Heritage education through serious games. A web-based proposal for primary schools to cope with distance learning

[EN] In recent years a growing amount of research has shown interest in studying how virtual reality (VR) could be relevant in many fields. In this respect, VR has gained consideration throughout many applications such as education. Among other aims for its use in education, serious games based on VR were used to promote heritage and make students experience either far or inaccessible scenarios. Until now, VR-based applications have been mainly implemented using head mounted displays (HMD), which actually reduced their circulation. This gap is particularly remarkable in the current Sars-CoV19 pandemic because students, being at home or being at school without sharing equipment, cannot exploit educational programs based on this technology. The current paper proposes a web-based platform on which VR applications could be accessed on any device, either desktop- or mobile-based. The serious game was initially set up on a computer with a specialized software using a HMD, while the process of turning it into a web-based platform is described so that the used methodology could be available to those, who would like to follow it. This project is probably also able to cope with the general aim of making inaccessible objects available to students and, thus, to make the application useful even beyond the current pandemic emergency.The VAR.HEE. project – Virtual and Augmented Reality for Heritage and art Education in school and museum Experiences – was funded by the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano with a competitive call for proposals by the Central Research Commission in 2017. The project lasts three years, started in January 2018 and will end in December 2020 (June 2021, after Covid-19 health emergency).Luigini, A.; Fanini, B.; Basso, A.; Basso, D. (2020). Heritage education through serious games. A web-based proposal for primary schools to cope with distance learning. VITRUVIO - International Journal of Architectural Technology and Sustainability. 5(2):73-85. https://doi.org/10.4995/vitruvio-ijats.2020.14665OJS73855

Analysis and validation of the 3D reconstructive process through the Extended Matrix Framework of the Temple of the Roman Forum of Nora (Sardinia, CA)

In this work, we will describe the application of the Extended Matrix Framework (EMF) to the 3D reconstruction of the temple on the Roman forum of Nora. EMF represents a specific section of the Extended Matrix (EM) method, developed by the VHLab of the CNR ISPC (Rome), dedicated to the development of software solutions for 3D data management in the field of virtual reconstruction. The combination of EM and EMF allows to: map the reconstructive process, validate the entire workflow (from data ingestion to 3D modelling), manage 3D data, and share outcomes online

UX Designer and Software Developer at the Mirror: Assessing Sensory Immersion and Emotional Involvement in Virtual Museums

Virtual Museums (VMs) and their audiences have always been studied as separated worlds. Recently the importance of cross-methodological studies has been accepted by the academic sector for their usefulness in the process of assessing the impact of such VMs. Hedonic aspects, such as emotions, senses, perception, and environmental atmosphere rather than technicalities, like usability and affordance, have indeed played a precise and crucial role in the meaning-making of the world around us. This contribution will highlight the need for a collaborative sharing of ideas among designers and developers, creators and technicians, in order to reach sensory immersion and emotional involvement in VMs that will translate into enhanced participation and the predisposition to assimilate and memorize cultural contents. It has been stated that “a virtual museum is a digital entity.” As such, it is inevitably based on technology, on its user interface (UI), on the visualization solutions it employs, and on its usability and ability to interact with the end user in order to transfer a certain message. VMs are designed to complement, enhance, or augment the ordinary museum experience through contextualization, narration, personalization, interactivity and richness of content. This contribution originates not only from the lessons learned in twenty years of research by CNR ITABC, but it also moves one step further in the direction of exchanged experiences and good practices between the humanistic and the technological sectors, therefore contributing to the promotion of lifelong learning in Virtual Museums

Enabling European archaeological research: The ARIADNE E-infrastructure

Research e-infrastructures, digital archives and data services have become important pillars of scientific enterprise that in recent decades has become ever more collaborative, distributed and data-intensive. The archaeological research community has been an early adopter of digital tools for data acquisition, organisation, analysis and presentation of research results of individual projects. However, the provision of einfrastructure and services for data sharing, discovery, access and re-use has lagged behind. This situation is being addressed by ARIADNE: the Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeological Dataset Networking in Europe. This EUfunded network has developed an einfrastructure that enables data providers to register and provide access to their resources (datasets, collections) through the ARIADNE data portal, facilitating discovery, access and other services across the integrated resources. This article describes the current landscape of data repositories and services for archaeologists in Europe, and the issues that make interoperability between them difficult to realise. The results of the ARIADNE surveys on users' expectations and requirements are also presented. The main section of the article describes the architecture of the einfrastructure, core services (data registration, discovery and access) and various other extant or experimental services. The ongoing evaluation of the data integration and services is also discussed. Finally, the article summarises lessons learned, and outlines the prospects for the wider engagement of the archaeological research community in sharing data through ARIADNE

3D interactive visualization of crowd simulations at urban scale

Digital representations of the urban environment have constantly increased their complexity: starting from fixed chunks of 2D segment depicting the building base to complex data-sets comprising several layer of information such as multi-resolution GIS data combined with on field 3D data acquisition. Cities in particular and urban development in general emerge from the bottom up, so crowd is an essential part of the city environment but it is often absent from most of the interactive system used to present urban data and landscapes. This paper presents a modular, real-time system based on the open-source framework OpenSceneGraph, providing a realistic and efficient 3D visualization in real-time of complex animated pedestrians within large urban environments, along with tools to visualize, explore and study macroscopic and emerging properties. The system allows to represent large crowd simulations or automatized tracking of real pedestrians streamed from external applications: the component-based design aims to provide efficient workflow for a multi-disciplinary team, including 3D modelers, urban planners, computer scientists, experts of crowd dynamics and other professionals. To evaluate quality, performance and interaction, the system was applied to the case study of “T-Days” in Bologna historical center, using pre-existing 3D open-data assets: some results in terms of performance and workflow among different professionals will be presented.Peer Reviewe

