2006: The 7th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Intelligent Cultural Heritage

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New Reflection Transformation Imaging Methods for Rock Art and Multiple-Viewpoint Display
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Mudge, Mark; Malzbender, Tom; Schroer, Carla; Lum, Marlin; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
We offer two new methods of documenting and communicating cultural heritage information using Reflection Transformation Imaging (RTI). One imaging method is able to acquire Polynomial Texture Maps (PTMs) of 3D rock art possessing a large range of sizes, shapes, and environmental contexts. Unlike existing PTM capture methods requiring known light source positions, we rely on the user to position a handheld light source, and recover the lighting direction from the specular highlights produced on a black sphere included in the field of view captured by the camera. The acquisition method is simple, fast, very low cost, and easy to learn. A complementary method of integrating digital RTI representations of subjects from multiple viewpoints is also presented. It permits RTI examination in the round in a unified, interactive, image-based representation. Collaborative tests between Cultural Heritage Imaging, Hewlett- Packard Labs, and the UNESCO Prehistoric Rock-Art Sites in the Côa Valley, a World Heritage Site in Portugal, suggest this approach will be very beneficial when applied to paleolithic petroglyphs of various sizes, both in the field and in the laboratory. These benefits over current standards of best practice can be generalized to a broad range of cultural heritage material.
Towards a Photogrammetry and Virtual Reality Based Heritage Information System: A Case Study of Shawbak Castle in Jordan
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Drap, Pierre; Durand, Anne; Nedir, Malika; Seinturier, Julien; Papini, Odile; Boucault, Florian; Chapman, Paul; Viant, Warren; Vannini, Guido; Nuccioti, Michele; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
The paper presents an interdisciplinary project which is the first step towards a 3D Geographical Information System (GIS) dedicated to Cultural Heritage with a specific focus application on the Castle of Shawbak, also known as the "Crac de Montréal" in Jordan. Current 3D GIS already provide support for urban models on a city scale. Our project however focuses on a building scale encompassing its atomic elements such as ashlars blocks, cement, stratigraphic unit and architectonic elements. At this scale we need a full 3D interface in order to manage accurate measurements and a mainly heterogeneous archaeological documentation. The project is conducted by four laboratories: the MAP-GAMSAU located in the school of Architecture of Marseilles, France in charge of the photogrammetric survey phase; The LSIS laboratory, France, will be in charge of the knowledge based approach; SimVis from The Department of Computer Science, University of Hull, UK, for the virtual reality aspect and of course the "Dipartimento di Studi storici e Geografici" from the University of Florence, Italy, in charge of the archaeological part. To manage these archaeological data the project is divided into three phases: The survey phase: using a knowledge based photogrammetric tool, Arpenteur (http://www.arpenteur.net), the photogrammetric campaign ensures a survey founded on archaeological knowledge and directly linked with a database built by archaeologists. The objective here is to link an already existing archaeological database with a photogrammetric tool in order to simplify the photogrammetric process. Our goal here is to offer to the archaeology community a new tool for surveying where technical photogrammetric aspects are more or less hidden from the surveyor. The second phase is the use of the knowledge base to ensure data consistency through a complex and multi-user survey phase. Based on data fusion coming from different sources, this phase will ensure a reversible way to merge several partial surveys exploiting the complementarities between sources, solving different existing conflicts and reducing the possible redundancies. This fusion process deals with archaeological information as well as spatial information. Finally we need a high resolution interface between the final geometry and the archaeological database. Virtual reality using interactive immersive devices and specially designed software tools is an efficient method for revisiting the site and for analysing, updating and revising knowledge. This project described in this paper is work in progress. After three photogrammetric campaigns in Jordan the first results are available on the project web site: http://www.shawbak.net
Automatic Registration and Calibration for Efficient Surface Light Field Acquisition
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Larue, Frédéric; Dischler, Jean-Michel; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
This paper presents a novel protocol for the acquisition of surface light fields which is designed to deal with delicate objects that might not be touched or moved. This constraint is particularly important when art pieces are involved. Our protocol enables the automatic reconstruction of a model from many range images and the automatic registration of many pictures with the acquired geometry. A structured light pattern is first used to project a parameterization over the analyzed surface. Each surface point hit by this parameterization is uniquely identified, independently of the chosen viewpoint, and the problem of finding point-point and point-pixel correspondences is then immediately solved. These correspondences are finally used to perform the registrations and camera calibrations that provide the data to be used by a surface light field renderer.
