Computer Tool for Automatically Generated 3D Illustration in Real Time from Archaeological Scanned Pieces

[EN] The graphical documentation process of archaeological pieces requires the active involvement of a professional artist to recreate beautiful illustrations using a wide variety of expressive techniques. Frequently, the artist’s work is limited by the inconvenience of working only with the photographs of the pieces he is going to illustrate. This paper presents a software tool that allows the easy generation of illustrations in real time from 3D scanned models. The developed interface allows the user to simulate very elaborate artistic styles through the creation of diagrams by using the available virtual lights. The software processes the diagrams to render an illustration from any given angle or position. Among the available virtual lights, there are well known techniques as silhouettes enhancement, hatching or toon shading.[ES] El proceso de documentación gráfica de piezas arqueológicas requiere de la participación de un artista capaz de recrear ilustraciones empleando distintas técnicas expresivas. A menudo, la labor del artista se ve limitada por la inconveniencia de trabajar únicamente con fotografías de las piezas a ilustrar. En este artículo se presenta una herramienta informática que permite generar, de una forma sencilla e intuitiva, ilustraciones en tiempo real a partir de modelos 3D escaneados. La interfaz desarrollada permite al usuario simular elaborados estilos artísticos mediante la composición de esquemas de luces virtuales que el computador procesa para generar ilustraciones desde cualquier posición o ángulo. Entre las luces virtuales implementadas se encuentran técnicas bien conocidas como el dibujado de contornos, el rayado o el sombreado plano.Thanks to the Consejería de Innovación y Empresa of the Junta de Andalucía that has partially funded this article through the project of excellence PE09-TIC-5276Consejería de Innovación y Empresa of the Junta de Andalucía PE09-TIC-5276López, L.; Arroyo, G.; Martín, D. (2012). Computer Tool for Automatically Generated 3D Illustration in Real Time from Archaeological Scanned Pieces. Virtual Archaeology Review. 3(6):73-77. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2012.4447OJS737736DECAUDIN, P. (1996): "Rendu de scènes 3D imitant le style ", Rapport de Recherche 2919, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique.DOSS, J. (2008): "Inking the Cube: Edge Detection with DIRECT 3D 10, [online] http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/inking-thecube- edge-detection-with-direct3d-10/FREUDENBERG, B. (2003): Stroke-based Real-Time Halftoning Rendering. Ph. D. thesis, University of Magdeburg.HERMOSILLA, P. et al. (2009): "Single Pass GPU Stylized Edges", IV Iberoamerican Symposium in Computer Graphics - SIACG, pp. 1-8.LAKE, A. et al. (2000): "Stylized Rendering Techniques for Scalable Real-Time 3D Animation", NPAR2000: First International Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/340916.340918MARTIN, D. et al. (2001): "Rendering Silhouettes with Virtual Lights". Computer Graphics Forum, vol. 20, nº 4, pp. 271-282. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8659.00554ROST, R. J. et al (2009): "Open GL Shading Language 3rd Edition". Addison-Wesley.

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Natural User Interface for Education in Virtual Environments

Education and self-improvement are key features of human behavior. However, learning in the physical world is not always desirable or achievable. That is how simulators came to be. There are domains where purely virtual simulators can be created in contrast to physical ones. In this research we present a novel environment for learning, using a natural user interface. We, humans, are not designed to operate and manipulate objects via keyboard, mouse or a controller. The natural way of interaction and communication is achieved through our actuators (hands and feet) and our sensors (hearing, vision, touch, smell and taste). That is the reason why it makes more sense to use sensors that can track our skeletal movements, are able to estimate our pose, and interpret our gestures. After acquiring and processing the desired – natural input, a system can analyze and translate those gestures into movement signals

In-active citizenship and the depoliticisation of community development in Ireland

At a time of rising stress for communities, families and individuals coupled with a growing disillusionment with government, the concept of ‘active citizenship’ has arrived as a salve to many of the social ills of our time. Emphasising citizen’s own responsibilities, and espousing values of solidarity, community and neighbourliness, active citizenship embodies all that is good, rendering it somewhat immune from criticism. While agreeing that community values of solidarity and neighbourliness are indeed critical, this paper takes issue with what it argues is a significant revisioning of the three core concepts embodied within active citizenship - citizenship, social capital and community development - and argues that active citizenship, as it is currently promoted by state and select civil society organisations alike, substitutes self-help for redistribution and self-reliance for state accountability, in the process depoliticising the principles and practice of community development and denying community actors a voice in their own development