GCH 2020 - Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage

Permanent URI for this collection

https://diglib.eg.org/handle/10.2312/2632958

Browse

Browsing GCH 2020 - Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage by Subject "Applied computing"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Another Brick in the Wall: Improving the Assisted Semantic Segmentation of Masonry Walls
    (The Eurographics Association, 2020) Pavoni, Gaia; Giuliani, Francesca; Falco, Anna De; Corsini, Massimiliano; Ponchio, Federico; Callieri, Marco; Cignoni, Paolo; Spagnuolo, Michela and Melero, Francisco Javier
    In Architectural Heritage, the masonry's interpretation is an essential instrument for analyzing the construction phases, the assessment of structural properties, and the monitoring of its state of conservation. This work is generally carried out by specialists that, based on visual observation and their knowledge, manually annotate ortho-images of the masonry generated by photogrammetric surveys. This results in vectorial thematic maps segmented according to their construction technique (isolating areas of homogeneous materials/structure/texture) or state of conservation, including degradation areas and damaged parts. This time-consuming manual work, often done with tools that have not been designed for this purpose, represents a bottleneck in the documentation and management workflow and is a severely limiting factor in monitoring large-scale monuments (e.g.city walls). This paper explores the potential of AI-based solutions to improve the efficiency of masonry annotation in Architectural Heritage. This experimentation aims at providing interactive tools that support and empower the current workflow, benefiting from specialists' expertise.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Engaging audiences with Cultural Heritage through Augmented Reality (AR) Enhanced Pop-Up Books
    (The Eurographics Association, 2020) Huang, Yaqin; Rodriguez Echavarria, Karina; Julier, Simon; Spagnuolo, Michela and Melero, Francisco Javier
    One of the core activities of memory institutions is to provide access to heritage material from their collections so that it can be used in formal and informal educational activities. Although this type of access is beneficial for audiences, we argue that current digital technologies for access still require users to know in which collection they must look for a specific subject or type of content. Although collection aggregators, such as Europeana and Google Arts and Culture, have made it easier to access content across collections, there is still a lack of engaging interfaces which can draw the interest amongst a wide range of audiences for exploring heritage material. In this research, we propose a tangible interface for accessing Cultural Heritage (CH) content in the form of a pop-up book. Pop-up books are a highly engaging way to get audiences to interact with materials in archives and collections. Our approach is creative and playful as it takes advantage of both the narrative and the three-dimensional and tactile nature of pop-up books so that audiences can engage with digital content through Augmentation Reality (AR). The technical contributions of the paper include a method to enable real-time interaction between the physical elements of the book and the virtual content. Unlike other AR pop-up books that generate purely virtual pop-up content, our design preserves the original 3D model inside the books and generates virtual effects on those objects, making our application more appealing and engaging than other AR books. This approach and technical method are deployed using a commercially available pop-up book with stories about various famous landmarks in the city of London. Content drawn from heritage collections enriches the stories told in the book with additional visual content and interactions. Initial tests of this approach suggest that it has the potential to engage audiences who will not be traditionally inclined to access other platforms with CH content.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Possibilities and Challenges of Portraying Cultural Heritage Artefacts using Augmented Reality: the Mjällby Crucifix Case Study
    (The Eurographics Association, 2020) Garro, Valeria; Sundstedt, Veronica; Putta, Advaith; Sandahl, Christoffer; Spagnuolo, Michela and Melero, Francisco Javier
    The increasing application of immersive technologies, i.e. virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), in cultural heritage (CH) offers new ways of displaying artefacts and historical sites. VR and AR provide an added value to the visitor experience from several different aspects, e.g. interactivity or sense of presence. VR and AR technologies open the possibility for the visitor to visit reconstructions of historical sites and observe 3D replicas of CH artefacts. Moreover, these technologies, especially AR, can bring some artefacts back to their historical locations adding a new dimension to the visitor experience. We present an ongoing case study exploring the use of AR in the portrayal of a CH artefact, namely the Mjällby Crucifix in the Blekinge Museum, located in Southern Sweden. This crucifix is a medieval artefact which was originally placed in the Mjällby church and is currently preserved at the Blekinge Museum warehouse. The artefact is displayed lying in horizontal position on a low stage surrounded by other artefacts. Due to its large size (310 cm high and 260 cm wide) and its current position, it is not possible for the visitor to have a close view of the artefact. We plan to display a 3D replica of the artefact via an AR application using a hand-held device. The digital replica can be visualised in its original vertical position both in a chosen location in the museum and in the Mjällby church enhancing the visitor experience. A prototype of the AR application has been developed and showcased to a group of experts from the Blekinge Museum. The digitisation of the crucifix artefact has been done using an Artec Leo 3D scanner which captures both geometry and texture information. We developed a marker-based AR prototype application which runs on Android mobile devices supporting Google AR platform ARCore. We used a picture of the original crucifix as a marker image. The application detects this image which is supposed to lie on the floor or another horizontal surface, and displays the 3D model of the crucifix on top of it. An online questionnaire followed by a group interview with