Virtual Archaeology and museums, an italian perspective

[EN] The growing number of virtual museums and applications today available arises many questions concerning the problems connected to their fruition and maintenance. This paper aims at setting up an analysis of the topic, through the steps of three VM projects carried on by the Virtual Heritage Lab (2008, 2010, 2012 (in progress)). Such case studies are taken into account on the basis of three topics: technical maintenance, reliability and semantic density. The analysis aims also at contributing the debate on the future development of VMs and on the management of the relationships between reliability and wide dissemination.[ES] El creciente número de museos y aplicaciones virtuales disponibles en la actualidad plantea diversas problemáticas en cuanto a uso y mantenimiento se refiere. El presente proyecto intenta establecer un análisis del problema a través del estudio de tres proyectos de musealización virtual realizados por el Virtual Heritage Lab en el Istituto per le Tecnologie Applicate ai Beni Culturali del CNR (proyectos realizados en los años 2008, 2009 y 2012(en fase de realización). Tales proyectos se realizan en base a tres aspectos: el mantenimiento, la fiabilidad en la gestión de los datos y la densidad semántica. El estudio aporta una contribución al debate sobre el desarrollo de futuros museos virtuales y las posibles formas de abordar la compleja relación entre el rigor científico y la divulgación.Palombini, A.; Pescarin, S. (2011). Virtual Archaeology and museums, an italian perspective. Virtual Archaeology Review. 2(4):151-154. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2011.4575OJS15115424FORTE M. and AA.VV., 2008, "La Villa di Livia, un percorso di ricerca di archeologia virtuale", L'Erma di Bretschneider, Roma.MUELLER P, ZENG G, WONKA P AND VAN GOOL L, 2007, Image-based Procedural Modeling of Facades, ACM Transactions on Graphics, volume 26, number 3, article number 85. pages 1-9. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2007.PESCARIN S., PIETRONI E., FERDANI D., in press, "A procedural approach to the modeling of urban historical contexts" in Francisco Contreras & Fco. Javier Melero (Eds) Fusion of Cultures Proceedings of the 38th Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Granada, Spain, April 2010

VR cooperative environments for the interpretation and reconstruction of the archaeological landscape

[ES] The Internet 2.0 has diffused a new approach enhancing creativity, multimedia communication, information sharing, cooperation: millions of people in the world are expressing the will to interconnect, co-create digital contents and share experience in the cyberspace. The possibility to develop complex dynamics of interaction inside the virtual domain are determining new scenarios in the field of cultural transmission. In this paper two case studies will be presented: the “Integrated Technologies of robotics and virtual environment in archaeology” project (supported by the Italian Ministry of Research), and the “Virtual Rome” project, two virtual collaborative environments in the web for the interpretation, reconstruction and 3D exploration of archaeological contexts.Pietroni, E.; Pescarin, S. (2010). VR cooperative environments for the interpretation and reconstruction of the archaeological landscape. Virtual Archaeology Review. 1(2):25-29. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2010.4680OJS252912ANNUNZIATO M., BONINI E., PIERUCCI P.,, PIETRONI E. (2008): "Cultural mirrors: an epistemological approach to artificial life for cultural heritage communication", in Proceedings DMACH 2008, Digital Media and its Applications in Cultural Heritage, 3-6 November, 2008, University of Petra, Amman, Jordan.FORTE M. e AA.VV (2008). "La Villa di Livia, un percorso di ricerca di archeologia virtuale", ed. Erma di Bretschneider, Roma.FORTE M, PESCARIN S., PIETRONI E. (2005): "The Appia Antica Project". In The reconstruction of Archaeological Landscapes through Digital Technologies, Forte M. Ed., BAR Int. Series.pp. 79-92GEROSA M. (2006): Second Life, Meltemi, RomeJONES Q. (2003): "Applying Cyber-Archaeology", in Proceedings of the eighth European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Helsinki, Finland, pp. 41-60. http://www.ecscw.org/2003/003Jones_ecscw03.pdfMATURANA H., VARELA F. (1980): "Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living", in: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. by Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky, vol. 42, Dordecht (Holland): D. Reidel Publishing Co. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8947-4PESCARIN S. ET ALII (2008): "Back to 2nd AD". In VAST 2008 Proceedings., Braga Portugal, 2008SCHROEDER R. (1997): "Networked Worlds: Social Aspects of Multi-User Virtual Reality Technology", in Sociological Research Online, vol. 2, no. 4. http://www.socresonline.org.uk/2/4/5.html http://dx.doi.org/10.5153/sro.291ZEKI S. (1999): "Inner Vision". Oxford Univ. Press

VR WebGIS: an OpenSource approach to 3D real-time landscape management

OpenSource philosophy has reached to unexpected goals. The diffusion of OpenSource tools is increased quite a lot, but also the quality of the tools is improving. Their usability is slowing going even towards communities not exactly skilled in advanced programming. Open movement is penetrated in many sectors, often subverting, thank to its social impact, the traditional rules of companies and research institutions, pulling down sometimes hierarchies and pushing on innovative ideas because of their validity and values. [...]Peer Reviewe