Digital Terrain Modelling for Archaeological Interpretation within Forested Areas using Full-Waveform Laserscanning
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Doneus, Michael; Briese, C.; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
The identification of sites within forested areas is one of the remaining unresolved issues for archaeological prospection. Airborne laser scanning can be a solution to this problem: due to the capability of penetrating forest to a certain degree (depending on the vegetation density) the determination of the terrain surface is even possible in wooded areas. To be able to identify archaeological structures, archaeologists have to interpret the resulting topographical data of a filtered ALS scan. This does not pose major problems with large structures. Smaller features, however, are much more difficult to identify, because their appearance in an ALS point cloud is very similar to natural and recent features, as for example dense brushwood, or piles of twigs or wood. Therefore, to eliminate potential sources of error, a high quality separation of terrain and off-terrain points is essential for archaeological interpretation while maintaining a high point density of the ALS data. Using conventional ALS systems, the possibilities to classify terrain and off-terrain points are limited and the results - especially in forested areas with dense understorey - are far from ideal for archaeological purposes. This paper will demonstrate how the new generation of full-waveform ALS systems can be used to get a much better classification of solid ground and vegetation cover and consequently DTMs, which can be interpreted archaeologically with much more confidence.
Mosaic Rendering using Colored Paper
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Gi, Yong Jea; Park, Young Sup; Seo, Sang Hyun; Yoon, Kyoung Hyun; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
This paper proposes a new method of simulating colored paper mosaic using computer graphics technologies. This new method focuses on two problems that need to be taken care of in order to simulate colored paper mosaic. The first one is tile generation and the other one is tile arrangement. To get similar result in real art work, we create colored paper object with simple structure. Then, we generate torn colored paper tile by applying voronoi diagram and others to colored paper object. At last, we come up with result images by arranging torn colored paper tile appropriately according to energy function.
Interactive Mobile Assistants for Added-value Cultural Contents
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Linaza, Maria Teresa; García, Ander; Susperregui, Ana; Lamsfus, Carlos; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
Multimedia technologies provide new opportunities for museums to enhance their visitors experience. However, its use brings new challenges for presentation preparation, among which are how to enrich the visit while not diverting the visitors attention from the actual objects in the museum, which should remain the focus of the visit; and how to provide a rich information space suitable for a wide variety of visitors. These challenges need to be addressed during planning and preparation of information presentations for mobile, multimedia museum visitors guides. This paper describes the design and implementation of the AMICo prototype to an exhibition room for visitors who are equipped with wirelessly connected handheld devices. The prototype has been implemented on an exhibition showing a set of architectural scale models from the famous Spanish architect Rafael Moneo hold in the Kubo exhibition centre of the Kutxa Foundation in Donostia-San Sebastian during September and October 2005. The architectural scale models were augmented with information in the form of multimedia content. Users were able to access those contents in a personalized way when in the proximity of the artwork.
ICT Investment Considerations and their Influence on the Socio-Economic Impact of Heritage Sites
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) McLoughlin, Jim; Kaminski, Jaime; Sodagar, Babak; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
The following methodological model can be used as a platform for the study of the impact of information and communications technologies (ICT) at cultural heritage sites. The model has been developed through extensive, in-depth interviews with curators, directors and stakeholders at many cultural heritage sites across Europe. The underling strength of this model is its versatility. Although the model is oriented towards the investment in, and deployment of, ICT at heritage sites it is fundamentally about understanding the process of investment and so could be modified for many investment decisions.
Watermarking and Digital Rights Management - A Pilot DRM System Implementation and Technical Guidelines to Cultural Digitization Projects
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Tsolis, Dimitrios K.; Nikolopoulos, Spiridon N.; Karatzas, Emmanouil G.; Sioutas, Spiridon A.; Hondrou, E. A.; Mouriki, A. I.; Georgiadou, A. A.; Papatheodorou, Theodore S.; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
The issue addressed in this paper is at first a brief presentation of the Technical Guidelines for IPR protection and management applied to Greek cultural digitization projects. Secondly, the work focuses on the analysis and implementation of a typical Digital Rights Management System for organizations and projects aiming at the digitization and exploitation of cultural content. Both Technical Guidelines and the DRMS are setting a solid framework for providing answers to a crucial and complex issue, the issue of the protection and management of intellectual property rights for analog and digital content.
