Framing digital tools and techniques in built heritage 3D modelling: the problem of level of detail in a simplified environment

Recently, the built heritage sector has witnessed an increase demand for 3D models of historical sites mainly due to the widespread of new technologies in buildings’ surveying. Although these technologies have been credited for enabling highly detailed 3D modelling of the built heritage, their implementation is still so complex and costly. This research aims to explore the possibility of implementing new low-cost digital acquisition technologies and modelling techniques as an alternative to the existing expensive ones in terms of level of detail (LOD), as an attempt to enable low-skilled users in simplified environment, which are faced paced leaning milieus in education, places with high constraints, or developing countries, to practically learn about their built heritage; consequently, contribute to its preservation. To achieve this purpose, the most diffused SFM and laser scanning open-source packages were first cross-compared using web-content analysis data collection method. Afterwards, the best programme from each category namely; Autodesk 123D catch and Reconstructme, accompanied with Canon D550 camera and Xbox Kinect, respectively, were intensively evaluated through an experiment. The analysis of the findings has suggested that low-cost close-range photogrammetry can replace laser scanning when there is a lack of funding and time

Improving human development through design education: the Osasco Design Studio (SP, Brazil) 2006-2009

The Research and Documentation Centre in Technology, Architecture and Town in Developing Countries (CRD-PVS) at Politecnico di Torino promotes research addressing habitat improvement under conditions that can be regarded as borderline in terms of climate or social emergence. It coordinates the post-graduate course in Habitat, Technology and Development, which trains architects and engineers to be capable of working with an integrated approach to design in different cultural, political and economic settings and identifying all available resources. Starting in academic year 2006/07, thanks to a framework agreement with the Municipality of Osasco (San Paolo, Brazil), the CRD-PVS organizes design workshops as part of the post-graduate course

Planning for real: ICT as a tool in urban regeneration

One of the major worldwide issues in the informal settlements has been spotted in the absence or weakness of community awareness. The problem can be analysed through different perspectives, related to security and social behaviours, environmental care and energy consumption. In such a complex scenario, it has been considered that one of the biggest difficulties for the planning units of municipalities in metropolitan areas, who deal with illegal and marginal settlements upgrading projects, is to face with frictions and resistances in some degree to their decisions, projects and actions. In order to increase the awareness of citizenship, ICT can be considered as a revolutionary support in this context. Low cost and friendly tools could help to upgrade the educational level of low incoming people, opening the communities and increasing the sense of belonging to a urban context as well as a neighbourhood. Digital democracy through digital inclusion and e-learning can be aimed in order to let citizen know, participate, share, improve or criticise projects and actions

HESS J1632-478: an energetic relic

HESS J1632-478 is an extended and still unidentified TeV source in the galactic plane. In order to identify the source of the very high energy emission and to constrain its spectral energy distribution, we used a deep observation of the field obtained with XMM-Newton together with data from Molonglo, Spitzer and Fermi to detect counterparts at other wavelengths. The flux density emitted by HESS J1632-478 peaks at very high energies and is more than 20 times weaker at all other wavelengths probed. The source spectrum features two large prominent bumps with the synchrotron emission peaking in the ultraviolet and the external inverse Compton emission peaking in the TeV. HESS J1632-478 is an energetic pulsar wind nebula with an age of the order of 10^4 years. Its bolometric (mostly GeV-TeV) luminosity reaches 10% of the current pulsar spin down power. The synchrotron nebula has a size of 1 pc and contains an unresolved point-like X-ray source, probably the pulsar with its wind termination shock.Comment: A&A accepted, 9 pages, 5 figures, 4 table

Portage Periplus Journal

With the Portage Periplus Journal, Bluestone Heights and the Morgan Conservatory engage Clevelanders with the Portage Escarpment. Gateway to “the Heights,” the escarpment is a major natural feature and carries more than 200 years of Cleveland cultural history. Bluestone Heights explores escarpment nature and culture with online mapping and onsite walking tours. We use the literary device of periplus, a narration of voyage along a shoreline. The Portage Periplus navigates the escarpment front to tell its deep history. For Octavofest 2013, the Morgan Conservatory adds paper art to the project. On handmade Morgan papers, the Portage Periplus Journal relates conceptual voyages of cartographers Blackmore (1852) and Hopkins (1912) along Euclid Ave, from Doans Corners to Wickliffe. Oct 23: Journal Unveiling On Wednesday, October 23, 7-9 pm, the Morgan Conservatory unveils the journal on premises (1754 E 47th St, Cleveland, OH 44103). Project summaries by Roy Larick, Bluestone Heights; William C. Barrow, Cleveland Memory Project; and Tom Balbo, Morgan Conservatory. Oct 26: Walking Tour On Saturday, October 26, 4-5:30 pm, Bluestone Heights and HEART of Little Italy host, Murray Hill, Set in Stone, a walking tour of Little Italy side streets. Murray Hill is part of the journal\u27s Doan Brook escarpment area. The tour departs from HEART headquarters, 2094 Murray Hill Rd, Cleveland, OH 44106

IGR J11014-6103: a newly discovered pulsar wind nebula?

Context: IGRJ11014-6103 is one of the still unidentified hard X-ray INTEGRAL sources, reported for the first time in the 4th IBIS/ISGRI catalog. Aims: We investigated the nature of IGR J11014-6103 by carrying out a multiwavelength analysis of the available archival observations performed in the direction of the source. Methods: We present first the results of the timing and spectral analysis of all the X-ray observations of IGR J11014-6103 carried out with ROSAT, ASCA, Einstein, Swift, and XMM-Newton, and then use them to search for possible counterparts to the source in the optical, infra-red, radio and gamma-ray domain. Results: Our analysis revealed that IGR J11014-6103 is comprised of three different X-ray emitting regions: a point-like source, an extended object and a cometary-like "tail" (~4 arcmin). A possible radio counterpart positionally coincident with the source was also identified. Conclusions: Based on these results, we suggest that the emission from IGR J11014-6103 is generated by a pulsar wind nebula produced by a high-velocity pulsar. IGR J11014-6103 might be the first of these systems detected with INTEGRAL IBIS/ISGRI.Comment: A&A accepted, 8 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

Analysis of Petri Net Models through Stochastic Differential Equations

It is well known, mainly because of the work of Kurtz, that density dependent Markov chains can be approximated by sets of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) when their indexing parameter grows very large. This approximation cannot capture the stochastic nature of the process and, consequently, it can provide an erroneous view of the behavior of the Markov chain if the indexing parameter is not sufficiently high. Important phenomena that cannot be revealed include non-negligible variance and bi-modal population distributions. A less-known approximation proposed by Kurtz applies stochastic differential equations (SDEs) and provides information about the stochastic nature of the process. In this paper we apply and extend this diffusion approximation to study stochastic Petri nets. We identify a class of nets whose underlying stochastic process is a density dependent Markov chain whose indexing parameter is a multiplicative constant which identifies the population level expressed by the initial marking and we provide means to automatically construct the associated set of SDEs. Since the diffusion approximation of Kurtz considers the process only up to the time when it first exits an open interval, we extend the approximation by a machinery that mimics the behavior of the Markov chain at the boundary and allows thus to apply the approach to a wider set of problems. The resulting process is of the jump-diffusion type. We illustrate by examples that the jump-diffusion approximation which extends to bounded domains can be much more informative than that based on ODEs as it can provide accurate quantity distributions even when they are multi-modal and even for relatively small population levels. Moreover, we show that the method is faster than simulating the original Markov chain

Geospatial reference data access for emergency response: data inventory and quality assessment

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