VR WebGIS: an OpenSource approach to 3D real-time landscape management

OpenSource philosophy has reached to unexpected goals. The diffusion of OpenSource tools is increased quite a lot, but also the quality of the tools is improving. Their usability is slowing going even towards communities not exactly skilled in advanced programming. Open movement is penetrated in many sectors, often subverting, thank to its social impact, the traditional rules of companies and research institutions, pulling down sometimes hierarchies and pushing on innovative ideas because of their validity and values. [...]Peer Reviewe

The everyday-life in neanderthal times: a full-immersive Pleistocene reconstruction for the Casal De' Pazzi Museum (Rome)

[EN] The Museum of Casal De' Pazzi (Rome) is built since about ten years on a Pleistocene floor consisting in the ancient riverbed of the Aniene river, at about 200.000 bp. Since its opening, it has been characterized by a strong narrative approach, and communication effort. The digital project realized by the Italian CNR (Institut for Technology applied to Cultural Heritage) implies three applications: a flood simulation, to show the water refilling of the ancient riverbed; a movie in computer-graphic, to be shown to the public, explaining neanderthal man and ancient elephant's life, and an edu-game, for children's learning, the Plei-stostation, implemented by touch-screen interaction dynamics.[ES] El Museo de Casal De' Pazzi (Roma) se construyó hace unos diez años en un terreno pleistocénico, en el que hace aproximadamente 200.000 años se encontraba el antiguo cauce del río Aniene. Desde su apertura, el Museo se ha caracterizado por un fuerte enfoque narrativo y comunicativo. El proyecto digital realizado porel CNR italiano (Instituto de las Tecnologías aplicadas a Bienes Culturales) incluye tres aplicaciones: una simulación de las inundaciones, que muestra como se anegó del antiguo lecho del río; una película de animación por ordenador, en la que se presenta al público cómo era el antiguo hombre de Neanderthal y la vida de los elefantes antiguos, y un juego educativo, que fomenta el aprendizaje de los niños, el Plei-sto-station, implementado mediante un sistema dinámico con pantalla de interacción táctil.Palombini, A.; Arnoldus Huyzendveld, A.; Di Ioia, M.; Gioia, P.; Persiani, C.; Pescarin, S. (2012). The everyday-life in neanderthal times: a full-immersive Pleistocene reconstruction for the Casal De' Pazzi Museum (Rome). Virtual Archaeology Review. 3(7):73-76. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2012.4391OJS737637FUNICIELLO R., GIORDANO G. (2008): "La geologia di Roma - Dal centro storico alla periferia". Memorie descrittive della Carta Geologica d'Italia n. 80/2008 - Servizio Geologico Nazionale - APAT

Towards Advanced Interfaces for Citizen Curation

The SPICE project builds on the growing trend for museums, rather than providing an authoritative view, to present multiple voices related to their collection and exhibitions. In SPICE, an approach we term citizen curation is proposed as a way of supporting visitors to share their own interpretations of museum objects and reflect on the variety of interpretations contributed by others. In order to capture a wide range of voices, interfaces will be designed specifically to engage minority groups that tend to be under-represented in cultural activities. To achieve this goal, the interface will need to be intuitive, aesthetic and accessible for different audiences. The paper presents the challenges we face and initial proposals for engaging visitors in citizen curation

Analysis of Visualisation and Interaction Tools Authors

This document provides an in-depth analysis of visualization and interaction tools employed in the context of Virtual Museum. This analysis is required to identify and design the tools and the different components that will be part of the Common Implementation Framework (CIF). The CIF will be the base of the web-based services and tools to support the development of Virtual Museums with particular attention to online Virtual Museum.The main goal is to provide to the stakeholders and developers an useful platform to support and help them in the development of their projects, despite the nature of the project itself. The design of the Common Implementation Framework (CIF) is based on an analysis of the typical workflow ofthe V-MUST partners and their perceived limitations of current technologies. This document is based also on the results of the V-MUST technical questionnaire (presented in the Deliverable 4.1). Based on these two source of information, we have selected some important tools (mainly visualization tools) and services and we elaborate some first guidelines and ideas for the design and development of the CIF, that shall provide a technological foundation for the V-MUST Platform, together with the V-MUST repository/repositories and the additional services defined in the WP4. Two state of the art reports, one about user interface design and another one about visualization technologies have been also provided in this document

Museums and Virtual Museums in Europe: Reaching expectations

The paper presents an overview of the domain known as “Virtual Museums”, as it appears after the four year project V-MUST.NET. It aims at describing the shift we are assisting in the museum perception and management, including how virtual museums are and can be integrated in exhibits, highlighting positive and negative elements. Visitors and curators expectations and possible answers are described, also referred to the “Keys To Rome” international exhibit example. It finally proposes new possible researches directions