3D printing and immersive visualization for improved perception of ancient artifacts

This article investigates the use of 3D immersive virtual environments and 3D prints for interaction with past material culture over traditional observation without manipulation. Our work is motivated by studies in heritage, museum, and cognitive sciences indicating the importance of object manipulation for understanding present and ancient artifacts. While virtual immersive environments and 3D prints have started to be incorporated in heritage research and museum displays as a way to provide improved manipulation experiences, little is known about how these new technologies affect the perception of our past. This article provides first results obtained with three experiments designed to investigate the benefits and tradeoffs in using these technologies. Our results indicate that traditional museum displays limit the experience with past material culture, and reveal how our sample of participants favor tactile and immersive 3D virtual experiences with artifacts over visual non-manipulative experiences with authentic objects. This paper is part of a larger study on how people perceive ancient artifacts, which was partially funded by the University of California Humanities Network and the Center for the Humanities at the University of California, Merced.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from MIT Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/PRES_a_0022

Proceedings of the International Workshop “Re-Thinking Technology in Museums: towards a new understanding of people’s experience in museums"

Proceedings of the International Workshop “Re-Thinking Technology in Museums: towards a new understanding of people’s experience in museums

Interactive tabletops in education

Interactive tabletops are gaining increased attention from CSCL researchers. This paper analyses the relation between this technology and teaching and learning processes. At a global level, one could argue that tabletops convey a socio-constructivist flavor: they support small teams that solve problems by exploring multiple solutions. The development of tabletop applications also witnesses the growing importance of face-to-face collaboration in CSCL and acknowledges the physicality of learning. However, this global analysis is insufficient. To analyze the educational potential of tabletops in education, we present 33 points that should be taken into consideration. These points are structured on four levels: individual user-system interaction, teamwork, classroom orchestration, and socio-cultural contexts. God lies in the detail

Interfaces for human-centered production and use of computer graphics assets

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Alternative Representations of 3D-Reconstructed Heritage Data

© ACM, 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, Vol. 9, No. 1, Article 4, Publication date: November 2015. doi>10.1145/2795233By collecting images of heritage assets from members of the public and processing them to create 3D-reconstructed models, the HeritageTogether project has accomplished the digital recording of nearly 80 sites across Wales, UK. A large amount of data has been collected and produced in the form of photographs, 3D models, maps, condition reports, and more. Here we discuss some of the different methods used to realize the potential of this data in different formats and for different purposes. The data are explored in both virtual and tangible settings, and—with the use of a touch table—a combination of both. We examine some alternative representations of this community-produced heritage data for educational, research, and public engagement applications

Research students exhibition catalogue 2011

The catalogue demonstrates the scope and vibrancy of current inquiries and pays tribute to the creative capacity and investment of UCA research students. It brings together contributions from students who are at different stages in their research ad/venture. Their explorations are connected by the centrality of contemporary material practices as focal point for the reconsideration of societal values, cultural symbols and rituals and their meaning, and the trans/formation of individual, collective and national identities The media and formats employed range from cloth, jewellery and ceramics to analogue film, the human voice and the representation of dress and fashionin virtual environments. Thematic interests span from explorations at the interface of art and medical science to an investigation of the role of art in contested spaces, or the role of metonymy in ‘how the arts think’ And whilst the projects are motivated by personal curiosity and passion, their outcomes transcend the boundaries of individual practice and offer new insights, under-standing and applications for the benefit of wider society. Prof. Kerstin Me

Proposal of a tangible user interface to increase accessibility in geological exhibitions and the experience of museums

Currently, the museums use different interactive technologies to communicate their exhibitions; however, it turns out that in most cases, information is not accessible to all members of the public. In this paper, we present the design of a tangible user interface to enhance accessibility in geological exhibitions, specifically for the case of visitors with visual impairments, and we also present the study’s results about how to improve the experience of those who visit museums, using this tangible media technology as an exhibitor for samples. The results showed that the interaction with the interface pleased the visitors and that it has application space ithin geological exhibitions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Smartphone Based 3D Navigation Techniques in an Astronomical Observatory Context: Implementation and Evaluation in a Software Platform

International audience3D Virtual Environments (3DVE) come up as a good solution to transmit knowledge in a museum exhibit. In such contexts, providing easy to learn and to use interaction techniques which facilitate the handling inside a 3DVE is crucial to maximize the knowledge transfer. We took the opportunity to design and implement a software platform for explaining the behavior of the Telescope Bernard-Lyot to museum visitors on top of the Pic du Midi. Beyond the popularization of a complex scientific equipment, this platform constitutes an open software environment to easily plug different 3D interaction techniques. Recently, popular use of a smartphones as personal handled computer lets us envision the use of a mobile device as an interaction support with these 3DVE. Accordingly, we design and propose how to use the smartphone as a tangible object to navigate inside a 3DVE. In order to prove the interest in the use of smartphones, we compare our solution with available solutions: keyboard-mouse and 3D mouse. User experiments confirmed our hypothesis and particularly emphasizes that visitors find our solution more attractive and stimulating. Finally, we illustrate the benefits of our software framework by plugging alternative interaction techniques for supporting selection and manipulation task in 3D