Archaeology and cultural heritage application working group

Feb. 10, 2010 Second Review Meeting

Archaeology & Cultural Heritage Application Working Group

Archaeology & Cultural Heritage Application Working Group

Manolis Vavalis, CERETETHMarios Pitikakis, CERETETH

Chiara Catalano, CNRPatrick Salamin, EPFL

Content

IntroductionBackgroundActivity summary

Thematic workshopPosition StatementsCritical Problems

Selected Real-life ScenariosVirtual exhibition, crowd animation workflow, automatic identification, …A&CH and Knowledge Management Synergies

Open Problems and Future Directions

Content





A&CH Characteristics (1/2)

A&CH 3D digital content is becoming more and more demanding Operational A&CH 3D use in its infancyMost A&CH stakeholders are relatively far away from ITThere currently exist (few?) strong objections on the current use of 3D graphics in A&CHSemantics (ontologies in fact) penetrated A&CH a century ago

A&CH Characteristics (2/2)

Currently semantic organization of A&CH restricted to non-3D media

A&CH people desperately need toOrganizeSearch and RetrieveCompareValidate andPresent

their 3D content.

AWG members summary

Total AWG members: 31Total 18 AWG members acquired in the 1st year (6 based on existing contacts)Total 13 AWG members acquired in the 2nd year (all new contacts)

1st year AWG membersAlinari 24 ORE, Italy *Arkaia srl, ItalyBK s.r.l., ItalyCentro Interdipartimentale di Servizi di Archeologia– Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale, ItalyCRS4, ItalyCultural Technologies, Jordan *Cyprus Institute, CyprusEuropean Virtual Engineering Technological Centre (EUVE), SpainFoundation of the Hellenic World, Greece *German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, GermanyGiunti Labs S.r.l., Italy *Institute of Computer Graphics, TU Graz, AustriaMellaniuM, UKMUSEUM VOLKENKUNDE, The NetherlandsSabanci University / Computer Graphics Laboratory, Turkey *Technische Universität Darmstadt, Interactive Graphics Systems Group, GermanyTELECOM, LIFL (UMR USTL/CNRS 8022), FranceUniversity of Patras – High Performance Information Systems Laboratory, Greece *University of Thessaly, Dept. Of History, Archaeology and Social Anthropology, Greece

• Interested only

in A&CH AWG

• Interested in multiple AWGs

• * Based on existing contacts

2nd year AWG new contacts

Geographic Information Visualization and Analysis, Department of Geography, University of Zurich, SwitzerlandGiusi Grimaudo, TESI Archeologia s.r.l, ItalyMario Santana, Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation, BelgiumMarco Rendina, Centro per la Ricerca e lo Sviluppo di Metodologie e Applicazioni di Archivi Storici, ItalyBreuckmann GmbH, Germany Laura Baratin, University of Urbino, ItalyNadezhda Ilyina, 3DreamTeam, Russia & Czech RepublicRiccardo Berta, ELIOS Lab, University of Genoa, ItalyMaria Economou, Dept. of Cultural Technology & Communication, Univ. of Aegean, Greece Livio De Luca, MAP-Gamsau Laboratory, CNRS, FranceStavroula Zoi, Multimedia-Hypermedia Lab, Athens School of Fine Arts, Greece Communications Research Centre (CRC), Canada *Efi Nanna, National Center for Archaeology Research, Greece *

** Questionnaire submitted Feb. 2010

Highlights of 2nd year activities

Thematic Workshop (at VSMM09)Attended VSMM08 (and organized a workshop)Workshop on “Serious Game in CH”Approached the Underwater Archaeology Community (IMATI)Concrete plans for proposals and spin-offsCollaboration with other EU projects:

3D-COFORM – Tools and Expertise for 3D Collection FormationPROBADO - Innovative Digital Library Services for Nontextual Documents

Content


Thematic workshopPosition Statements, OutcomesCritical Problems



Thematic Workshop - organization

“3D Knowledge Technologies for Cultural Heritage Applications” was held on

12 September 2009, Vienna, Austria, Half a day event in conjunction with the 15th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia - VSMM 2009.