Restoration of Color in Noh Masks Based on Retinex Algorithm
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Yin, Xin; Miichi, Yasuo; Tanaka, Hiromi T.; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
Noh is a famous traditional Japanese dramatic art. The restoration of ancient Noh masks is an important aspect of the preservation of cultural heritage. In this paper, we developed a technique based on Retinex algorithm and it can be applied to restore the color of 3D objects such as the Noh mask. The Retinex algorithm simulates the ability of human eye and can adjust the color of the 2D image. To apply the Retinex algorithm on the 3D surface, the shape of the object is taken into account. The original color of the target points can be got by reference to the color of the surrounding points sampled according to a uniform route. The effectiveness of this technique is demonstrated by the implementation results. This technique can be used to infer the color of other 3D objects also.
Terrestrial Laser Scanner and High-Resolution Camera Registration through Single Image-Based Modeling
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Aguilera, Diego Gonzalez; Lahoz, Javier Gomez; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
This paper deals with an important topic: the automatic co-registration of terrestrial laser scanner data and high-resolution digital images. Our approach harnesses the power of a single image-based modeling method developed focusing on obtaining a spatial dimensional analysis from a single image. Particularly, the problem of image registration is solved automatically through a camera calibration method which takes 2D and 3D points correspondences as input data based on a search of spatial invariants: two distances and one angle.
On the Digital Reconstruction and Interactive Presentation of Heritage Sites through Time
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) El-Hakim, Sabry F.; MacDonald, George; Lapointe, Jean-François; Gonzo, Lorenzo; Jemtrud, Michael; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
Virtual time travel from existing remains of a heritage site to its previous states and original condition is an educational and interesting experience and can provide better understanding of history. However, digitally reconstructing non-existing objects is a challenge. The interaction and navigation within virtual 4D worlds (adding time to 3D worlds) is also problematical due to the time dimension. In this paper we developed an approach to modelling of heritage sites that has undergone changes over the years. The method creates independent models from different types of data, such as frescos and paintings, drawings, old photos, historic descriptions, and digitization of remains, then assembles and integrates these models for an interactive presentation. Several research issues had to be addressed: (1) Modelling from frescos and drawings with incorrect perspective, (2) modelling from paintings and old photos including fine geometric details from shading (3) colouring models from old photos and drawings to match the colours of existing elements, (4) the seamless and accurate integration of models created independently from different sets of data, and (5) the creation of intuitive interactive presentation that combines all the models and other useful information. We provide contributions to these issues, including our own advanced model viewer, and apply them to modelling of: destroyed Haida house of Chief Weah (Masset, Canada), the demolished and partially relocated Rideau Chapel (Ottawa, Canada), and the Stenico castle (Trentino, Italy) which undergone many changes over several centuries. Each of these diverse examples illustrates different approach for reconstructing heritage sites that changed through time.
