VAST05: The 6th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Intelligent Cultural Heritage

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Rapid Synchronous Acquisition of Geometry and Appearance of Cultural Heritage Artefacts

Müller, Gero
Bendels, Gerhard H.
Klein, Reinhard

Passive reconstruction of high quality textured 3D models of works of art

Brusco, N.
Ballan, L.
Cortelazzo, G. M.

Detail-Preserving Surface Inpainting

Bendels, G. H.
Schnabel, R.
Klein, R.

Reflection Transformation Imaging and Virtual Representations of Coins from the Hospice of the Grand St. Bernard

Mudge, Mark
Voutaz, Jean-Pierre
Schroer, Carla
Lum, Marlin

Viewpoint quality and scene understanding

Sokolov, Dmitry
Plemenos, Dimitri

3D Modeling for Non-Expert Users with the Castle Construction Kit v0.5

Gerth, Björn
Berndt, René
Havemann, Sven
Fellner, Dieter W.

3D Face Modeling from Ancient Kabuki Drawings

Xu, Weiwei
Akama, Ryo
Tanaka, Hiromi T.

Participating Media for High-Fidelity Cultural Heritage

Sundstedt, Veronica
Gutierrez, Diego
Gomez, Fermin
Chalmers, Alan

Real-time Shader Rendering for Crowds in Virtual Heritage

Ciechomski, Pablo de Heras
Schertenleib, Sébastien
Maïm, Jonathan
Maupu, Damien
Thalmann, Daniel

Rapid Visualization of Large Point-Based Surfaces

Boubekeur, Tamy
Duguet, Florent
Schlick, Christophe

Visualizing Temporal Uncertainty in 3D Virtual Reconstructions

Zuk, T.
Carpendale, S.
Glanzman, W. D.

Investigating the Structural Validity of Virtual Reconstructions of Prehistoric Maltese Temples

Chalmers, A.
Debattista, K.

Interface Evaluation for Cultural Heritage Applications: the case of FERRUM exhibition

Alzua-Sorzabal, A.
Linaza, M. T.
Abad, M.
Arretxea, L.
Susperregui, A.

A Texture Based Approach to Reconstruction of Archaeological Finds

Sagiroglu, M. S.
Erçil, A.

Visitors' Evaluations of ICTs Used in Cultural Heritage

Owen, Ruth
Buhalis, Dimitrios
Pletinckx, Daniël

Exploring Digitized Artworks by Pointing Posture Recognition

Malerczyk, C.
Dähne, P.
Schnaider, M.

