VAST09: The 10th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Intelligent Cultural Heritage

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Artifacts Removal for Color Projection on 3D Models using Flash Light
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Dellepiane, Matteo; Callieri, Marco; Corsini, Massimiliano; Cignoni, Paolo; Scopigno, Roberto; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Abstract Lighting artifacts are one of the main issues in digital photography: complex light setups are needed to attenuate or remove them. Flash light is a very easy way to illuminate an object or an environment, but it is rarely considered in most of the Computer Graphics and Computer Vision applications. This is due to the big amount of artifacts introduced by this lighting, and to the difficulty in modeling its behavior. In this paper we present a simple method to use flash light in the context of color acquisition and mapping on 3D models. We propose a simple way to accurately estimate the flash position with respect to the camera, and we propose two automatic methods to detect and remove artifacts from a set of images which are registered to a 3D model. These methods are integrated in the context of a color mapping framework. The results show that it is possible to obtain high quality colored 3D models using flash light, which is the most simple illumination setup. This results are extremely important especially in the context of Cultural heritage, where the acquisition of color has often to be performed on site, without a specific lighting setup.
Optimized Image Sampling for View and Light Interpolation
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Gunawardane, Prabath; Wang, Oliver; Scher, Steven; Rickards, Ian; Davis, James; Malzbender, Tom; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Accurate virtual reconstruction of real world objects has long been a desired goal of image-based computer graphics. Usually this involves a lengthy capture process where an object is photographed from different viewpoints and illumination conditions. Using this collection of input images, we can now re-render the object from any viewing angle or lighting condition. However, acquiring a dense sampling of both the lighting and view space is time consuming. We carry out an analysis on this combined lighting and view space to find the optimal sampling given a restricted image budget. We also analyze the order of interpolation and find that improved results are obtained by interpolating first in viewpoint and second in lighting, the reverse of the usual order.
Managing Full-text Excavation Data with Semantic Tools
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Niccolucci, Franco; Felicetti, Achille; Hermon, Sorin; Nys, Karin; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
The paper deals with the management of archaeological data from excavations that cannot be easily processed using traditional forms and relational databases. It proposes a way of preserving the integrity of original information, including spatial relations. It demonstrates that also in this case CIDOC-CRM offers a valid schema that may be easily extended to incorporate geographic elements and relations. The system proposed is applied to a case-study concerning a Bronze Age 10 year-long excavation in Cyprus.
Structural and Lighting Models for the Minoan Cemetery at Phourni, Crete
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Papadopoulos, Constantinos; Earl, Graeme P.; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
The importance of death to the living is of interest to scholars in a range of disciplines. This paper describes a computer-based research project undertaken to create a series of alternative readings of the dataset from the Minoan cemetery at Phourni, Crete. This attempted to evaluate the tombs' architecture, use, visual impact, their capacity as well as the contribution of illumination to their interior, by using computer graphic methodologies. However, since the software deployed is primarily developed for use in other fields, there are certain limitations and difficulties for a virtual reconstruction of such an archaeological site, which can prevent production of a model that is accurate in every detail. This paper will discuss the results and these constraints. It will also address problems and innovative components, suggesting potential solutions and recommending additional work for the future.
Location-based Mobile Applications to Experience Collective Memory
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Linaza, Maria Teresa; Torre, Isabel; Cobos, Yolanda; Campos, Miren Koro; Peñalba, Mauro; Labandibar, A.; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Mobile learning technologies can provide an important added-value to cultural tourism by supporting visitors in their direct field experience. Providing engaging experiences is a key factor to the success of educational and entertainment products. We have researched how mobile gaming can help tourists and citizens enhancing their experience when interacting with Cultural Heritage. GeoJoko aims at designing and implementing context-based mobile games that will allow users to enhance their experience about Cultural Heritage and collective memory. The prototype includes location technologies that provide the location of each of the players in real time. Contents can be both streamed in real time over the infrastructure provided by the Public Administration within the "wireless cities" concept or downloaded to the mobile device of the player. This approach is innovative since it exploits the challenge of location-based serious games in order to implement a mobile learning service that supports the user understanding the elements of Cultural Heritage.
