his heroic epic described on a set of clay tablets.

[10]: 115  The central element of the logo is the cuneiform sign 𒆜 (kaskal) meaning street or road junction, which symbolizes the intersection of the humanities and computer science.

[citation needed] The development began in 2009 and was inspired by the edition project Keilschrifttexte aus Assur literarischen Inhalts (KAL, cuneiform texts with literary content) of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

[17] In 2017 GigaMesh was tested by the DAI at an excavation in Guadalupe, near Trujillo, Honduras for immediate visualization of in-situ acquired findings with different 3D-scanners including a comparison with manual drawings.

This was demonstrated with almost 2.000 cuneiform tablets of the Hilprecht Collection of the Jena University, which were processed and digitally published as benchmarkdatabase (HeiCuBeDa)[28] for machine learning as well as database of images including 3D- and meta-data (HeiCu3Da)[29] using CC BY licenses.

[34][35] The Louvre showed GigaMesh based rollouts of an Aryballos from the collection of the KFU Graz representing the use of digital methods for research on pottery of ancient Greece within the CVA project, which had its 100th anniversary in 2019.

[39] The DFG funded edition of texts from Haft Tepe project[40] is using MSII filtered renderings of tablets in the so-called fat-cross arrangement of side views.

The marking of interpolated points and triangles by filling voids in the triangular grid represents meta-information to be captured e.g. in the context of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) in Germany.