O Observatório Astronómico da Escola Politécnica : modelos virtuais para a sua preservação

O último observatório de ensino de interesse histórico em Portugal, que data do final do século XIX, é um dos edifícios mais carismáticos dos Museus da Universidade de Lisboa. Após um século de uso intensivo, o Observatório Astronómico da Escola Politécnica necessita de obras estruturais antes de ser devolvido integralmente à fruição pública. Recentemente, um grupo de estudantes desta Universidade foi envolvido na construção de modelos 3D virtuais para recriar o edifício do Observatório e alguns objetos das suas coleções. A qualidade dos modelos potencia a sua utilização como instrumento de divulgação de uma peça relevante do património histórico-científico da Universidade de Lisboa. Este artigo descreve as várias abordagens adoptadas e compara-as entre si.The Astronomical Observatory of the Lisbon Polytechnic School is the last teaching observatory of historical interest in Portugal. Created in the late nineteenth century, it survives intact in its original design. Given its singularity in the context of scientific heritage, the quality and beauty of its architecture, as well as its privileged location in the Botanical Garden, the Observatory has the potential to become the Museum’s focal point for the promotion of astronomy and its history. After 100 years of intense use, however, the Observatory is highly degraded and needs structural restoration before it can be fully returned to public fruition. Recently, three professors of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon decided to involve a group of students in the construction of virtual 3D models to recreate the Observatory building and collections. This article describes the methods used to produce the models and presents a comparison between them

The Contribution of ‘Total Environment’ Reconstructions in Interpreting Ancient Greek Experience of Ritual Spaces

The temple of Epikourean Apollo in Bassae has long been suspected to have been constructed with astronomical considerations, aimed at influencing ancient religious experience. The study presented here involves the use of Virtual Reality software to reconstruct the temple in its original position and orientation, combined with an accurate reconstruction of the sun’s position during the Classical period. The aim is to test the hypothesis of deliberate solar considerations associated with the temple’s east entrance. The reconstruction also discusses the application of Virtual Reality Models (VRM) and their potential impact on understanding ancient spatial movement and memory, emotionality and cognition. In addition, it explores the possibility of ancient natural light manipulation in enhancing experience of religious architecture. This paper not only presents the first VRM of Apollo’s temple, but also a model with an accurate reconstruction of the sun’s position at specific moments in the year. The importance of such reconstructions in understanding religious experience is exemplified. A great deal is revealed about the proposed solar effect in relation to human observation, and the connotations of such an effect in specific religious contexts. This study could facilitate discussion on the contribution of digital technology in understanding ancient Greek ritual experience

Conservación digital del patrimonio cultural y científico: participación de estudiantes universitarios para concienciarles de su importanica

[EN] Cultural heritage is a relevant issue in contemporary society. While its preservation is a challenge, its dissemination, can contribute for an economic balance between costs and benefits. Scientific heritage can be considered as a special domain of cultural heritage, not yet sought by the mass tourism, but worth being preserved as the roots of today’s knowledge. Considering that university students of engineering and computer science traditionally do not address cultural or scientific heritage issues in their syllabus, and that they constitute a layer of young citizens that will come to be influential in the future of society, an effort was undertaken to focus on this theme in disciplines of different courses, allying the learning of technical skills with the natural interest of younger people for 3D and animation for the profit of heritage. The goal was to raise the awareness of this particular group to the importance of maintaining heritage issues, in particular, in a virtual way, both for documentation and for divulgating their existence. Raising funds for buildings’ restoration, attracting the public to visit buildings and collections that are outside the usual tourism routes, contributing to revenue generation, or allowing virtual visits of not accessible issues, complementing physical visits on site, were the general aims of the proposed projects. A survey was undertaken under the participating students to evaluate how the projects influenced their attitude towards heritage. The obtained feedback was very positive: 76% agreed that the project alerted them for the importance of preserving historical and cultural heritage, while 72% considered it was interesting that the topic of digital cultural heritage was used for the assessments of the disciplines.[ES] El patrimonio cultural es un tema relevante en la sociedad contemporánea. Mientras que su conservación es un reto, su difusión puede contribuir a un equilibrio económico entre costes y beneficios. El patrimonio científico puede ser considerado como un dominio especial del patrimonio cultural, y aunque todavía no es buscado por el turismo de masas, vale la pena ser conservado. Teniendo en cuenta que los estudiantes universitarios de ingeniería e informática tradicionalmente no abordan cuestiones de patrimonio cultural o científico en su plan de estudios, y que estos constituyen un grupo de ciudadanos jóvenes que serán influyentes en el futuro de la sociedad, se ha realizado un esfuerzo para centrarse en este tema en las disciplinas de diferentes cursos, uniéndose el aprendizaje de habilidades técnicas con el interés natural de las personas más jóvenes hacia el3D y la animación para el beneficio del patrimonio. El objetivo era aumentar la conciencia de este grupo en particular en la importancia de mantener los temas de patrimonio. La recaudación de fondos para la restauración de edificios, atraer al público a visitar los edificios y colecciones que se encuentran fuera de las rutas turísticas habituales, contribuyendo a la generación de ingresos, o permitir visitas virtuales de cuestiones que no son accesibles, eran los objetivos generales de los proyectos propuestos. Se llevóa cabo una encuesta entre los estudiantes que desarrollaron estos proyectos para evaluar si estos tenían una influencia positiva en su actitud hacia el patrimonio. La información obtenida fue muy positiva: 76% están de acuerdo en que el proyecto les alertó de la importancia de la conservación del patrimonio histórico y cultural,mientras que el 72% consideró que sería interesante que se utilizara el tema del patrimonio cultural digital enlas evaluaciones de las disciplinas.We acknowledge the students Pedro Lopes, Fernando Berenguer, Bogdan Rosu, Robin Burgess, Vitor Pinto, Marine Granger, Inês Gomes, Jorge Gomes, Rui Flores, João Moreira for their work in the models presented in this paper. The projects were partially supported by the R&D Unit BioISI, UID/MULTI/04046/2013 financed through FCT/MCTES/ PIDDAC, by the project PTDC/EMSENE/4525/2014 from FCT, Portugal, and by NEXUS, Spain.Redweik, P.; Cláudio, AP.; Carmo, MB.; Naranjo, JM.; Sanjosé, JJ. (2017). Digital preservation of cultural and scientific heritage: involving university students to raise awareness of its importance. Virtual Archaeology Review. 8(16):22-34. doi:10.4995/var.2017.4629.SWORD223481

