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Papers by Bruno Fanini

2018 3rd Digital Heritage International Congress (DigitalHERITAGE) held jointly with 2018 24th International Conference on Virtual Systems & Multimedia (VSMM 2018), 2018

Recording immersive VR sessions performed in virtual environments through HMDs - during public ex... more Recording immersive VR sessions performed in virtual environments through HMDs - during public exhibits or permanent installations in a museum - may offer valuable insights on visitors propensities, physical workload, spatial affordances, focus and locomotion data. A first challenge raises from storage, where large amount of casual visitors need to be recorded on a daily basis, analyzed and possibly streamed to remote professionals. For each VR session in fact, size of collected dataset may grow very quickly. Another issue is related to the visual inspection of such data, providing a team of experts tools that allow to revisit the whole history of a single or multiple sessions. We propose, formalize and discuss image-based encoding techniques and quantized signals for compact and light "musical scores" that allow both common offline 2D image processing and interactive manipulation on modern desktop and mobile GPUs. We describe compact quantization methods and flexible volumetric observers, including location ignition and signatures. The paper discusses obtained results for different case studies where we employed such encodings, including desktop VR, WebVR and streaming of recorded sessions from cheap hardware.

ATON 3.0 framework (CNR ISPC) allows to create scalable, collaborative and cross-device... more ATON 3.0 framework (CNR ISPC) allows to create scalable, collaborative and cross-device Web3D/WebXR apps (mobile, desktop and immersive VR) targeting Cultural Heritage, exploiting modern web standards without any installation required for final users

Archaeological field work is a complex process in which scientific resources and competences are ... more Archaeological field work is a complex process in which scientific resources and competences are allocated for long periods of time, sometimes years. However, the generated data is often either not available in digital form, stuck in data silos or not public. For this reason, the sustainability of archaeological research would benefit immensely from optimized and effective systems of digital documentation, analysis and visualisation of archaeological sites as well as from public, standardised data. This workshop presents an archaeological case study of an actual transition of archaeological survey data from data silos to the cloud. Based on survey data of the Roman theatre in Catania, we show how the data can be visualized as an interactive virtual reconstruction of the theatre. We show how the FAIR principles and semantic modelling can be applied to archaeological data in practice by standardizing and connecting data and systems from different sources. The abse...

This is the first deliverable of the Task 4.6 "Semantic annotation of Heritage Science Data&... more This is the first deliverable of the Task 4.6 "Semantic annotation of Heritage Science Data" within the WP4 "Innovations in Data Production". This task focuses on the integration of an innovative web service for the reality-based 3D annotation of heritage artefacts within the SSHOC infrastructure. Designed within the general issue of the daily production of semantic-aware digital data for heritage sciences, the aïoli platform represents a relevant framework for the massive and large-scale collaborative documentation of cultural heritage artefacts. This deliverable presents the specification of the new features to be implemented into the platform within the framework of the SSHOC project. These specifications concern the technical robustness of the platform, the collaboration framework, the managing of controlled vocabularies, the compatibility with CIDOC- CRM, as well as the interlinking with other tools for visualising hypothetical reconstruction of archaeologic...

The book of abstracts of ArcheoFOSS International Conference, 14th edition 2020.

In SSHOC Task 5.7 (Open Linked Data. Archaeology Case Study), a virtual reconstruction of the Rom... more In SSHOC Task 5.7 (Open Linked Data. Archaeology Case Study), a virtual reconstruction of the Roman theatre in Catania will be created as an example of an actual transition of archaeological data to the cloud, i.e. from data silos on individual computers to webservices. The case study is based on a unified workflow that starts with the archaeological documentation and results in a virtual reconstruction. With this workflow, data manually acquired during an excavation and traditionally stored on paper can now be stored in the cloud and used for 3D visualisations of the site. The workflow uses tools that are being developed by the task partners, such as idai.field for exacavation documentation and the Extended Matrix for 3D reconstruction. The task partners will document the existing systems with their individual workflows and apply them to existing as well as newly created data on the Roman theatre. They will then work on combining these tools with the aim of creating an overarching ...