Encoding, Exchange and Manipulation of Captured Immersive VR Sessions for Learning Environments: the PRISMIN Framework

Capturing immersive VR sessions performed by remote learners using head-mounted displays (HMDs) may provide valuable insights on their interaction patterns, virtual scene saliency and spatial analysis. Large collected records can be exploited as transferable data for learning assessment, detect unexpected interactions or fine-tune immersive VR environments. Within the online learning segment, the exchange of such records among different peers over the network presents several challenges related to data transport and/or its decoding routines. In the presented work, we investigate applications of an image-based encoding model and its implemented architecture to capture users’ interactions performed during VR sessions. We present the PRISMIN framework and how the underneath image-based encoding can be exploited to exchange and manipulate captured VR sessions, comparing it to existing approaches. Qualitative and quantitative results are presented in order to assess the encoding model and the developed open-source framework

Temporal Lensing: An Interactive and Scalable Technique for Web3D/WebXR Applications in Cultural Heritage

Today, Web3D technologies and the rise of new standards, combined with faster browsers and better hardware integration, allow the creation of engaging and interactive web applications that target the field of cultural heritage. Functional, accessible, and expressive approaches to discovering the past starting from the present (or vice-versa) are generally a strong requirement. Cultural heritage artifacts, decorated walls, etc. can be considered as palimpsests with a stratification of different actions over time (modifications, restorations, or even reconstruction of the original artifact). The details of such an articulated cultural record can be difficult to distinguish and communicate visually, while entire archaeological sites often exhibit profound changes in terms of shape and function due to human activities over time. The web offers an incredible opportunity to present and communicate enriched 3D content using common web browsers, although it raises additional challenges. We present an interactive 4D technique called “Temporal Lensing”, which is suitable for online multi-temporal virtual environments and offers an expressive, accessible, and effective way to locally peek into the past (or into the future) by targeting interactive Web3D applications, including those leveraging recent standards, such as WebXR (immersive VR on the web). This technique extends previous approaches and presents different contributions, including (1) a volumetric, temporal, and interactive lens approach; (2) complete decoupling of the involved 3D representations from the runtime perspective; (3) a wide range applications in terms of size (from small artifacts to entire archaeological sites); (4) cross-device scalability of the interaction model (mobile devices, multi-touch screens, kiosks, and immersive VR); and (5) simplicity of use. We implemented and developed the described technique on top of an open-source framework for interactive 3D presentation of CH content on the web. We show and discuss applications and results related to three case studies, as well as integrations of the temporal lensing with different input interfaces for dynamically interacting with its parameters. We also assessed the technique within a public event where a remote web application was deployed on tablets and smartphones, without any installation required by visitors. We discuss the implications of temporal lensing, its scalability from small to large virtual contexts, and its versatility for a wide range of interactive 3D applications

An Online Dissemination Workflow for the Scientific Process in CH through Semantic 3D: EMtools and EMviq Open Source Tools

This article explores the use of open source 3D tools to improve the transformation of the archaeological record into a virtual reconstruction. The goal of the research was to improve the dissemination of complete reconstructive Extended Matrix (EM) datasets, organized by epochs, to allow a “time travel” experience, by means of the EMviq online service “metaphor”. This article presents an incremental version (ver. 1.3.1) of EMtools (add-on for Blender 3D) and a renewed version of EMviq. These two original open source (GPL3) tools have been developed, on one hand, to facilitate the process of semantic enrichment and source-based 3D modeling of cultural contexts (EMtools) and, on the other hand, to visually inspect data within immersive virtual reality viewers, online (WebXR), or via mobile devices (EMviq). An application case is shown to illustrate the entire work-flow from the archaeological stratigraphic reading to the representation of the virtual reconstruction of what a context must have looked like at a given time in antiquity

An Online Dissemination Workflow for the Scientific Process in CH through Semantic 3D: EMtools and EMviq Open Source Tools

This article explores the use of open source 3D tools to improve the transformation of the archaeological record into a virtual reconstruction. The goal of the research was to improve the dissemination of complete reconstructive Extended Matrix (EM) datasets, organized by epochs, to allow a “time travel” experience, by means of the EMviq online service “metaphor”. This article presents an incremental version (ver. 1.3.1) of EMtools (add-on for Blender 3D) and a renewed version of EMviq. These two original open source (GPL3) tools have been developed, on one hand, to facilitate the process of semantic enrichment and source-based 3D modeling of cultural contexts (EMtools) and, on the other hand, to visually inspect data within immersive virtual reality viewers, online (WebXR), or via mobile devices (EMviq). An application case is shown to illustrate the entire work-flow from the archaeological stratigraphic reading to the representation of the virtual reconstruction of what a context must have looked like at a given time in antiquity