An official workshop webpage was developed in the FOCUS K3D portal

was also advertised at the VSMM09 web pages.

Position statements were circulated to the workshop speakers before the event took place.More than 24 participants attended + 5 people from FOCUS K3D partners (CERETETH, IMATI and EPFL).Most participants came from academic and research institutions.

http://www.vsmm2009.org/

Thematic Workshop - program

09:00 – 09:20 Introduction to the workshop : the FOCUS K3D initiative (Michela Spagnuolo, IMATI)09:20 – 9:40 3D-COFORM - Tools and Expertise for 3D Collection Formation (Franco Niccolucci, STARC-Cyprus Institute)09:40 – 10:20 Invited talk: The e-documentation of the Past in 3D: A Challenge and a Risk for the Present and the Future (Marinos Ioannidis, EC & STARC-Cyprus Institute)10:20 – 10:40 Serious Games in Cultural Heritage Field (Riccardo Berta, ELIOS Lab, University of Genoa)10:55 – 11:15 Virtual Humans in Cultural Heritage projects (Patrick Salamin, EPFL)11:15 – 11:35 Integrating 3D digital technologies for CH: issues and perspectives (Andrea D'Andrea, Franco Niccolucci)11:35 – 12:05 A semantic-based framework for managing, searching and retrieving 3D resources (Marios Pitikakis, CERETETH & Chiara Catalano, IMATI-CNR)12:05 – 12:20 Knowledge technologies in Cultural Heritage (position statement) (Manolis Vavalis, CERETETH & Univ. of Thessaly)12:20 – 13:00 Open discussion

Thematic Workshop – position statements

3D digital representations are often neglected in efforts to create large-scale libraries

lack in effort by cultural heritage institutions to acquire and use knowledge about 3D content.

Whereas text and image digitization and management are rather mature technologies, the technology necessary to fully benefit from 3D knowledge management is not yet within easy reach of most cultural institutions and professionals.

A major challenge towards semantic 3D data management is to provide effective content-based and semantic-based organization and searching.

Content organization is a fundamental service that helps the user to navigate and formulate queries. allows an efficient retrieval of the content of interest, which could strongly reduce a large amount of unproductive time.

Thematic Workshop – position statements

Current limitations are mostly related to the lack of specialized tools for 3D knowledge management.Open problems and future directions to promote and exploit knowledge technologies for 3D content in the Cultural Heritage and Archaeology domain could be focused on the following challenges:

Facilitate automatic semantic annotation of 3D digital content; Enhancement of data repositories to exploit and reuse semantic annotations; Intelligent discovery and retrieval of 3D models by improving the efficiency of semantic search engines and their integration with geometric search engines.

Thematic Workshop – other outcomes

Contact has been made to directly participate and contribute to the European Digital Library (EDL).

Interact with people involved in related fields (serious games, virtual environments & simulations) and understand their perspective.A number of critical problems revealed

Critical Problems (1/4)

Acquisition and processing of 3D dataTraceability to sources and data provenance must be guaranteed. An ontological approach could be a solution.Not only geometry has to be acquired but also colours, materials and the information related to the object have to be preserved.3D compression has to be addressed.

Search and retrievalIndexing and 3D Object Retrieval have to be addressed.


Documentation and annotationThe annotations attached to the objects’ geometry might be lost when the geometry changes due to various reasons. Preserving semantics in the process would be crucial.Adopting a holistic approach to heritage documentation, integrating text, 2D and 3D, requires an ontological approach.There is a management issue and conflict between preservation and provenance.The Semantic (3D-) Web and 3D TV has to be accessed also through other devices, such as mobiles.Watermarking has to be addressed.


VisualizationReal time management of the 3D data representation and visualization has to be treated, also considering the profile of the users.Different solutions to visualize documented information gathered during the 3D model creation can be envisaged (whether a model is created from scratch or captured/digitized).


StandardizationThere no consensus in the CH world on metadata standards. It is necessary to demonstrate the effectiveness and viability of “better” solutions.In view of long-term preservation, there are many proprietary data formats by hardware vendors.The evolution in Standards for Metadata has to be combined with the revolution in computer hardware and software.

