Towards an Ontology for Annotating Degradation Phenomena

In the field of built heritage, a huge amount of data describes the state of monuments: documentary data (texts, sounds, images) as well as analytic data from sensors, provides historical, archeological and constructive information. These data, produced by experts coming from several fields, are the foundation for the creation of new information through scientific observations. The problem is that these data are not related nor spatialized. Nowadays we are able to generate extreme accurate 3D model with throughout images-based or laser scanner acquisition. However these 3D models do not carry information regarding their morphological complexities. The design of an ontology for the conservation domain seems to be the best solution in order to obtain understandable entities thanks to their own data related between them. This article present the first attempt of a development of a web information system based on spatialized images semantic annotations tool, related to a domain ontology describing knowledge regarding stone degradation phenomena. Our approach is to produce a domain ontology able to document and therefore provide a framework able to help the decision-making process of experts in the cultural heritage conservation domain. The information annotated with the use of this ontology can enrich not only the scientific observations, but also to help to create new knowledge. In this way, it is possible to link and gather quantitative and qualitative aspect into only one information system. We will propose several example and queries able to exploit the reasoning power of the above information system

MINOR HISTORICAL CENTRES ONTOLOGY ENRICHMENT AND POPULATION: AN HAMLET CASE STUDY

The main topic of this work focuses on the semantic, historical and spatial documentation of Minor Historical Centres (MHC) with a focus on (semi-abandoned alpine) hamlets. The key point is the possibility to standardise spatial information in the domain of MHC and their related cultural, architectural, built and landscape heritage. This work analyses the notions of historical centre and ancient area, which took different meanings and evolved over the centuries. MHC are historical part of cities, villages and hamlets (urban, rural, minor or abandoned) with cultural, social and economic values. Thus, MHC need to be preserved, documented and safeguarded. The spatial and semantic documentation is a fundamental tool for increasing their knowledge. In these places, many actors and stakeholders are involved in different activities, and for this reason, they need to share common knowledge and use a unique language. In this regard, spatial ontology is of relevant interest and usability. Ontologies are conceptual structures that formalise specific knowledge and create a unique and standard thesaurus that ensures semantic interoperability. This paper is part of a PhD research targeted at developing an ontology containing helpful information to manage, share and collect data on MHC due to the lack of an interoperable structure to formalise such knowledge. The main aim is to populate and enrich the already developed ontological structure with data of a mountain semi-abandoned hamlet: Pomieri. The methodological workflow is validated, enriching and populating the ontology, adding classes and instances with information and unstructured data of a real data case study

An ontological model for the reality-based 3D annotation of heritage building conservation state

The conservation and restoration of historical monuments require a diagnostic analysis carried out by amultidisciplinary team. The results of the diagnosis include data produced by different techniques andprotocols, which are used by conservation scientists to assess the built heritage. Nowadays, together withthe aforementioned data, a great deal of heterogeneous information is also available, including descriptiveand contextual information, as well as 2D/3D geometrical restitution of the studied object. However, theintegration of these diverse data into a unique information model capable of fully describing the buildingconservation state, as well as integrating future data, is still an open issue within the Cultural Heritagecommunity. It is of paramount importance to correlate these data and spatialize them in order to providescientists in charge of our heritage with a practical and easy means to explore the information usedduring their assessment, as well as a way to record their scientific observation and share them withintheir community of practice. In order to resolve this issue, we developed a correlation pipeline for theintegration of the semantic, spatial and morphological dimension of a built heritage. The pipeline uses anontological model for recording and integrating multidisciplinary observations of the conservation stateinto structural data spatialized into a semantic-aware 3D representation. The pipeline was successfullytested on the Saint Maurice church of Caromb in the south of France, integrating into a unique spatialrepresentation information about material and alteration phenomena, providing users with a means tocorrelate, and more importantly retrieve several types of information

ONTOLOGIE GEOGRAFICHE NEL DOMINIO SPAZIALE URBANO E DEL PATRIMONIO COSTRUITO

Il presente lavoro ha lo scopo di presentare un’articolata ricognizione della letteratura passata e attuale, inerente le ontologie informatiche, con particolare attenzione a quelle connesse al dominio spaziale urbano e del patrimonio culturale architettonico costruito. Da un punto di vista generale, il documento offre una descrizione di definizioni, classificazioni e approcci e metodi per la creazione di ontologie nel campo del Web Semantico, dalle prime nozioni emerse negli anni Novanta alla loro evoluzione negli ultimi due decenni. Nel settore del patrimonio costruito, l'interesse, il bisogno di conoscenza e l'uso di ontologie sono cresciuti per rispondere alle necessità di condivisione e scambio di dati spaziali e alla crescente adozione di infrastrutture geografiche. Queste stanno infatti riscontrando problemi di interoperabilità tecnica, geometrica e semantica nell'integrazione di database geografici e urbani multi-scala che richiedono pertanto l'adozione di standard condivisi e linguaggi comuni. ------ This paper aims to report a review in the past literature about computer science ontologies, with a special view on the ones connected to the spatial domain of urban data and built heritage. From a general point of view the paper offers a write up of definitions, classifications and design approaches and methods for ontologies as they have emerged since the nineties and evolved in the last two decades. In the built heritage domain, the interest, the need of knowledge and the use of ontologies have grown to face the wide exchange of digital spatial data and the extensive adoption of spatial data infrastructures, which faced problems related to the interoperability among spatial databases, and specifically the integration of geographical and urban databases involving the adoption of standards