Analysis of Document Snippets as a Basis for Reconstruction
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Diem, Markus; Kleber, Florian; Sablatnig, Robert; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
In Archaeography, Philology, Forensics, and related research areas fragments of documents are very common. These fragments are the basis for the subsequent reconstruction process, where the goal is to make the original information spread over several fragments visible again. The fragments can originate from paper shredders, hand torn pages or in the case of ancient manuscripts this is due to bad storage conditions, or other destroying facts. So we can distinguish between an "on-purpose" destruction because the information contained on the pages should not be readable anymore or a "time-induced" destruction for ancient documents which is unintentional. Nevertheless the reconstruction of document fragments is an interesting research question. This paper shows a preliminary step for the page reconstruction namely the automatic orientation of snippets in order to eliminate the rotation in the later reconstruction (puzzling) process. Furthermore features like paper color and the color of the inks used are analyzed as a pre-classification step to find matching snippets. In the case of "on-purpose" destruction there is no a-priori information on which fragment belongs to which page which makes a reconstruction based on thousands of fragments from unknown sources difficult since the combinatorial effort explodes (NP-hardness). Preliminary results on orientation and color segmentation are presented and show that these pre-processing steps can be performed reliably and can be used for reconstruction and snippet classification.
Reconstruction of Large Cultural Heritage Sites from Archived Maps
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Laycock, Robert G.; Laycock, Stephen D.; Day, Andrew M.; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Reconstructions of large cultural heritage sites, at multiple time periods, facilitate public awareness, enable the visualisation of regeneration proposals, and assist archaeologists in establishing the validity of a particular hypothesis within context. This paper focuses on the reconstruction of sites that no longer exist, where archived cartography and archaeologist's sketches provide an invaluable resource conveying the layout of an area. Whilst three-dimensional models are used in a broad range of applications their construction typically involves a labour intensive process and this paper presents a set of techniques to aid the reconstruction of environments from maps. In particular, the approach considers that an environment will exhibit a substantial amount of similarity, which is exploited to reduce the modelling time. The concept of similarity permits a dominant set of k building footprints to be identified from a map. A set of models representing the k dominant footprints are created and, based upon both the image based and geometry based metrics discussed in this paper, are aligned to the closest matching footprint in the archived map. Any building that is not sufficiently close to any of the k dominant footprints is labelled as being visually distinct and requires further modelling. To evaluate the technique a reconstruction of 19th Century Koblenz is undertaken, where 2300 building footprints are extracted, classified and aligned to one of 51 dominant building footprints in under fifteen minutes.
Interactive Domitilla Catacomb Exploration
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Scheiblauer, Claus; Zimmermann, N.; Wimmer, Michael; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
In this paper we present an approach for interactive visualization and manipulation of huge point clouds. Archaeological monuments like the Domitilla Catacomb in Rome lead to data sets surpassing 1 Billion (109) points or 20GB of storage space, which makes standard techniques like mesh conversion or in-core point-based rendering infeasible. Our system uses an out-of-core octree structure and a number of interactive editing tools to enable many archaeological tasks to be carried out on the whole point cloud that would not be possible using traditional methods. We allow fast selection, insertion and deletion of points, and through out-of-core rendering, the frame rate always stays above 20 frames per second on a fast workstation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first interactive visualization of the complete data set of a large subterranean catacomb, and we show that direct point cloud visualization on the complete data set of a scan campaign is an important tool in archaeological practice.