Revive the Past, 2012

This paper will deal with a new approach for the reconstruction of archaeological urban contexts ... more This paper will deal with a new approach for the reconstruction of archaeological urban contexts and its implementation on the web. Starting from archaeological information, geospatial and topographic data, we adopted a successful workflow from data generation to online real-time visualization and interactive content exploration. The process involves semi-automatic steps to provide a multidisciplinary team with a set of tools aimed at the final publication of massive landscape reconstructions and simulated environments. Optimized data and a well-structured 3D world have the primary goal of web accessibility and a fulfilling user experience through the exploration of such large datasets, especially in a context of virtual archaeology. Our main aim is to recreate entire ancient urban contexts and landscapes and make them accessible via the web. To achieve this goal, we successfully used a procedural approach, with the software CityEngine, for low poly modelling of a huge number of buildings. In fact, this method is specifically designed to create complex urban environments. It is based on L-systems to model cities which allow the user to completely control all entities in the hierarchy of the scene. In this way we can easily change the appearances and the typologies of the building by introducing some modifications in the scripts to easily simulate the distribution and randomness of the elements. With real-time applications, dealing with large reconstructed cities and virtual landscapes is always a challenge. The rendering of large numbers of buildings, architectural elements and objects can be addressed with level-of-detail techniques, scene-graph algorithms and spatial partitioning of the virtual world. This allows a scalable approach in different scenarios with paging support for huge databases, locally or remotely located. The solid hierarchical structure generated from modules developed on top of an opensource OpenSceneGraph framework, allows for a clean and efficient load balance among the virtual world data. This has the effect of maintaining a light footprint on client system resources and 3D rendering applications, especially in dealing with the goal of web transfer minimization through a 3D-enabled browser. We adopted this approach in a project of reconstruction and enhancement of archaeological sites of Montegrotto City entitled: "Il termalismo in età romana tra conoscenza e valorizzazione" coordinated by University of Padova. Initial data, method and software used, will be shown in the paper.

2018 3rd Digital Heritage International Congress (DigitalHERITAGE) held jointly with 2018 24th International Conference on Virtual Systems & Multimedia (VSMM 2018), 2018

In 2016, during the preparation of a rock musical in Rome about the life of the Roman emperor Ner... more In 2016, during the preparation of a rock musical in Rome about the life of the Roman emperor Nero, CNR ITABC became involved in the proposal of a Virtual Museum dedicated to an area of the Palatine hill (the so-called Barberini Vineyard), facing the Colosseum, where the stage of the show should have been temporarily built. The paper presents a methodology that has been tested for the creation of the Virtual Museum of the Palatine, and identifies useful tools that could support the creation of virtual museums and how such museums could be located in a physical space and within a real collection. While planning and testing, we have demonstrated the usefulness of immersive reality as a way to prototype "on site virtual museums" and to solve common issues that emerge in the design and production of such installations.

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2019

Interactive inspection of semantically-enriched Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) is designed... more Interactive inspection of semantically-enriched Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) is designed on top of complex hierarchies combining both semantic and rendering aspects. Within Cultural Heritage, multi-dimensional IVEs represent a common solution in order to understand, query and inspect virtual reconstructions across different time-spans. The contribution presents innovative experiments about how the digital heritage record is organized and represented. Such approaches fit several scientific requirements within the Cultural Heritage domain as the annotation of the sources employed and the reasoning that are behind a reconstructive hypothesis. The methodological implications on the use of IT approaches can improve both the quality of the user fruition and the scientific content, offering, at the same time, formalisms and tools to boost the scientific research with real-time immersive representation of complex CH record. Graph-databases are already employed in such contexts sinc...