Digital Restoration of Medieval Tapestries

Schär, Sonja
Bieri, Hanspeter
Jiang, Xiaoyi


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Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 17 of 17
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    Rapid Synchronous Acquisition of Geometry and Appearance of Cultural Heritage Artefacts
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Müller, Gero; Bendels, Gerhard H.; Klein, Reinhard; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    In order to produce visually appealing digital models of cultural heritage artefacts, a meticulous reconstruction of the 3D geometry alone is often not sufficient, as colour and reflectance information give essential clues of the object s material. Standard texturing methods are often only able to overcome this fact under strict material and lighting condition limitations. The realistic reconstruction of complex yet frequently encountered materials such as fabric, leather, wood or metal is still a challenge. In this paper, we describe a novel system to acquire the 3Dgeometry of an object using its visual hull, recorded in multiple 2D images with a multi-camera array. At the same time, the material properties of the object are measured into Bidirectional Texture Functions (BTF), that faithfully capture the mesostructure of the surface and reconstruct the look-and-feel of its material. The high rendering fidelity of the acquired BTF texture data with respect to reflectance and self-shadowing also alleviates the limited precision of the visual hull approach for 3D geometry acquisition.
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    Passive reconstruction of high quality textured 3D models of works of art
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Brusco, N.; Ballan, L.; Cortelazzo, G. M.; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    A wide-spread use of 3D models in cultural heritage application requires low cost equipment and simple modeling procedures. In this context, passive 3D reconstruction methods allow to build 3D models from a set of calibrated cameras, without the need of expensive machinery. Unfortunately the surfaces characteristics often lead to bad quality reconstructions. Recent efforts attempt to combine together information from different passive methods in order to improve the overall quality of the result. The combination of stereo matching and silhouette information has recently received considerable attention. Typically the major contribution to the appearance of the model comes from texture, rather than from geometry. The straightforward application of the photographs over the model can lead to artifacts, due to errors in 3D reconstructions, which must be minimized. This work, building on recent results, proposes a variation of an algorithm for 3D geometry recovery from stereo and silhouette information within a classical deformable model framework, which improves the quality of the shape. In order to avoid visible texture artifacts, it also proposes a new algorithm for texture synthesis based on wavelet decomposition. Experimental verification shows the effectiveness of the proposed solution with respect to robustness, computational speed and quality of the final result.
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    Detail-Preserving Surface Inpainting
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Bendels, G. H.; Schnabel, R.; Klein, R.; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Inpainting is a well-known technique in the context of image and art restoration, where paint losses are filled up to the level of the surrounding paint and then coloured to match. Analogue tasks can be found in 3D geometry processing, as digital representations of real-world objects often contain holes, due to hindrances during data acquisition or as a consequence of interactive modelling operations. In this paper we present a novel approach to automatically fill-in holes in structured surfaces where smooth hole filling is not sufficient. Previous approaches inspired by texture synthesis algorithms require specific spatial structures to identify holes and possible candidate fragments to be copied to defective regions. Consequently, the results depend heavily on the choice and location of these auxiliary structures, such that for instance symmetries are not reconstructed faithfully. In contrast, our approach is based on local neighbourhoods and therefore insensitive with respect to similarity transformations.We use so-called guidance surfaces to guide and prioritise the atomic filling operations, such that even non-trivial and larger holes can be filled consistently. The guidance surfaces are automatically computed and iteratively updated during the filling process, but can also incorporate any additional information about the surface, if available.
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    Reflection Transformation Imaging and Virtual Representations of Coins from the Hospice of the Grand St. Bernard
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Mudge, Mark; Voutaz, Jean-Pierre; Schroer, Carla; Lum, Marlin; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Reflection transformation imaging offers a powerful new method of documenting and communicating numismatic cultural heritage information. The challenges of documenting numismatic material will be examined along with the limitations of traditional documentary techniques. Previous uses of structured light scanning and PTMs in numismatic documentation are reviewed and evaluated. A novel, low cost method for capturing PTMs at remote locations and subsequent data processing operations is described. Reflection transformation imaging is shown to capture more complete documentation than traditional photographic methods and communicate this information with ease through digital media. The advantages of interactive relighting of numismatic PTM images in conjunction with enhancement operations are explored along with the potential of informed choice of the most information rich illumination directions. Advantages of joint capture of structured light and PTMs are examined including the inherent registration of range and normal data, using range and normal information together to improve 3D position accuracy, and the enhanced evidentiary reliability that results.
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    Viewpoint quality and scene understanding
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Sokolov, Dmitry; Plemenos, Dimitri; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Virtual worlds exploration techniques become nowadays more and more important. The methods are used in wide variety of domains from graph drawing to robot motion. This paper is dedicated to virtual world exploration techniques which have to help a human being to understand a 3d scene. Improved methods of viewpoint quality estimation are presented in the paper. Using these methods, a real-time technique allowing to choose a good viewpoint for a virtual scene is also proposed.
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    3D Modeling for Non-Expert Users with the Castle Construction Kit v0.5