Multi-Spectral Laser Scanning for Inspection of Building Surfaces - State of the Art and Future Concepts
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Wehr, Aloysius; Hemmleb, Matthias; Maierhofer, Chr.; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) developed a multi-spectral laser scanner to demonstrate the advantages of such systems for the inspection of building surfaces. It is shown that damage of building surfaces, caused by enhanced moisture content and/or vegetation, can be recorded automatically with a high signal-to-noise ratio by using four continuous wave semiconductor lasers at different wavelengths for the defined illumination of the object surface. It is worked out that the damaged areas can be identified by applying commercial multi-spectral image processing software. Finally a concept is presented to improve the overall performance of the system with regard to sampling speed and sensitivity. Here the cw lasers are modulated by sinusoidal signals of different frequencies and the intensity of the backscattered laser light is detected by synchronous demodulation. Furthermore, these structured signals can be used for slant range measurements. Knowing the slant for each pixel, three dimensional multi-spectral images are obtained
The backstage of Byblos' Roman theatre: New Digital Devices using Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Paoli, Giovanni De; El-Khoury, Nada; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
This paper presents the results of a multidisciplinary research project that combines the fields of architecture and the conservation of the built heritage, history, communications and computer science. The study of new methods of experimentation will enable us to define and validate new orientations in the way we understand, structure and transfer acquired knowledge about a given architecturally significant complex. The aim of the project is to present the various experiences obtained during the interpretation of heritage spaces, and in particular intangible heritage, using information and communication technologies. More specifically, it involves acquiring, through ICT, computer modelling and archaeologists accurate documentation, an understanding of the consequences of successive occupations of an archaeological site on its current condition. It also seeks to gain a better understanding of the construction techniques and know-how of the Ancients. The objective of this project is to introduce computer modelling, which is capable of showing the site s evolution over the centuries, in order to help us understand the superposition of historic layers. This work will reflect on how to respond to certain challenges using the example of the experiences acquired at the site of the ancient city of Byblos in Lebanon, a city included in UNESCO s World Heritage List. The Byblos project also helps to re-create and re-mould a monumental complex without having all the information and to test hypotheses that we would otherwise be unable to validate without compromising the heritage values of a site by physically reconstructing it. Such a compromise was experienced in the case of the Roman theatre of Byblos (A.D. 218) which, in the 1930s, was moved and rebuilt by the sea by archaeologist M. Dunand.
Current Practice in Digital Imaging in UK Archaeology
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Chuter, Alice; Devlin, Kate; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
The field of archaeology relies heavily on photography as a way of recording information about sites and artefacts. It is therefore essential that we can have confidence in the photographic record, as any changes over time can result in information being lost forever. In the past five years digital imaging has become a potential alternative to traditional film photography. However, this has great implications, as both methods have very different advantages and disadvantages. Most notably, if the rise in digital photography in the heritage sector mirrors that of current public trends, there is a danger that digital preservation issues could be neglected. We undertook a survey of photographic practice among archaeologists in the UK in order to gain an insight into the prominence of digital photography for recording our past. This paper presents and analyses our results.
Combining Laser Scanning and Photogrammetry - A Hybrid Approach for Heritage Documentation
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Haala, Norbert; Alshawabkeh, Yahya; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
High quality 3D models of cultural heritage sites can be generated efficiently by laser scanning, which allows the accurate and dense measurement of surface geometry. In addition to the geometric data collection, texture mapping based on additionally collected digital imagery is particular important for this type of application. This requires a combined processing of range and image data sets. For this purpose, they have to be registered or aligned by a suitable transformation to a common reference coordinate system. The involved transformation parameters can be determined based on corresponding elements to be extracted from the different data sets. In the paper an efficient edge detection algorithm is presented, which allows for the automatic segmentation of such primitives even in complex scenes. In order to achieve a high quality 3D photo-realistic mode,l this alignment process has to be followed by an automatic texture mapping, which is discussed in the second part of the paper. The presented algorithms are demonstrated in the framework of a project aiming at the generation of a 3D virtual model of the Al-Khasneh, a well-known monument in Petra, and a Roman Theatre in ancient Jerash city, Jordan.
A Concept for the Separation of Foreground/ Background in Arabic Historical Manuscripts using Hybrid Methods
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Boussellaa, Wafa; Abed, Haikal El; Zahour, A.; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
This paper presents a new color document image segmentation system suitable for historical Arabic manuscripts. Our system is composed of a hybrid method which couple together background light intensity normalization algorithm and k-means clustering with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation, for foreground/ background separation. Firstly, the background normalization algorithm performs separation between foreground and background. This foreground is used in later steps. Secondly, our algorithm proceeds on luminance and distort the contrast. These distortions are corrected with a gamma correction and contrast adjustment. Finally, the new enhanced foreground image is segmented to foreground/background on the basis of ML estimation. The initial parameters for the ML method are estimated by k-means clustering algorithm. The segmented image is used to produce a final restored document image. The techniques are tested on a set of Arabic historical manuscripts documents from the National Tunisian Library. The performance of the algorithm is demonstrated on by real color manuscripts distorted with show-through effects, uneven background color and localized spot.