Panoramic capture devices in Cultural Heritage are becoming widely available to consumer market, ... more Panoramic capture devices in Cultural Heritage are becoming widely available to consumer market, also due to comfortable interactive online dissemination and to the growth of VR segment. VR fruition through an HMD although, requires a virtual 3D representation to provide consistency in terms of experience, scale and spatial perception, overcoming limitations of standard approaches in orientation+positional HMD tracking model. However, modeling of 3D scenes and especially optimization of acquired dataset, are often time-consuming tasks: these are further stressed when dealing with latency-free demands of latest HMDs. In this paper, we propose a novel framework for panoramic acquisition and an improved data model for VR dissemination: spherical panoramas, omnidirectional depth-maps and semantic annotations are encoded into a compact, coherent representation that suits modern HMD needs and low-cost VR devices. We describe advantages of our approach in terms of acquisition pipeline, pre...

Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 2020

In May 2019, A Night in the Forum videogame was published in the Sony PlayStation store, for PS V... more In May 2019, A Night in the Forum videogame was published in the Sony PlayStation store, for PS VR. It was the final result of the REVEAL EU project, whose goal was to identify strategies, features, and tools to develop educational titles in a more efficient, cost-effective, and valuable way, exploiting their educational, cognitive, and engaging potential for schools and cultural tourism. Environmental Narrative videogames was chosen as a genre suited for this purposes. This article presents how known issues in the production of videogames have been faced, the solutions identified, and results obtained.

This paper presents the first installation produced with the data collected on the ancient roman ... more This paper presents the first installation produced with the data collected on the ancient roman city of Colonia Dacica Sarmizegetusa: it can be considered a concrete example of a full workflow, from photogrammetric 3D acquisition to gaming experience, able to contribute to the community of experts in the domain of virtual museum. The visualization of enormous archaeological contexts like a whole ancient city has been a test bed to develop tools and methodologies in order to create and maintain accurate and fully real-time enabled 3D models. In the temporary exhibition, open until 30 September 2016, a multimedia installation based on "natural interaction" solutions was set up: thanks to Kinect and Leap-Motion sensors visitors can interact with virtual environments and objects, using gestures to experience a more engaging and intuitive experience.

ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2018

The best way to disseminate culture is, nowadays, the creation of scenarios with virtual and augm... more The best way to disseminate culture is, nowadays, the creation of scenarios with virtual and augmented reality that supply the visitors of museums with a powerful, interactive tool that allows to learn sometimes difficult concepts in an easy, entertaining way. 3D models derived from reality-based techniques are nowadays used to preserve, document and restore historical artefacts. These digital contents are also powerful instrument to interactively communicate their significance to non-specialist, making easier to understand concepts sometimes complicated or not clear. Virtual and Augmented Reality are surely a valid tool to interact with 3D models and a fundamental help in making culture more accessible to the wide public. These technologies can help the museum curators to adapt the cultural proposal and the information about the artefacts based on the different type of visitor’s categories. These technologies allow visitors to travel through space and time and have a great educativ...

Studies in Digital Heritage, 2018

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2017

The goal of this paper is to present original methods and visual tools able to formally document ... more The goal of this paper is to present original methods and visual tools able to formally document the scientific processes behind an archaeological virtual reconstruction, namely a new version of the Extended Matrix (EM 1.1) and the Extended Matrix Framework (EMF 1.1). The proposed approach aims to improve the EM as well as methods and tools for 3D query, visualization, and inspection of extended matrices in order to solve current bottlenecks and issues with the integration of 3D virtual environments and rich semantic descriptions (EMF). A real case scenario is provided to present the steps involved in a reconstruction project using EM/EMF: the Great Temple of the ancient Roman town Colonia Dacica Sarmizegetusa.