experts in the CH domain was conducted to discuss the AR prototype and the possibilities and challenges with the use of AR technology in digital CH. We focused on the context of Blekinge Museum exhibitions as an example of a regional museum. Four experts filled in the questionnaire and three of them participated in the group interview consisting of two stages. In the first part the experts were shown the AR prototype. This was followed by a group discussion mainly driven from the participants. In the second part the moderator presented additional considerations prepared in advance by the organisers by collecting personal reflections and information from background literature in the area of computer graphics applied to CH. The aim was to include a different perspective in the discussion and to gather insights about the potential differences and knowledge gaps between experts of different domains. Answers from the questionnaire and the group discussion highlighted established capability of AR technology such as exhibition enhancement and interaction, appealing to new target audiences and the possibility to display artefacts outside the museum: (i) expanding the geographic area of impact of the museum that aims at covering the regional territory, (ii) attracting visitors to the museum as sort of preview of the type of artefacts available on site. Regarding the challenges, much focus emerged on the cost of the technology, the necessity of building specific competence and expertise among the museum staff, and the usability and accessibility aspects of the AR applications. The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy was mentioned as the ideal solution to tackle the problem of the costs of the devices which support also the usability since the visitors are more accustomed to handling their own devices. The BYOD policy implies the requirement of being available to the largest number of visitors, hence the AR application should be multiplatform and its availability should not be limited to the most recent and powerful mobile devices. Other mentioned challenges were the restricted computational resources of the devices and the necessity of applications maintenance (software updates). Aspects related to health and safety of sharing devices have also been discussed. The presented case study highlighted relevant aspects considered by the experts as well as providing new insights to take into account to make AR technology successful in virtual CH exhibitions of a regional museum. Future work will include improving the AR prototype adding interaction with the artefact, showcasing the AR prototype in the original location of the artefact to collect non-expert visitors expectations and run a usability study of the AR application. This work was supported in part by KK-stiftelsen Sweden, through the ViaTecH Synergy Project (contract 20170056).
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Sunlight Simulation of the Church of Saint Nectaire in Virtual Reality: a Digital Time Machine
    (The Eurographics Association, 2020) Saleri, Renato; Spagnuolo, Michela and Melero, Francisco Javier
    The roman church of Saint Nectaire, like many churches in Auvergne, France, is richly decorated with carved capitals. Most of them represent figures or symbols of Christianity and are periodically illuminated by the sunlight that comes to strike them at different times of the day throughout the year. The periodicity of these occurrences, which seem to correspond to a "targeted" temporality around religious feasts, appeals to historians who foresee the possibility of a perpetual religious calendar marking the times of the Christian liturgy with regularity and precision. The observations made since 2009 by Daniel Tardy [Dan13] have made it possible to highlight the high number of luminous phenomena, particularly concerning the remarkable lighting of the choir capitals: this has made it possible to hypothesize peculiar coincidences between the day of the luminous event and the date of the Julian calendar (used from 46 B.C. to 1582 AD) corresponding to the Christian celebration of the illuminated figures. The presence of hills, however, recurrently masks the sun at the beginning and end of the day and prevents the illumination on a certain number of sculpted figures that one would expect, given the number of calendar occurrences already observed elsewhere. Considering its experience in the field of digital survey 3D modeling and real-time simulation in the field of heritage [ASL15], [MDSB14], [NMRS13], [SCN*13], [Sal18], the MAP laboratory created a complete numerical model of the church and to submit it to a virtual heliodon in order to predict the illumination of the interior decorative elements at "critical" moments throughout the year if the surrounding hills did not exist: the question of the primary location of the church is currently the subject of many conjectures. This experiment consists in a methodological approach whose purpose is to validate a solar simulation method on an existing building and to verify its validity by direct confrontation between the simulation produced and the observable effects in reality. This not only allows us to make hypotheses about the constructive history of the the church of Saint Nectaire, but also - in the near future- to apply this method to several nearby churches, similar in their history, their architecture and their religious iconography.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Traditional-based Visualization Methods for Archaeological 3D Data: an Evaluation
    (The Eurographics Association, 2020) Bernardes, Paulo; Madeira, Joaquim; Martins, Manuela; Spagnuolo, Michela and Melero, Francisco Javier
    3D archaeological visualization is an increasingly frequent and necessary practice, but it still faces application issues. Those are substantiated by the use of visualization tools that are not customized for the archaeological needs and the privileged use of the visual features of models during the archaeological process stages. We propose some visualization methods, based on procedures traditionally practised in archaeology, to stimulate and facilitate their use for 3D visualization of archaeological data. The proposed methods were evaluated by archaeologists to assess their usability and usefulness in the archaeological process. The evaluation concluded that the proposed visualization methods increase the perception of the archaeological 3D models. It was also possible to reveal new elements of archaeological interest.