Interactive Remote Exploration of Massive Cityscapes
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Benedetto, Marco Di; Cignoni, Paolo; Ganovelli, Fabio; Gobbetti, Enrico; Marton, Fabio; Scopigno, Roberto; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
We focus on developing a simple and efficient unified level-of-detail structure for networked urban model viewers. At the core of our approach is a revisitation of the BlockMap [CDG*07] data structure, originally introduced for encoding coarse representations of blocks of buildings to be used as direction-independent impostors when rendering far-away city blocks. The contribution of this paper is manifold: we extend the BlockMap representation to support sloped surfaces and input-sensitive sampling of color; we introduce a novel sampling strategy for building accurate BlockMaps; we show that BlockMaps can be used as a versatile and robust way to parameterize the visible surface of a highly complex model; we improve the expressiveness of urban models rendering by integrating an ambient occlusion term in the representation and describe an efficient method for computing it; we illustrate the design and implementation of a urban models streaming and visualization system and demonstrate its efficiency when browsing large city models in a limited bandwidth setting.
Recreating Early Islamic Glass Lamp Lighting
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Jr., Joseph T. Kider; Fletcher, Rebecca L.; Yu, Nancy; Holod, Renata; Chalmers, Alan; Badler, Norman I.; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Early Islamic light sources are not simple, static, uniform points, and the fixtures themselves are often combinations of glass, water, fuel and flame. Various physically based renderers such as Radiance are widely used for modeling ancient architectural scenes; however they rarely capture the true ambiance of the environment due to subtle lighting effects. Specifically, these renderers often fail to correctly model complex caustics produced by glass fixtures, water level, and fuel sources.While the original fixtures of the 8th through 10th century Mosque of Cordoba in Spain have not survived, we have applied information gathered from earlier and contemporary sites and artifacts, including those from Byzantium, to assume that it was illuminated by either single jar lamps or supported by polycandela that cast unique downward caustic lighting patterns which helped individuals to navigate and to read. To re-synthesize such lighting, we gathered experimental archaeological data and investigated and validated how various water levels and glass fixture shapes, likely used during early Islamic times, changed the overall light patterns and downward caustics. In this paper, we propose a technique called Caustic Cones, a novel data-driven method to "shape" the light emanating from the lamps to better recreate the downward lighting without resorting to computationally expensive photon mapping renderers.Additionally, we demonstrate on a rendering of the Mosque of Cordoba how our approach greatly benefits archaeologists and architectural historians by providing a more authentic visual simulation of early Islamic glass lamp lighting.
A Point-based System for Local and Remote Exploration of Dense 3D Scanned Models
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Bettio, Fabio; Gobbetti, Enrico; Marton, Fabio; Tinti, Alex; Merella, Emilio; Combet, Roberto; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
We present a client-server framework for network distribution and real-time point-based rendering of large 3D models on commodity graphics platforms. Model inspection, based on a one-touch interface, is enriched by a bidirectional hyperlink system which provides access to multiple layers of multimedia contents linking different parts of the 3D model many information sources. In addition to view and light control, users can perform simple 3D operations like angle, distance and area measurements on the 3D model. An authoring tool derived from the basic client allows users to add multimedia content to the model description. Our rendering method is based on a coarse grained multiresolution structure, where each node contains thousands of point samples. At runtime, a view-dependent refinement process incrementally updates the current GPU-cached model representation from local or remote out-of-core data. Vertex and fragment shaders are used for high quality elliptical sample drawing and a variety of shading effects. The system is demonstrated with examples that range from documentation and inspection of small artifacts to exploration of large sites, in both a museum and a large scale distribution setting.
Pushing Time-of-Flight Scanners to the Limit
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Callieri, Marco; Cignoni, Paolo; Dellepiane, Matteo; Scopigno, Roberto; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
The paper describes a pipeline for 3D scanning acquisition and processing that allow to exploit the utmost precision and quality out of ToF scanners. The proposed approach capitalize on the knowledge of the distribution of the noise to apply sophisticated fairing techniques for cleaning up the data. Leveraging on the very dense sampling of this kind of scanners we show that is possible to attain high accuracy. We present a practical application of the proposed approach for the scanning of a large (5mt) statue with millimetric precision.