Internet Archaeology, 2017

This situation is being addressed by ARIADNE: the Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeolog... more This situation is being addressed by ARIADNE: the Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeological Dataset Networking in Europe. This e-infrastructure initiative is being promoted by a consortium of archaeological institutes, data archives and technology developers, and funded under the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (ARIADNE 2014a; Niccolucci and Richards 2013). ARIADNE enables archaeological data providers, large and small, to register and connect their resources (datasets, collections) to the e-infrastructure, and a data portal provides search, access and other services across the integrated resources. The portal puts into operation a proof of concept exemplar first developed under the ARENA (Archaeological Records of Europe Networked Access) project (Kenny and Richards 2005; Kilbride 2004), itself inspired by a proposal made by Hansen (1993). ARIADNE integrates resource discovery metadata using various controlled vocabularies, e.g. the W3C Data Catalogue Vocabulary (adapted for describing archaeological datasets), subject thesauri, gazetteers, chronologies, and the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM). Based on this integration the data portal offers several ways to search and access resources made available by data providers located in different countries. ARIADNE thus acts as a broker between data providers and users and offers additional web services for products such as high-resolution images, Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), 3D objects and landscapes. Employing such services in research projects or for content deposited in digital archives will greatly enhance the ability of researchers to publish, access and study archaeological content online. ARIADNE therefore represents a substantial advance for archaeology; in particular it provides a common platform where dispersed data resources can be uniformly described, discovered and accessed. It is also an essential step towards the even more ambitious goal of offering archaeologists integrated data, tools and computing resources for web-based research that creates new knowledge (e-archaeology). The next section describes the current landscape of data repositories and services for archaeologists in Europe, and the issues that make interoperability between them difficult to realise. The results of the ARIADNE user surveys undertaken to match expectations and requirements for the e-infrastructure and data portal services

2015 Digital Heritage, 2015

This paper presents a full life-cycle production and standardized workflow to deploy a shared and... more This paper presents a full life-cycle production and standardized workflow to deploy a shared and engaging gesture-based experience within a museum, connecting two different natural interaction applications. The research presented in this paper is specifically focused on Admotum and Holoint, two gesture-based applications developed for the V-Must.net in occasion of “Keys to Rome” international exhibition on Roman Culture. The workflow described here includes 3D content production, application design, development and integration within flexible museum setups, together with evaluation activities to explore more on the user's' educational benefits and the potential of such collaborative museum experience.

2015 Digital Heritage, 2015

Under the V-Must project, “Imago Bononiae” (2013) stands as a real example of how to build-up a r... more Under the V-Must project, “Imago Bononiae” (2013) stands as a real example of how to build-up a reliable and efficient experimentation caring about the quality and effectiveness of a gesture-based Virtual Museum application in relation with game design patterns. This paper focuses indeed on the user-centric gesture design and progressive gestural skills (rewards) that user can acquire in order to gain an engaging experience and a massive comprehension of large urban contexts mediated by visual strategies, while enabling spatial and volumetric comparisons. Structured as a serious game, the project foresaw a user experience evaluation carried out in occasion of Digital Heritage Expo, held in Marseille in november 2013. During the event, “Imago Bononiae” was studied to understand more on the interaction's aspects that take place between system and user. The visual design features that mostly connote the main interface and that, consequently, influence the behavior of users have been studied, like visibility, reliability and memorability. The affordance of the whole system has been then observed. Results presented show that “Imago Bononiae” has proved to be suitable for the large audience given its facilitated usability and the well-structured game strategy.

Il lavoro presenta le differenti fasi del progetto di archeologia virtuale “Aquae Patavinae VR”, ... more Il lavoro presenta le differenti fasi del progetto di archeologia virtuale “Aquae Patavinae VR”, nel quale è stato utilizzato un approccio multidisciplinare di lavoro al fine di realizzare modelli 3D ricostruttivi del passato, ottimizzati e integrati in un museo virtuale fruibile in tempo reale ed accessibile on-line sia da parte di specialisti che un più ampio pubblico. Il lavoro si basa principalmente su strumenti open-source tra cui uno sviluppato in precedenza dal team, OSG4Web, recentemente ottimizzato con l'aggiunta di nuove caratteristiche e funzionalità per consentire la pubblicazione finale delle ricostruzioni e vasti paesaggi. Nell’articolo vengono approfonditi gli aspetti problematici di una attività tipica di archeologia virtuale, in cui gli obiettivi principali sono l'interpretazione e la ricostruzione del paesaggio archeologico ed antico attraverso strumenti di archeologia virtuale, concentrandosi sul problema di rendere "trasparente" per utenti non e...

