Interpretation at the controller's edge: designing graphical user interfaces for the digital publication of the excavations at Gabii (Italy)

This paper discusses the authors’ approach to designing an interface for the Gabii Project’s digital volumes that attempts to fuse elements of traditional synthetic publications and site reports with rich digital datasets. Archaeology, and classical archaeology in particular, has long engaged with questions of the formation and lived experience of towns and cities. Such studies might draw on evidence of local topography, the arrangement of the built environment, and the placement of architectural details, monuments and inscriptions (e.g. Johnson and Millett 2012). Fundamental to the continued development of these studies is the growing body of evidence emerging from new excavations. Digital techniques for recording evidence “on the ground,” notably SFM (structure from motion aka close range photogrammetry) for the creation of detailed 3D models and for scene-level modeling in 3D have advanced rapidly in recent years. These parallel developments have opened the door for approaches to the study of the creation and experience of urban space driven by a combination of scene-level reconstruction models (van Roode et al. 2012, Paliou et al. 2011, Paliou 2013) explicitly combined with detailed SFM or scanning based 3D models representing stratigraphic evidence. It is essential to understand the subtle but crucial impact of the design of the user interface on the interpretation of these models. In this paper we focus on the impact of design choices for the user interface, and make connections between design choices and the broader discourse in archaeological theory surrounding the practice of the creation and consumption of archaeological knowledge. As a case in point we take the prototype interface being developed within the Gabii Project for the publication of the Tincu House. In discussing our own evolving practices in engagement with the archaeological record created at Gabii, we highlight some of the challenges of undertaking theoretically-situated user interface design, and their implications for the publication and study of archaeological materials

Using airborne LiDAR Survey to explore historic-era archaeological landscapes of Montserrat in the eastern Caribbean

This article describes what appears to be the first archaeological application of airborne LiDAR survey to historic-era landscapes in the Caribbean archipelago, on the island of Montserrat. LiDAR is proving invaluable in extending the reach of traditional pedestrian survey into less favorable areas, such as those covered by dense neotropical forest and by ashfall from the past two decades of active eruptions by the Soufrière Hills volcano, and to sites in localities that are inaccessible on account of volcanic dangers. Emphasis is placed on two aspects of the research: first, the importance of ongoing, real-time interaction between the LiDAR analyst and the archaeological team in the field; and second, the advantages of exploiting the full potential of the three-dimensional LiDAR point cloud data for purposes of the visualization of archaeological sites and features

Open science in archaeology

No abstract available

Interpretation at the Controller’s Edge: Designing Graphical User Interfaces for the Digital Publication of the Excavations at Gabii (Italy)

This paper discusses the authors’ approach to designing an interface for the Gabii Project’s digital volumes that attempts to fuse elements of traditional synthetic publications and site reports with rich digital datasets. Archaeology, and classical archaeology in particular, has long engaged with questions of the formation and lived experience of towns and cities. Such studies might draw on evidence of local topography, the arrangement of the built environment, and the placement of architectural details, monuments and inscriptions (e.g. Johnson and Millett 2012). Fundamental to the continued development of these studies is the growing body of evidence emerging from new excavations. Digital techniques for recording evidence “on the ground,” notably SFM (structure from motion aka close range photogrammetry) for the creation of detailed 3D models and for scene-level modeling in 3D have advanced rapidly in recent years. These parallel developments have opened the door for approaches to the study of the creation and experience of urban space driven by a combination of scene-level reconstruction models (van Roode et al. 2012, Paliou et al. 2011, Paliou 2013) explicitly combined with detailed SFM or scanning based 3D models representing stratigraphic evidence. It is essential to understand the subtle but crucial impact of the design of the user interface on the interpretation of these models. In this paper we focus on the impact of design choices for the user interface, and make connections between design choices and the broader discourse in archaeological theory surrounding the practice of the creation and consumption of archaeological knowledge. As a case in point we take the prototype interface being developed within the Gabii Project for the publication of the Tincu House. In discussing our own evolving practices in engagement with the archaeological record created at Gabii, we highlight some of the challenges of undertaking theoretically-situated user interface design, and their implications for the publication and study of archaeological materials

Interpretation at the Controller’s Edge: Designing Graphical User Interfaces for the Digital Publication of the Excavations at Gabii (Italy)

This paper discusses the authors’ approach to designing an interface for the Gabii Project’s digital volumes that attempts to fuse elements of traditional synthetic publications and site reports with rich digital datasets. Archaeology, and classical archaeology in particular, has long engaged with questions of the formation and lived experience of towns and cities. Such studies might draw on evidence of local topography, the arrangement of the built environment, and the placement of architectural details, monuments and inscriptions (e.g. Johnson and Millett 2012). Fundamental to the continued development of these studies is the growing body of evidence emerging from new excavations. Digital techniques for recording evidence “on the ground,” notably SFM (structure from motion aka close range photogrammetry) for the creation of detailed 3D models and for scene-level modeling in 3D have advanced rapidly in recent years. These parallel developments have opened the door for approaches to the study of the creation and experience of urban space driven by a combination of scene-level reconstruction models (van Roode et al. 2012, Paliou et al. 2011, Paliou 2013) explicitly combined with detailed SFM or scanning based 3D models representing stratigraphic evidence. It is essential to understand the subtle but crucial impact of the design of the user interface on the interpretation of these models. In this paper we focus on the impact of design choices for the user interface, and make connections between design choices and the broader discourse in archaeological theory surrounding the practice of the creation and consumption of archaeological knowledge. As a case in point we take the prototype interface being developed within the Gabii Project for the publication of the Tincu House. In discussing our own evolving practices in engagement with the archaeological record created at Gabii, we highlight some of the challenges of undertaking theoretically-situated user interface design, and their implications for the publication and study of archaeological materials

An Experiment in Using Visual Attention Metrics to Think About Experience and Design Choices in Past Places

The influence of the visual properties of a built space or landscape on the behaviors of people within them and the manipulation of these visual properties to cue or constrain behaviors are subjects of long-standing archaeological interest. Advances in cognitive neurosciences and a suite of improved computational modeling tools, combined with the proliferation of detailed 3D models of archaeological complexes and landscapes, offer an opportunity for new approaches to these topics based on models of low-level perceptual cues and visual attention. The approach described here takes aim at the question of where people will look, rather than simply what is visible, with the goal of investigating the intentions of designers of spaces and visual aspects of the experience of a place. In simple terms, our approach involves placing detailed 3D models of built spaces or landscapes into a digital environment. An individual then virtually walks through the space and what is visible at each moment is recorded in the form of a video stream, which may be broken down into a sequence of scenes. This set of scenes is then analyzed using software that calculates and maps the visual saliency of each scene and the path of focuses of attention (FOAs) over time. This set of saliency maps, raw images, and FOA paths provide the basis for further interpretation. This paper presents an initial experiment to illustrate the approach, carried out in the eastern passage at Knowth, one of the main mounds in the Brú na Bóinne in Ireland