Open Source Interactive Map of Albania Cultural Heritage

AbstractICTs represent strategic resources for Cultural Heritage (CH) projects. Anyway, several conditions put the success of promotion projects at risk, especially if carried out at the local level. Firstly, local scale amplifies the weight of budget constraints on the priorities of public administrations, compelled to allocate funds to the physical conservation of heritage rather than to software and training. Secondly, proprietary SW, often sophisticated and complex in procedures, fails to integrate precious unformalized knowledge from local stakeholders and communities, particularly in the field of cultural tourism. Finally, a changing demand for cultural tourism, with potential visitors frequently searching for information directly on the Web before moving, requires a higher interactivity in tools and systems. The paper illustrates the work carried out at the Construction Technologies Institute for delivering procedures and SW specifically designed to simplify the publication of geo-referenced information and reduce the need for specialized skills and equipments. The described results were achieved along different research programs focusing on the Albanian CH with a learning-by-doing approach

Voluntary guidelines and sustainable building code

Research indicates our environment is deteriorating. Buildings account for a large part of the problem, because they consume large amount of raw materials, natural resources and energy; moreover, useful materials are discarded as waste. By rethinking the way buildings are designed, constructed, operated and maintained, building professionals and their clients can slow damage to the environment. Yet building codes, which powerfully influence every aspect of the design and construction of buildings, ignore resources issues and environmental impacts of resource acquisition or depletion, transportation, manufacturing and disposal after use, as well as embodied energy of materials and their contribution to global climate change. If we truly believe that the preservation of health and safety is the real and legitimate purpose of building codes, then we must achieve sustainable building code, to have buildings that meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Establishing environmental sustainability as a practical solution to problems communities face is a process requiring social acceptance and understanding. Guidelines that address the aforesaid problems at every phase of a building project are an intermediate step towards sustainable building code: in fact, the guidelines do not require radical changes but ask designers and clients to integrate environmental concerns (i.e. sustainability) into the development of a project. Projects incorporating sustainability must address people’s natural resistance to change (undoubtedly sustainability requires thought and added time), and to consider that, by far, the benefits outweigh the costs. This paper examines the current status of voluntary agreement in Italy in relation to building codes and suggest a preliminary voluntary technical guideline, taking into account that specific tools are needed to support building professionals and clients

Non solo GIS

Idealmente connesso a “Barbanente A., Maiellaro N., Sistemi informativi urbani e ipertesti, Quaderno IRIS n. 11, ed. Edipuglia, Bari, 1993”, questo volume prende spunto dagli argomenti trattati in occasione del corso breve tenuto all’Aquila nel luglio del 2010 - nell’ambito delle attività sviluppate da ITC-CNR a seguito degli eventi tellurici dell’anno precedente - per rispondere all’esigenza di gestire l’informazione geografica con strumenti operativi di immediato utilizzo. L’approccio pratico, certamente non esaustivo ma organico, utilizza esempi e casi di studio - spesso sviluppati nell’ambito di progetti finanziati da programmi regionali, nazionali e internazionali - con un linguaggio volutamente descrittivo per agevolare la comprensione delle nozioni di base e dei concetti per la gestione e il trattamento dell’informazione geografica, consentendo un uso immediato e consapevole del software open source impiegato (QGIS)

Albania: conoscere, comunicare, condividere

Il volume illustra i risultati del progetto “Albania: conoscere, comunicare, condividere” finalizzato a valorizzare e promuovere l’immagine dell’Albania in Italia. La ricerca è stata sviluppata da ITC-CNR mediante azioni integrate, sviluppate in partenariato con l'Istituto per i Monumenti di Tirana e con il contributo della Radiotelevisione Albanese per la documentazione del patrimonio architettonico di interesse storico-monumentale albanese mediante WEBGIS open source e filmati; con la Conferenza Episcopale Albanese e l’Università degli Studi di Bari per l’individuazione di itinerari di arte e di fede tra Puglia e Albania; attraverso collaborazioni, promosse da Ingegneria senza Frontiere, nel campo della didattica universitaria e post-universitaria e scambi di esperienze di valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale arberesh in collaborazione con ANCI Puglia

One-Page Multimedia Interactive Map

The relevance of local knowledge in cultural heritage is by now acknowledged. It helps to determine many community-based projects by identifying the material to be digitally maintained in multimedia collections provided by communities of volunteers, rather than for-profit businesses or government entities. Considering that the search and browsing of texts, images, video, and 3D models related to places is more essential than using a simple text-based search, an interactive multimedia map was implemented in this study. The map, which is loaded on a single HyperText Markup Language (HTML) page using AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), with a client-side control mechanism utilising jQuery components that are both freely available and ad-hoc developed, is updated according to user interaction. To simplify the publication of geo-referenced information, the application stores all the data in a Geographic JavaScript Object Notation (GeoJSON) file rather than in a database. The multimedia contents—associated with the selected Points of Interest (PoIs)—can be selected through text search and list browsing as well as by viewing their previews one by one in a sequence all together in a scrolling window (respectively: “Table”, “Folder”, and “Tile” functions). PoIs—visualised on the map with multi-shape markers using a set of unambiguous colours—can be filtered through their categories and types, accessibility status and timeline, thus improving the system usability. The map functions are illustrated using data collected in a Comenius project. Notes on the application software and architecture are also presented in this paper