Il rilievo dell’Architettura tra identificazione tipologica e strutturazione semantica. La Certosa di San Lorenzo a Padula nella rappresentazione digitale per il Cultural Heritage.

La digitalizzazione delle testimonianze del patrimonio costruito ha animato una nuova sfida dell’epoca contemporanea: la creazione di sistemi intelligenti, efficienti e scalabili per l’indicizzazione, l’archiviazione, la ricerca e la gestione delle collezioni digitali e della relativa documentazione. La strutturazione delle informazioni, spazializzate in ragione di attributi semantici, risponde efficacemente alle esigenze di documentazione e interoperabilità, proprie degli studi interdisciplinari, potenziando la condivisione delle risorse e la creazione collaborativa di conoscenza. L’analisi degli approcci formalizzati finora, mostra diverse questioni aperte e spunti di riflessione connessi con le implicazioni teoriche di una segmentazione architettonica guidata dalla semantica, con le potenzialità espressive e applicative di una interazione più immediata con la rappresentazione digitale nonché con le modalità di accesso e recupero della documentazione spazializzata. Un primo scopo della ricerca è la definizione di una metodologia di annotazione semantica che risolva l’ambiguità e codifichi l’incertezza della etichettatura, affinando la qualità dell’informazione. Una seconda finalità è l’indagine di approcci che razionalizzino e ottimizzino il processo di annotazione, migliorando l’interoperabilità e l’interpretabilità da parte di Intelligenze Artificiali

Annotation sémantique 2D/3D d'images spatialisées pour la documentation et l'analyse d'objets patrimoniaux

In the field of architecture and historic preservation , the information and communication technologies enable the acquisition of large amounts of data introducing analysis media for different purposes and at different levels of details ( photographs, point cloud, scientific imaging, ...). The organization and the structure of these resources is now a major problem for the description, the analysis and the understanding of cultural heritage objects. However the existing solutions in semantic annotations on images or on 3D model are insufficient, especially in the linking of different analysis media.This thesis proposes an approach for conducting annotations on different two-dimensional media while allowing the propagation of these annotations between different representations (2D or 3D) of the object. The objective is to identify solutions to correlate (from a spatial, temporal and semantic point of view) sets of annotations within sets of images. Thus, the system is based on the principle of data spatialization for establishing a relationship between the 3D representations, incorporating all the geometric complexity of the object and therefore to the metric information extraction, and 2D representations of object. The approach seeks to the establishment of an information continuity from the image acquisition to the construction of 3D representations semantically enhanced by incorporating multi-media and multi-temporal aspects. This work resulted in the definition and the development of a set of software modules that can be used by specialists of conservation of architectural heritage as by the general public.Dans le domaine de l’architecture et de la conservation du patrimoine historique, les technologies de l’information et de la communication permettent l’acquisition de grandes quantités de données introduisant des supports d’analyses pour différentes finalités et à différents niveaux de détails (photographies, nuages de points, imagerie scientifique, …). L’organisation et la structuration de ces ressources est aujourd’hui un problème majeur pour la description, l’analyse et la compréhension d’objets patrimoniaux. Cependant les solutions existantes d’annotations sémantiques d’images ou de modèle 3D se révèlent insuffisantes notamment sur l’aspect de mise en relation des différents supports d’analyse.Cette thèse propose une approche permettant de conduire des annotations sur les différents supports bidimensionnels tout en permettant la propagation de ces annotations entre les différentes représentations (2D ou 3D) de l’objet. L’objectif est d’identifier des solutions pour corréler (d’un point de vue spatial, temporel et sémantique) des jeux d’annotations au sein d’un jeu d’images. Ainsi le système repose sur le principe de spatialisation des données permettant d’établir une relation entre les représentations 3D, intégrant toute la complexité géométrique de l’objet et par conséquent permettant l’extraction d’informations métriques, et les représentations 2D de l’objet. L’approche cherche donc à la mise en place d’une continuité informationnelle depuis l’acquisition d’images jusqu’à la construction de représentations 3D sémantiquement enrichies en intégrant des aspects multi-supports et multi-temporels. Ce travail a abouti à la définition et le développement d’un ensemble de modules informatiques pouvant être utilisés par des spécialistes de la conservation d’un patrimoine architectural comme par le grand public