General Observations

Audience was in agreement with our point of view and our position statements.Decision makers are not aware of the potential of 3D for Cultural Heritage. Not aware of our work in AIM@SHAPE

they were favourably surprised by their usefulness and effectiveness.

Content





Virtual exhibition scenario - motivation

In collaboration with an AWG member (MellaniuM)Enabling technologies

Latest game engines (e.g. UNREAL v2.5) Hardware 3D graphical acceleration video cards

The key to effective virtual realism, creation of an environment so well conceived interpretively that the user becomes emotionally involved in the content of the simulation.

Users desire to experience a design that has been created in terms of lighting effects, finishes, surface textures, layout and construction details which will lend itself to a complete suspension of disbelief.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Temple of Horus complex (courtesy of MellaniuM) (a) Courtyard near the Entrance to the Hypostyle Hall, (b) Passing through the Hypostyle Hall, (c) Inside the Sanctuary, (d) A chariot outside the Temple of Horus complex

Virtual exhibition scenario - motivation

Museum applications in the future could be used in combination with delivery client (e.g. like the Nortel web.alive). It will be possible in the near future with one URL web link click to enter along with up to 50 others to explore and learn about any ancient site or virtual exhibit.

Geometry and Knowledge Synergy

The benefits of adding semantic information in the different stages of the reconstruction and presentation of an artifact or an entire virtual space are twofold.

From the modeler/creator of 3D content perspective, re-creating an ancient artifact in 3D or an ancient site (architectural space) is difficult and time-consuming work.

Based on available data (pictures, drawings, maps, etc.) and close collaboration with archaeologists, architects, historians

In A&CH, object semantics are typically just as important as the actual geometry. The importation of high polygon models and rich object textures is a key issue for creating the necessary realism.


Form the virtual visitors perspective the organization and presentation of A&CH is crucial. Developing educational/training application scenarios and environments which are visually complex and information-rich are a very effective learning tool.The overall experience of a student or virtual tourist is defined by the virtual reality representation / re-creation. The idea of learning as an active, self-directed, and context-dependent process can greatly contribute to gaining new knowledge.


Embedding semantic information and descriptive metadata related to the original source, age, design and existing knowledge on associated artifacts can be connected effectively to any 3D item in the environment and can contribute to the overall experience. By introducing small unobtrusive icons within the 3D models, which can be approached on the screen, the user will automatically be directed to other sources of information (e.g. web pages, images, movies etc) Such semantic interactivity is vital to produce an environment that will encompass both a truly informative and a sensory experience resulting in an academically accurate and effective educational space.

Vhuman crowd animation workflow

MotivationFocus on the importance of populating virtual A&CH worlds with virtual humans (with natural behavior).Different steps to create a crowd of animated avatars (virtual humans) in order to animate it with a game engine.The requirements and constraints while working with crowds (avatar behavior, collision avoidance, appearance, movement).

Automatic Identification

The model input is processed for automated annotationA generic ontology is availableThe semantic analyzer combines the results of the annotations and the ontology to input it into the inference engine module

Content





Synopsis, Open Problems and Future Directions

A&CH 3D digital content is becoming more and more demanding in terms of

management, preservation, delivery mechanisms…

3D A&CH content often ishard to access and interpretheld in multiple internal systems

with non-standard schemas and descriptions.

The unavoidable manual annotation of explicit semantics is not a practical approach

especially when the number of resources is expected to grow fast.

Indicative Open Problems – Future directions

The technology necessary to fully benefit from 3D knowledge management is not yet within easy reach of most cultural institutions.

further progress in research and consolidation of approaches is required in the area of 3D digital libraries.

Long-term preservation, re-use and access to 3D digital objects are major concerns

the development of standardized metadata and ontologies can partially ensure this.

Semantically enriched descriptions, indexing, and retrieval will allow the deep integration of 3D content into Digital Libraries.

Indicative Open Problems – Future directions

Current limitations are mostly related to the lack of specialized tools for 3D knowledge management and methodologies – as also our questionnaire survey revealed.Develop particular solutions for improved re-use of 3D datasets by end-users.Developing easy-to-use authoring tools for 3D knowledge management. Promote access to 3D content through the European Digital Library.