2018 3rd Digital Heritage International Congress (DigitalHERITAGE) held jointly with 2018 24th International Conference on Virtual Systems & Multimedia (VSMM 2018), 2018

The book of abstracts of ArcheoFOSS International Conference, 14th edition 2020.

Revive the Past, 2012

2018 3rd Digital Heritage International Congress (DigitalHERITAGE) held jointly with 2018 24th International Conference on Virtual Systems & Multimedia (VSMM 2018), 2018

Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2019

Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 2020

ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2018

Studies in Digital Heritage, 2018

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2017

Internet Archaeology, 2017

2015 Digital Heritage, 2015

Second Colloquium in the Digital Archaeology Bern „DAB 23“, organized by Institute for Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bern, 2023

Keywords: archaeological reasoning, Extended Matrix, ATON framework. Abstract The process of the ... more Keywords: archaeological reasoning, Extended Matrix, ATON framework.
Abstract
The process of the reasoning behind the available archaeological data is a very important segment in archaeological research. Whether it's about the decision-making process during the field activities, whether it's about publishing the results. Here, the experience of the team behind the excavation is of exceptional importance, and of course, the selection of appropriate and adequately applied methods, techniques, and technology for answering the existing questions. All in case of problematic approach in solving particular problems about the past.
However, despite the vast number of opportunities and tools for publishing the results from the field archaeological research, a significant part of the reasoning process upon which decisions are made, (why we approached this and no other way during excavation, or why we interpreted the data in this and not in another way) remains behind the curtains. Very often what we miss the most is a deliberate illumination of „the other possible and plausible solutions of the puzzle“, made by the one who acquired the data firsthand. Additionally, in absence of access to the raw archival documentation from a particular field research, much data with a significant potential to give side perspectives on the same data remain unreachable.
The subject of this presentation will be the evaluation of the potential for applying the logic standing behind Extended Matrix - The tool for virtual reconstruction in archaeology, in providing as much as possible - absolute insight in all the phases of the research process alongside the complete flow of the reasoning process. Also, the potential of the ATON framework for bridging the entire corpus of available data and providing efficient access to each particular piece of information in a virtual user-friendly environment will be presented. We believe that both of these tools and systems have the potential to bring us a step forward to establishing efficient access to all the data available from and for archaeological field and cabinet research. The basic idea behind the proposed „excavation of another kind is“, that every researcher interested in the same contexts and the same material should have as clear as possible view of the degree of relevance of all the data used for interpretation, alongside the process of the reasoning behind the interpretations presented in a publication. All because very often, the interpretations of the material that remain from the past are presented as absolute truths without the presentation of the minimum needed argumentation. Additionally, the opportunities to use the same data, and the same approach in training professionals in field archaeology will be discussed.

ALL THE IMAGES ARE RELEASED AS CC-BY-NC

Immersive VR is a further step toward the creation of a full immersive experience inside reconstr... more Immersive VR is a further step toward the creation of a full immersive experience inside reconstructed Virtual Archaeology environments, that opens up incredible possibilities in terms of content dissemination and emotional fruition. ovrWalker is a portable desktop application for immersive visualization (VR) and exploration of complex 3D environments through Head-mounted displays (eg. Oculus Rift) and gesture-based sensors such as Leap Motion controller and others. The project’ goal is to offer user full sense of presence inside virutal spaces (reconstructed or produced by range-based/image-based acquisitions) and the sense of spatial scale.