Geographical Presentation of Virtual Museum Exhibitions
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Stawniak, Miroslaw; Walczak, Krzysztof; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
In this paper we present a system, called GeoARCO, which enables presentation of virtual museum exhibitions in a geographical context. The system is partially based on the results of the European project ARCO Augmented Representation of Cultural Objects, which has developed technology for museums enabling them to create and manage virtual museum exhibitions for use in interactive kiosk displays and on the Web. GeoARCO uses the Google Earth platform to enable presentation of digital artefacts as well as complete cultural heritage exhibitions on top of the 3D globe model. Users can browse and search available exhibitions, display current location of objects as well as historical data about the objects, such as the place where the objects were made or discovered. A user can also display detailed 3D models of artefacts, reconstructed sites or entire virtual exhibitions. The system cooperates with multiple ARCO databases run by different museums.
Reflecting on the Creation of an Authentic Aural Experience in the Digital Songlines Game Engine: Part of a Contextualised Cultural Heritage Knowledge Toolkit
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Gibbons, C.; Wyeld, Theodor G.; Leavy, B.; Hills, J.; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
Digital Songlines is an Australasian Cooperative Research Centre for Interaction Design (ACID) project that is developing protocols, methodologies and toolkits to facilitate the collection, education and sharing of indigenous cultural heritage knowledge. The project explores the areas of effective recording, content management and virtual reality delivery capabilities that are culturally sensitive and involve the indigenous custodians, leaders and communities in remote areas of the Australian outback . It investigates how players in a serious gaming sense can experience Indigenous virtual heritage in a high fidelity fashion with culturally appropriate interface tools. This paper describes the circumstances that gave rise to the concept of a 3D ambient audio quilt, designed and implemented specifically for the Digital Songlines game-engine software. It discusses the importance of a site visit to a remote location in the north-east of the Australian outback, and how this prompted the discovery of a new method for creating an authentic aural experience in a 3DVE. This paper reports on completed and ongoing research in this area.
High Quality PTM Acquisition: Reflection Transformation Imaging for Large Objects
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Dellepiane, Matteo; Corsini, Massimiliano; Callieri, Marco; Scopigno, Roberto; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
Reflection Transformation Imaging has proved to be a powerful method to acquire and represent the 3D reflectance properties of an object, displaying them as a 2D image. Recently, Polynomial Texture Maps (PTM), which are relightable images created from a set of photos of the object taken under several different lighting conditions, have been used in Cultural Heritage field to document and virtually inspect several sets of small objects, such as cuneiform tablets and coins. In this paper we explore the possibility of producing high quality PTM of medium or large size objects. The aim is to analyze the acquisition pipeline, resolving all the issues related to the size of the object, and the conditions of acquisition. We will discuss issues regarding acquisition planning and data gathering. We also present a new tool to interactively browse high resolution PTMs. Moreover, we perform some quality assessment considerations, in order to study the degradation of quality of the PTMs respect to the number and position of lights used to acquire the PTM. The results of our acquisition system are presented with some examples of PTMs of large artifacts like a sarcophagus of 2.4 × 1 m size. PTM can be a good alternative to 3D scanning for capturing and representing certain class of objects, like bas-relieves, having lower costs in terms of acquisition equipment and data processing time.
Procedural 3D Reconstruction of Puuc Buildings in Xkipché
(The Eurographics Association, 2006) Müller, Pascal; Vereenooghe, Tijl; Wonka, Peter; Paap, Iken; Gool, Luc Van; Marinos Ioannides and David Arnold and Franco Niccolucci and Katerina Mania
This paper examines how architectural shape grammars can be used to procedurally generate 3D reconstructions of an archaeological site. The Puuc-style buildings found in Xkipché, Mexico, were used as a test-case. We first introduce the ancient Mayan site of Xkipché and give an overview of the building types as distinguished by the archaeologists, based on excavations and surveys of the building remains at the surface. Secondly, we outline the elements of the building design that are characteristic of the Puuc architecture. For the creation of the actual building geometries, we further determine the shape grammar rules for the different architectural parts. The modeling system can then be used to reconstruct the whole site based on various GIS (Geographical Information Systems) data given as input, such as building footprints, architectural information, and elevation. The results demonstrate that our modeling system is, in contrast to traditional 3D modeling, able to efficiently construct a large number of high quality geometric models at low cost.

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