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Gerth, Björn; Berndt, René; Havemann, Sven; Fellner, Dieter W.; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    We present first results of a system for the ergonomic and economic production of three-dimensional interactive illustrations by non-expert users like average CH professionals. For this purpose we enter the realm of domaindependent interactive modeling tools, in this case exemplified with the domain of medieval castles. Special emphasis is laid on creating generic modeling tools that increase the usability with a unified 3D user interface, as well as the efficiency of tool generation. On the technical level our system innovates by combining two powerful but previously separate approaches, the Generative Modeling Language (GML) and the OpenSG scene graph engine.
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    3D Face Modeling from Ancient Kabuki Drawings
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Xu, Weiwei; Akama, Ryo; Tanaka, Hiromi T.; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    In this paper, we describe a system to reconstruct 3D face model from ancient Japanese Kabuki drawings. Because of the limitation of input, we deform the face model, which is compatible with MPEG-4 face animation standard, according to ancient drawings to get the 3D geometry, and then a texture mapping algorithm is used to map Kabuki make-up onto the reconstructed 3D face model. The deformation and texture mapping algorithms are based on multi-level radial basis function network, which is an extension of original radial basis function to achieve the smoothness and precision simultaneously. Experimental results show that the multilevel RBF method can solve the deformation and texture mapping problems quite well.
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    Participating Media for High-Fidelity Cultural Heritage
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Sundstedt, Veronica; Gutierrez, Diego; Gomez, Fermin; Chalmers, Alan; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Computer graphics, and in particular high-fidelity rendering, make it possible to recreate cultural heritage on a computer, including a precise lighting simulation. Achieving maximum accuracy is of the highest importance when investigating how a site might have appeared in the past. Failure to use such high fidelity means there is a very real danger of misrepresenting the past. Although we can accurately simulate the propagation of light in the environment, little work has been undertaken into the effect that light scattering due to participating media has on the perception of the site. In this paper we investigate how the appearance of the interior of the ancient Egyptian Temple of Kalabsha is affected when including dust in the simulation. Given that the sun was a key feature of Egyptian religion, the correct perception of the sun rays entering the temple and being scattered by the dust may be important for a better comprehension of that culture.
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    Real-time Shader Rendering for Crowds in Virtual Heritage
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Ciechomski, Pablo de Heras; Schertenleib, Sébastien; Maïm, Jonathan; Maupu, Damien; Thalmann, Daniel; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    We present a method of fully dynamically rendered virtual humans with variety in color, animation and appearance. This is achieved by using vertex and fragment shaders programmed in the OpenGL shading language (GLSL). We then compare our results with a fixed function pipeline based approach. We also show a color variety creation GUI using HSB color space restriction. An improved version of the LOD pipeline for our virtual characters is presented. With these new techniques, we are able to use a full dynamic animation range in the crowd populating the Aphrodisias odeon (which is part of the ERATO project), i.e., a greater repertoire of animations, smooth transitions and more variety and speed. We show how a multi-view of the rendering data can ensure good batching of rendering primitives and comfortable constant time access.
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    Rapid Visualization of Large Point-Based Surfaces
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Boubekeur, Tamy; Duguet, Florent; Schlick, Christophe; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Point-Based Surfaces can be directly generated by 3D scanners and avoid the generation and storage of an explicit topology for a sampled geometry, which saves time and storage space for very dense and large objects, such as scanned statues and other archaeological artefacts [DDGM]. We propose a fast processing pipeline of large point-based surfaces for real-time, appearance preserving, polygonal rendering. Our goal is to reduce the time needed between a point set made of hundred of millions samples and a high resolution visualization taking benefit of modern graphics hardware, tuned for normal mapping of polygons. Our approach starts by an out-of-core generation of a coarse local triangulation of the original model. The resulting coarse mesh is enriched by applying a set of maps which capture the high frequency features of the original data set. We choose as an example the normal component of samples for these maps, since normal maps provide efficiently an accurate local illumination. But our approach is also suitable for other point attributes such as color or position (displacement map). These maps come also from an out-of-core process, using the complete input data in a streaming process. Sampling issues of the maps are addressed using an efficient diffusion algorithm in 2D. Our main contribution is to directly handle such large unorganized point clouds through this two pass algorithm, without the time-consuming meshing or parameterization step, required by current state-of-the-art high resolution visualization methods. One of the main advantages is to express most of the fine features present in the original large point clouds as textures in the huge texture memory usually provided by graphics devices, using only a lazy local parameterization. Our technique comes as a complementary tool to high-quality, but costly, out-of-core visualization systems. Direct applications are: interactive preview at high screen resolution of very detailed scanned objects such as scanned statues, inclusion of large point clouds in usual polygonal 3D engines and 3D databases browsing.
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    Visualizing Temporal Uncertainty in 3D Virtual Reconstructions
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Zuk, T.; Carpendale, S.; Glanzman, W. D.; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Uncertainty in various forms is prevalent throughout Archaeology. With archaeological site data in particular, the dating regularly has significant uncertainty. In this paper we present an application that enables integrating and visualizing the temporal uncertainty for multiple 3D archaeological data sets with different dating. We introduce a temporal time window for dealing with the uncertainty and review various visual cues appropriate for revealing the uncertainty within the time window. The interactive animation of the time window allows a unique exploration of the temporal uncertainty.