Imago Bononiae is a 3D real-time application focused on the interactive exploration of a large re... more Imago Bononiae is a 3D real-time application focused on the interactive exploration of a large reconstruction of Bologna during the Roman age (1st century AD) where the user starts his journey. Using natural interaction (Kinect sensor) the visitor is immersed into a large and rich 3D environment populated by a dynamic virtual crowd: an artificial life layer that evolves within ancient roads and architectures, envisioning hypothetical paths, according to urban chronotopoi.
The user discovers a wide and detailed hypothesis of the ancient "Bononia" (Bologna city) with the task of finding and collecting 3 different "peritiae" (skills). Each peritia enriches the visitor with a new gestural ability (natural interaction) that gradually improves the overall experience:
- "Translatio" (quickly moves through hotspots)
- "Volatus" (fly ability)
- "Imago" (vision of actual Bologna)
Crowd trails and a few elements scattered across the virtual reconstruction visually guide the user through ancient roads, Roman theaters and Fora to find the abilities. The final peritia (Imago) provides the user with the ability to overlay and control the vision of the future urban layer of Bologna with its volumes and architectures, enabling spatial comparisons between ancient and modern, enriching the comprehension of urban evolution using natural gestures to improve user experience.

"A real-time system to efficiently represent 3D crowd simulations on large virtual environments. ... more "A real-time system to efficiently represent 3D crowd simulations on large virtual environments.
This software architecture was applied to the case study of "T-Days" in Bologna (Italy)"

A system based on OpenSceneGraph (C++) to generate massive 3D vegetation for online publishing an... more A system based on OpenSceneGraph (C++) to generate massive 3D vegetation for online publishing and exploration in full real-time. The demo shows also scripting features, employed to create a mini-game

Touch interface as shown in ArcheoVirtual public exhibit - Paestum, November 2011

by Bruno Fanini, Daniele Ferdani, Niall O'hOisin, Paolo Vigliarolo, Leonardo Rescic, Sofia Pescarin, Alfonsina Pagano, Wim Hupperetz, Enzo d'Annibale, Muhammad Abd-el-Maguid, Daria Ruggeri, and B M

On the 23 September 2014, after 2000 years from Augustus death, 13 countries have met in Rome, Am... more On the 23 September 2014, after 2000 years from Augustus death, 13 countries have met in Rome, Amsterdam, Alexandria and Sarajevo, for the opening of an extraordinary exhibition, “Keys to Rome”: an interactive journey to discover Roman Culture, starting from the city of Augustus and reaching the entire Roman Empire, through the visit to 4 fascinating venues, 4 museums with their archaeological collections, more than 10 different technologies supporting and enhancing this global experience.This is more than an exhibition on Roman archaeology. "Keys To Rome" is a unique international exhibition, that, for the first time is organized in parallel in four locations:Rome, in the wonderful setting of the Imperial Fora Museum (Museo dei Fori Imperiali);Alexandria, in the Antiquities Museums of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina; Amsterdam, in the recently renovated Allard Pierson Museum; and Sarajevo, in the newly restored City Hall (Vijecnica) and in the Sarajevo Museum.

ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 2020

…, Jan 1, 2011

Laureato in Matematica a Bologna, dal 1989 lavora presso il CINECA nel laboratorio di Visualizzaz... more Laureato in Matematica a Bologna, dal 1989 lavora presso il CINECA nel laboratorio di Visualizzazione. Ha sviluppato applicazioni in diversi campi: astrofisica, analisi mediche con visualizzazione dei dati, interfacce tattili, visualizzazione di paesaggi e dati geografici del patrimonio culturale. È attualmente impegnato nello sviluppo di applicazioni 3D per i beni culturali e per la visualizzazione scientifica, basate sulla libreria open source "OpenSceneGraph".