Publishing 3D Content as PDF in Cultural Heritage
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Strobl, Martin; Berndt, René; Settgast, Volker; Havemann, Sven; Fellner, Dieter W.; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Sharing 3D models with embedded annotations and additional information in a generally accessible way still is a major challange. Using 3D technology must become much easier, in particular in areas such as Cultural Heritage, where archeologists, art historians, and museum curators rely on robust, easy to use solutions. Sustainable exchange standards are vital since unlike in industry, no sophisticated PLM or PDM solutions are common in CH. To solve this problem we have examined the PDF file format and developed concepts and software for the exchange of annotated 3D models in a way that is not just comfortable but also sustainable. We show typical use cases for authoring and using PDF documents containing annotated 3D geometry. The resulting workflow is efficient and suitable for experienced users as well as for users working only with standard word processing tools and e-mail clients (plus, currently, Acrobat Pro Extended).
Augmented Real-Time Virtual Environment of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Mostar
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Ramic-Brkic, Belma; Karkin, Zana; Sadzak, Aida; Selimovic, Dino; Rizvic, Selma; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Digital storytelling significantly improves the immersion of the users into virtual environments. The perception of the information contained in the digital story is better perceived if the story is told by a real avatar, rather than the animated character. The paper describes how we improved the approach of inserting the real avatar recorded against a green screen using a sequence of images with an alpha channel in an X3D real time virtual environment.
Parsing Architecture within Plan Drawings with Application to Medieval Castles and Fortresses
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Willis, Andrew; Sui, Yunfeng; Galor, Katharina; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Plan drawings are graphical documents critical to the documentation of architectural features at historic sites. These drawings include important geometric information such as the location, shape, and size of architectural features, which, for decaying or collapsed structures, may be the only existing records of the intact structure. This paper discusses an algorithm that estimates the geometry and semantic interpretation of architectural structures from a plan drawing. The estimated values are used to automatically generate a 3D structure using the estimated semantic labels of structural elements in the plan drawing. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by parsing several plan drawings of medieval castles and fortresses and generating 3D reconstructions of these structures and detail typical circumstances that prevent the system from generating a valid reconstruction. Since the 3D model is derived from plan drawings where the architectural contour is well-defined, the approach automatically provides near-pixel level accuracy at all locations which is very difficult and time-consuming to guarantee when manually constructing 3D models from the same drawing. Hence, these automatically-produced models can provide unprecedented accuracy to the in-situ remains not feasible with conventional manual model-building techniques. While this article represents initial work on this topic with limited scope (castles/fortresses), we envision that subsequent enhancements to this method will be a valuable tool for efficiently generating accurate 3D models for many different historic structures.
Last House on the Hill: Digitally Remediating Data and Media for Preservation and Access
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Ashley, Michael; Tringham, Ruth; Perlingieri, Cinzia; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
The idea of embedding, interweaving, entangling and otherwise linking the data and media from archaeological excavations with their interpretation and meaningful presentation in an open access sharable platform has long been an ambition of those of us working in the digital documentation of archaeological research and the public presentation of cultural heritage. Formidable barriers still exist to making it possible for projects to achieve these aims, ranging from intellectual property concerns to providing commitments to the long-term sustainability of the digital content. Working in collaboration with the contributors, archaeological project managers, publishers and information technologists, we devised a content licensing agreement that makes it possible for the primary research media and data, combined with the monograph texts, to be freely and openly accessible in perpetuity. The aim of our project, Last House on the Hill (LHotH), is to holistically reconstitute the rich multimedia and primary research data with the impressive texts of the monograph, the printed final report of the Berkeley Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük (BACH) project, in which a team from UC Berkeley excavated a group of Neolithic 9000-year old buildings at this famous cultural heritage location in Central Anatolia, Turkey. The Last House on the Hill brings together the published text, complete project database (including all media formats such as photographs, videos, maps, line drawings), related websites, data and media outside the direct domain of the BACH project, and recontextualised presentations of the data as remixes, movies, and other interpretive works by BACH team members and many others. We are achieving this through an event-centered, CIDOC-CRM compatible implementation ontology, expressed with the open source Omeka web-publishing platform, providing open access, transparency and open-endedness to what is normally the closed and final process of monograph publication. This paper describes the strategy, goals, architecture and implementation for the project, emphasizing the novel and innovative approaches that were required to make the project successful.