Mappe interattive per la promozione turistico-culturale

IT L’ingente patrimonio culturale italiano affronta oggi le conseguenze di strategie di promozione obsolete e di un insufficiente uso delle ICT, ma soprattutto di una errata percezione del suo significato nella vita delle comunità. I caratteri stessi del c.d. ‘Museo Italia’(un patrimonio di beni ‘minori’ fortemente diffuso sul territorio accanto ai più noti beni monumentali) richiedono notevoli cambiamenti nei progetti di promozione sia nel senso di un trasferimento alla scala locale dei processi, sia nella identificazione e modellazione dell’utenza potenziale. Sul piano operativo ciò implica il ricorso a strumenti tecnologici semplici e fortemente interattivi, incentrati sui bisogni di informazione dell’utente medio, potenziale visitatore. L’articolo illustra il sistema sviluppato da ITC-CNR (Bari) nell’ambito del progetto 'Smart Cities’ per la città di Siracusa, basato su procedure e software che semplificano la pubblicazione di informazione georeferenziata.ENThe huge cultural heritage of Italy is facing the consequences of obsolete promotion strategies and of an under exploitation of ICTs, but above all of a wrong perception of its significance in communities’ life. The inherent characters of the so-called ‘Museum Italy’ (a wealth of ‘minor’ assets, diffused on the territory, together with the more famous monuments) demand substantial modifications in promotion projects, in terms of both a downscaling of processes and of identification and modelling of potential users’ behaviour. On the operational level, this requires the elaboration of simple and highly interactive technological tools, focused on the ‘average’ user’s  information needs, or potential visitor. The article presents the system developed by ITC-CNR (Bari) within the ‘Smart Cities’ project for the city of Siracusa (Sicily), based on software and procedures aimed at simplifying the publication of georeferenced information

The Albanian Cultural Heritage on the Internet

EnThe paper discusses the production of an interactive map (both for desktop and for mobile) aiming to support the promotion of the cultural heritage, using an authoring system. At present, the tools feature 13 heritage sites across the County of Tirana, which are supported by text and photographs supplied by IMK - Instituti i Monumenteve te Kultures ‘Gani Strazimiri’ (Institute for Cultural Monuments) within the project ‘S.O.S. – Squiperia Open Source’, funded by the Apulia Region. We include experience of developing the tools as a possible benefit to other developers in the cultural sector.ItL'articolo illustra la produzione di una mappa interattiva (per sistemi 'desktop' e 'mobile') finalizzata a dare supporto alla promozione del patrimonio culturale, realizzata mediante un sistema autore. Attualmente il sistema gestisce 13 siti di interesse culturale collocati nel distretto di Tirana in Albania, con testi e fotografie fornite da IMK - Instituti i Monumenteve te Kultures 'Gani Strazimiri' (Istituto per i Monumenti della Cultura) nell'ambito del progetto 'S.O.S. - Squiperia Open Source', finanziato dalla Regione Puglia. La descrizione del sistema può essere utile agli sviluppatori che operano nel settore culturale.

One-Page Multimedia Interactive Map

The relevance of local knowledge in cultural heritage is by now acknowledged. It helps to determine many community-based projects by identifying the material to be digitally maintained in multimedia collections provided by communities of volunteers, rather than for-profit businesses or government entities. Considering that the search and browsing of texts, images, video, and 3D models related to places is more essential than using a simple text-based search, an interactive multimedia map was implemented in this study. The map, which is loaded on a single HyperText Markup Language (HTML) page using AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), with a client-side control mechanism utilising jQuery components that are both freely available and ad-hoc developed, is updated according to user interaction. To simplify the publication of geo-referenced information, the application stores all the data in a Geographic JavaScript Object Notation (GeoJSON) file rather than in a database. The multimedia contents—associated with the selected Points of Interest (PoIs)—can be selected through text search and list browsing as well as by viewing their previews one by one in a sequence all together in a scrolling window (respectively: “Table”, “Folder”, and “Tile” functions). PoIs—visualised on the map with multi-shape markers using a set of unambiguous colours—can be filtered through their categories and types, accessibility status and timeline, thus improving the system usability. The map functions are illustrated using data collected in a Comenius project. Notes on the application software and architecture are also presented in this paper