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    Investigating the Structural Validity of Virtual Reconstructions of Prehistoric Maltese Temples
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Chalmers, A.; Debattista, K.; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    The prehistoric temples found on the Maltese islands, dated from 3600 - 2500 BC, are unique examples of truly megalithic complexes. Although the temples can still be viewed today, they are unroofed. One of the major questions that still has to be answered is: Were the temples roofed, and if so with what? The key evidence for the presence of roofs is the hypogeum temple at Hal Saflieni, found in 1902, which appears to be an imitation of the above ground temples and the discovery, at Mgarr, of a contemporary miniature model in limestone with a roof. Since then, Ceschi in 1939 and more recently Piovanelli in 1988 have proposed that the temples were roofed with Globerigerina limestone slabs. Although convincingly illustrated, neither of these "reconstructions" has been tested for real stability and strength. In this paper we describe a detailed investigation of the reconstructions of Ceschi and Piovanelli. We use computer graphics and structural engineering techniques, based on the actual measured strength of Globerigerina limestone, to show whether in fact these reconstructions are indeed valid.
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    Interface Evaluation for Cultural Heritage Applications: the case of FERRUM exhibition
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Alzua-Sorzabal, A.; Linaza, M. T.; Abad, M.; Arretxea, L.; Susperregui, A.; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Intuitive access to information in real environments is a challenge for Information Society Technologies. Having this in mind, a new device for Mixed Reality applications called Virtual Showcase has been developed. It has been conceived to be used in museums and exhibitions, due to its compatibility with traditional museum showcases, offering additional information to the public by means of a simple, direct and intuitive interface. This paper presents the real implementation and usability evaluation of a Virtual Showcase passive-stereo prototype exhibited in a museum for three months. Some results concerning the evaluation process have also been included. Although the technology seems to be promising, implementation aspects such as size should be improved.
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    A Texture Based Approach to Reconstruction of Archaeological Finds
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Sagiroglu, M. S.; Erçil, A.; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Reconstruction of archaeological finds from fragments, is a tedious task requiring many hours of work from the archaeologists and restoration personnel. In this paper we present a framework for the full reconstruction of the original objects using texture and surface design information on the sherd. The texture of a band outside the border of pieces is predicted by inpainting and texture synthesis methods. The confidence of this process is also defined. Feature values are derived from these original and predicted images of pieces. A combination of the feature and confidence values is used to generate an affinity measure of corresponding pieces. The optimization of total affinity gives the best assembly of the piece. Experimental results are presented on real and artificial data.
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    Visitors' Evaluations of ICTs Used in Cultural Heritage
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Owen, Ruth; Buhalis, Dimitrios; Pletinckx, Daniël; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Technology that serves to enhance the visitors experience is gradually becoming more commonplace at Cultural Heritage (CH) sites. However ICT is not usually the CH professional s area of expertise and they have to make choices from a bewildering array of technology, often without fully understanding their visitors ICT needs. This research aims to alleviate the situation by gathering visitors evaluations of technologies that are frequently used at CH sites along with advanced applications, to identify which technologies visitors use and what they need. The research took place in five CH attractions in the UK and incorporates the results of one hundred and sixty four interviews with visitors. Both CH professionals and technology developers can use this research to gain insights into the use of ICT applications at sites and to identify emerging needs in the marketplace. The findings of this research indicate that ICTs in use at the CH sites involved were underutilised. Despite this, respondents strongly supported the advanced applications which included: Augmented Reality; an Interactive Museum Installation; a Mobile Media Guide and an Avatar Application. This is because they could see how they would benefit. This paper concludes that the use of ICT was supported by visitors to some degree. However in order to encourage use, the benefits must be clearly communicated to visitors.
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    Exploring Digitized Artworks by Pointing Posture Recognition
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Malerczyk, C.; Dähne, P.; Schnaider, M.; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    This paper describes a Mixed Reality-supported interaction system to explore digitized artworks like twodimensional paintings and three-dimensional sculptures. Using an easy and intuitive pointing gesture recognition system, the user is able to interact directly with the artworks, which leads to a deeper involvement with and understanding of the art pieces. The usage of a video-based gesture tracking system ensures seamless integration of Mixed Reality technologies into a traditional museum's environment. Furthermore, it addresses even technically unversed users since no additional physical devices are needed and even no training phase is necessary for the interaction.
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    Digital Restoration of Medieval Tapestries
    (The Eurographics Association, 2005) Schär, Sonja; Bieri, Hanspeter; Jiang, Xiaoyi; Mark Mudge and Nick Ryan and Roberto Scopigno
    Medieval Burgundian tapestries belong to the most valuable treasures of historical museums, in particular of the Bern Historical Museum. Many of them are well preserved, but much of their color is highly faded. Thus their today s appearance is very different from the original one. This paper deals with the digital restoration of the appearance of such tapestries. Two methods are developed and examined, one using the back side of the tapestry, the other one using color clustering. Our main criteria are a convincing approximation of the expected appearance and - due to the large size of many of the tapestries - a high degree of automation.