Serious Gaming with VENUS-PD: A Virtual Submarine for Accessing Europe's Sunken Archaeological Treasures
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Chapman, Paul Michael; Bale, Kim; Drap, Pierre; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Computer graphics have been used successfully for a number of years to help improve our understanding of both offshore marine activities and land based archaeological sites. 'Marine visualization' has traditionally been dominated by the oil and gas industries, focusing on activities such as pipeline and debris clear-up operations, with limited work on underwater archaeological visualization. This paper introduces the reader to a freely available public dissemination tool, VENUS-PD (Virtual Exploration of Underwater Sites Public Demonstrator). VENUSPD has been developed specifically to allow members of the general public to experience virtual submersible dives down to accurate, 3D archaeological sites. VENUS-PD forms part of the public dissemination activities related to VENUS, a multidisciplinary project funded by the European Commission that focuses on procedures for surveying and visualizing maritime archaeological sites.
The Virtual Reconstruction and Daylight Illumination of the Panagia Angeloktisti
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Happa, Jassim; Artusi, Alessandro; Dubla, Piotr; Bashford-Rogers, Tom; Debattista, Kurt; Hulusic, Vedad; Chalmers, Alan; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
High-fidelity virtual reconstructions can be used as accurate 3D representations of historical environments. After modelling the site to high precision, physically-based and historically correct light models must be implemented to complete an authentic visualisation. Sunlight has a major visual impact on a site; from directly lit areas to sections in deep shadow. The scene illumination also changes substantially at different times of the day. In this paper we present a virtual reconstruction of the Panagia Angeloktisti; a Byzantine church on Cyprus. We investigate lighting simulations of the church at different times of the day, making use of Image-Based Lighting, using High Dynamic Range Environment Maps of photographs and interpolated spectrophotometer data collected on site. Furthermore, the paper also explores the benefits and disadvantages of employing unbiased rendering methods such as Path Tracing and Metropolis Light Transport for cultural heritage applications.
Interaction with Replicas of Small Pieces: Using Complementary Technologies to Maximize Visitors' Experience
(The Eurographics Association, 2009) Figueroa, Pablo; Londoño, Eduardo; Boulanger, Pierre; Prieto, Flavio; Coral, Mauricio; Borda, Juan; Vega, Felipe; Restrepo, Diego; Kurt Debattista and Cinzia Perlingieri and Denis Pitzalis and Sandro Spina
Current technologies for digitizing artifacts allow us to create compelling virtual installations, in which visitors learn about them through playing and exploring virtual proxies. However, different technologies enhance certain types of information and preclude other usages. In this paper, we show how one can create complementary installations in order to enhance the use of available information of small artifacts. Our case study is a set of small gold artifacts at the Gold Museum in Bogota, Colombia. We collected from each piece high-resolution 3D scans at different levels of detail, high resolution images, sound, text, and contextual images. With this information, we created a traditional multimedia installation for the computer room at the Museum, a web site for remote visitors through the Internet, and finally a novel haptic and stereo display interface that allows visitors to touch, observe in stereo, locate themselves inside the Museum, and hear the sound of an artifact when it is struck with a virtual stylus. In this paper, we show how one can develop these experiences and how they complement each other. We will also present an early evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses.

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