The paper describes challenges identified while developing browser embedded 3D landscape renderin... more The paper describes challenges identified while developing browser embedded 3D landscape rendering applications, our current approach and work-flow and how recent development in browser technologies could affect. All the data, even if processed by optimization and decimation tools, result in very huge databases that require paging, streaming and Level-of-Detail techniques to be implemented to allow remote web based real time fruition. Our approach has been to select an open source scene-graph based visual simulation library with sufficient performance and flexibility and adapt it to the web by providing a browser plug-in. Within the current Montegrotto VR Project, content produced with new pipelines has been integrated. The whole Montegrotto Town has been generated procedurally by CityEngine. We used this procedural approach, based on algorithms and procedures because it is particularly functional to create extensive and credible urban reconstructions. To create the archaeological sites we used optimized mesh acquired with laser scanning and photogrammetry techniques whereas to realize the 3D reconstructions of the main historical buildings we adopted computer-graphic software like blender and 3ds Max. At the final stage, semi-automatic tools have been developed and used up to prepare and clusterise 3D models and scene graph routes for web publishing. Vegetation generators have also been used with the goal of populating the virtual scene to enhance the user perceived realism during the navigation experience. After the description of 3D modelling and optimization techniques, the paper will focus and discuss its results and expectations.

Journal of Cultural Heritage, 2019

In the last decades, the awareness of what cultural heritage is, as well as its definition, has c... more In the last decades, the awareness of what cultural heritage is, as well as its definition, has changed and broaden its horizon. Important international institutions such as ICOMOS and UNESCO, which represent the reference points for documentation and protection, have revised the definition of cultural heritage to include not only the elements of historical-artistic relevance and the testimonies of a civilization but also the environment around them. In other words, the meaning of cultural heritage has been extended to the concept of cultural landscape. This article tries to meet this last definition of cultural heritage: through an extensive 3D survey of the ancient city of Sarmizegetusa (National Historical Monument), it presents a new perspective for the documentation and representation of cultural landscape that includes not only the structures of the city but also the areas that have not been excavated yet, and the surrounding natural environment. The term “digital replica” is presented to define this new perspective. The article deals in detail with the whole digitization process and the tools used to obtain a digital replica of a Roman city deepening the integration between photogrammetry and computer graphics. The detailed description is intended to make the workflow reproducible by the scientific community. Besides, as a final remark, experimented optimization procedures and navigation tools designed to manage and explore large three-dimensional datasets will be illustrated.

DISEGNARECON, 2019

The paper presents the fi nal outcome of a project carried out through the collabora on between P... more The paper presents the fi nal outcome of a project carried out through the collabora on between Poli-tecnico di Torino and Museo Egizio of Turin. The main aim of the project has been to make available a small series of artefacts that are part of the museum collec on through their virtual reproduc on. The research inves gates procedures that are used for the dissemina on of cultural heritage in museum context. This prac ces and the use of media and the web for dissemina on purposes became part of a contemporary digital ecosystem that involves heritage ins tu ons and museums. The paper describes the workfl ows used to develop diff erent kind of outputs using the same content, and how it is possible to reuse digital resources for the communica on and the visua-lisa on of cultural heritage in an a rac ve way through the use of the latest visualisa on technologies and web applica ons. The fi nal stage of the proposed research, in ad-Keywords: Collec on Informa on Modeling; Virtual Reality ; Immersive experience; Museum collec on; Egypt di on to the others already developed solu on, consists on an edutainment web applica on that assists the user in the discovery of historical ico-nography associated with digital models, with the intent to educate on the understanding of the drawn space and to visualise some contents of the Museo Egizio of Turin: the 'Expedi on models of Egyp an Architecture'. The digital ecosystem developed for the project consists on a set of digital data of historical docu-menta on and the digital replica of the museum collec on: a set of wood maque es represen ng ancient Egyp an buildings. The task, carried out in collabora on with the VHLab, CNR ISPC (Is tuto di Scienze del Patrimo-nio Culturale), allows to narrate the mee ng of two diff erent cultures, cultural ins tu ons and science of representa on, crea ng a new reasoned storytelling. Architecture and Design DAD since 2018. PhD in Architecture, her interests are related to the disciplines of drawing, survey and representation of architecture. She investigates on the use of ontologies, semantics and BIM platforms to manage cultural heritage.

Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci, 2018

The best way to disseminate culture is, nowadays, the creation of scenarios with virtual and augm... more The best way to disseminate culture is, nowadays, the creation of scenarios with virtual and augmented reality that supply the visitors of museums with a powerful, interactive tool that allows to learn sometimes difficult concepts in an easy, entertaining way. 3D models derived from reality-based techniques are nowadays used to preserve, document and restore historical artefacts. These digital contents are also powerful instrument to interactively communicate their significance to non-specialist, making easier to understand concepts sometimes complicated or not clear. Virtual and Augmented Reality are surely a valid tool to interact with 3D models and a fundamental help in making culture more accessible to the wide public. These technologies can help the museum curators to adapt the cultural proposal and the information about the artefacts based on the different type of visitor's categories. These technologies allow visitors to travel through space and time and have a great educative function permitting to explain in an easy and attractive way information and concepts that could prove to be complicated. The aim of this paper is to create a virtual scenario and an augmented reality app to recreate specific spaces in the Capitoline Museum in Rome as they were during Winckelmann's time, placing specific statues in their original position in the 18th century.

Special Issue "Perceiving CH through Digital Technologies", 2018

Virtual Museums (VMs) and their audiences have always been studied as separated worlds. Recently ... more Virtual Museums (VMs) and their audiences have always been studied as separated worlds. Recently the importance of cross-methodological studies has been accepted by the academic sector for their usefulness in the process of assessing the impact of such VMs. Hedonic aspects, such as emotions, senses, perception, and environmental atmosphere rather than technicalities, like usability and affordance, have indeed played a precise and crucial role in the meaning-making of the world around us. This contribution will highlight the need for a collaborative sharing of ideas among designers and developers, creators and technicians, in order to reach sensory immersion and emotional involvement in VMs that will translate into enhanced participation and the predisposition to assimilate and memorize cultural contents. It has been stated that "a virtual museum is a digital entity." As such, it is inevitably based on technology, on its user interface (UI), on the visualization solutions it employs, and on its usability and ability to interact with the end user in order to transfer a certain message. VMs are designed to complement, enhance, or augment the ordinary museum experience through contextualization, narration, personalization, interactivity and richness of content. This contribution originates not only from the lessons learned in twenty years of research by CNR ITABC, but it also moves one step further in the direction of exchanged experiences and good practices between the humanistic and the technological sectors, therefore contributing to the promotion of lifelong learning in Virtual Museums.

Multimodal Technologies and Interaction — Open Access Journal, Apr 27, 2018

In recent years, immersive VR had a great boost in terms of adoption and research perspectives, e... more In recent years, immersive VR had a great boost in terms of adoption and research perspectives, especially those regarding the serious gaming universe. Within the cultural heritage field, virtual re-contextualization of items is a crucial task to be accomplished by individuals to understand a 3D reconstructed environment as a whole and to assign a meaning and a value to a specific cultural object. Immersive VR and consumer HMDs still present several issues related to motion sickness and locomotion: the interest in real-walking techniques outperforming other locomotion methods is growing year by year, although limited by physical constraints, higher costs, or current technology. In this work, we propose a novel game model (µVR) that combines real-walking techniques and an adaptive, game-driven, multi-scale progression to craft immersive re-contextualization applications. The presented model aims to minimize motion sickness while fully exploiting the physical tracked area and augmenting the understanding of what the user is experiencing at different world scales. We define and formalize the µVR model and its components mathematically for the sake of reproducibility, then we present results from a pilot test planned to validate the model on real users. Results assure the usability and effectiveness of VR model even if further implementation needs to be done.