Modelação a partir de dados laser para reconstituição arquitetural: Observatório Astronómico da Escola Politécnica

Trabalho de projeto de mestrado em Engenharia Geográfica, apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa, através da Faculdade de Ciências, 2013Situado no jardim botânico da Universidade de Lisboa, o Observatório Astronómico da Escola Politécnica é o único observatório astronómico de ensino em Portugal. O observatório possui uma grande importância histórica, tendo sido nele criado o curso de Engenharia Geográfica que formou grande parte dos engenheiros geógrafos nacionais. A fundação do observatório decorreu em 1875, tendo sido reconstruído em 1898 com uma estrutura mais sustentável. O observatório funcionou como instituição de ensino e investigação até 2002, ano em que foi desativado devido a danos estruturais. Atualmente, o edifício encontra-se encerrado e coberto por painéis de proteção, aguardando a angariação de verbas para a sua recuperação. O edifício do Observatório Astronómico possui uma planta irregular com formas arquitetónicas ímpares, possuindo alguns pormenores decorativos de grande relevo histórico. O seu interior destaca-se pela sala da Meridiana outrora utilizada para observações através de um círculo meridiano colocado no centro da sala. De modo a criar-se um modelo tridimensional do edifício foi feito um levantamento LiDAR do exterior do observatório, bem como do interior de uma das principais salas do edifício numa altura em que observatório estava acessível. Os dados originários do levantamento foram processados e foi modelada toda a superfície exterior do edifício, assim como a sala da Meridiana e seus constituintes. Tirando partido da densidade de pontos do sistema LiDAR foi realizada uma modelação detalhada de todas as superfícies do observatório. Através de técnicas fotogramétricas foram ainda modelados dois instrumentos outrora colocados e utilizados no observatório. A partir de fotografias e utilizando a tecnologia de estrutura a partir do movimento (SFM), foi gerada uma nuvem de pontos relativamente a estes instrumentos. O modelo 3D de todo o observatório gerado correspondeu às espectativas, retratando pormenorizadamente o edifício através da modelação de todos os pormenores visíveis na nuvem de dados. A este modelo foram aplicadas texturas fotográficas de modo a dar-lhe uma aparência ainda mais real.Settled at the botanical garden of Lisbon University, the Polytechnic’s Observatory emerges as the only instructional astronomic observatory in Portugal. Founded in 1875 and being the genesis place of the Geographic Engineering apprenticeship in national territory, the observatory holds great historical relevance, owning credit for the graduation of most geographer engineers in the country. Reconstructed in 1898, aiming for structural sustainability reinforcement, the observatory worked as a teaching and investigation institution until 2002, when its facilities were disabled due to structural damages. The building is currently sealed and its recovery pending on financial issues. This irregularly designed historical building possesses unique architectural forms, specially its ornamental details. Meanwhile in its interior, the Meridian Room, once used for observations through a Meridian Circle place at its center, is the highlight. In order to generate a tridimensional model of the building, it was engaged a LiDAR gathering of the observatory’s exterior, as well as of the Meridian Room. The collected data was processed, enabling an accurate modeling of both the external surface of the building and the Meridian Room, including its components, profiting on the highly detailed data provided as a LiDAR output. Through photogrammetric techniques, there were also modeled two scientific instruments once located at the observatory. In this case, the generation of the dot data cloud used photographs as the input, via Structure from Motion (SFM). The 3D-Model of the observatory matched the expectations, portraying the building in high detail, through the modeling of each feature emerging from the dot data cloud. To the output of the model were applied photographic textures, in order to obtain an even more realistic final appearance