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Digital heritage projects are an important tool in safeguarding cultural heritage and making it available to future generations. The work presented here synthesises 3D modelling techniques with the process of digitising artefacts. New digital reconstructions can be created based on authentic data. These are then implemented in various immersive learning opportunities, such as interactive activities and engaging virtual worlds. This is applied to the restoration of two Pictish symbol stones used in an online colour configurator tool and a virtual environment. Publisher PDF

This paper follows the development and collaboration behind the creation of an Augmented reality (AR) mobile application. Sponsored by the Nupur arts organization and commissioned by the Arts Council England, we were asked to create a digital heritage experience telling the story of Gujarati migrants from East Africa and India during the 70s and 80s in Leicester, United Kingdom. This paper examines how being in a transdisciplinary team aided in the successful creation of 3D scanned models, which were later imported into an AR environment. Finally, this paper concludes with an analysis of the cultural implication of mobile applications such as this one and the social and communal impact they might have.

This article begins with an attempt to contextualize the use of digital media and computation in works related to cultural heritage, in Portugal, in the frame of the regulations and policies that have been developed internationally and nationally. It then develops on the contextualization of the implementation of digitalization strategies regarding museum’s collections in Portugal and its struggles both to implement these strategies as well as to invest in the creation and implementation of applications of digital tools for audience’s engagement. Following some examples that have been developed for different purposes such as preservation, cataloguing, education and teaching, in different fields of cultural heritage such as archeology, ethnology, natural and historical sites, the article will then focus on the contributions of the more recent uses of technology to enhance or create interactive heritage experiences in cultural heritage, such as, photogrammetry, 3D modelling, and movement analysis. Finally, the last part of this article explores a proposal of gamification of intangible cultural heritage, portraying the winter festivity Carnival of Podence inscribed, in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in December 2019. Financiado por fundos nacionais através da FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., no âmbito do projeto referência nº: UIDB/04470/2020. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The paper discusses the implications that the use of virtual reality may have on heritage tourism and heritage conservation. First, it looks at the concept of authenticity as it applies to digital heritage and VR. It proposes that constructivist, subjectivist and existentialist authenticities all have a degree of relevance to the experience of heritage in VR. Next, the paper utilizes a VR case study in Suzhou to gauge the user perception of authenticity and overall VR experience. The results demonstrate that VR may possess a degree of authenticity in and of itself, both from heritage conservation and heritage tourism perspectives. The paper then discusses the wider implications of this conclusion for different stakeholders.

Art and culture represent substantial ways to transfer the history of humans across civilizations and epochs. Preserving artwork and cultural objects is thus important and the focus of multiple institutions and governments around the world. Digital preservation in cultural heritage represents a cost-effective and reliable long-term preservation and several challenges related to its effectiveness and its reliability have arisen such as metadata enrichment, digital curation, link discoveries, etc. Through this paper, we discuss these challenges and present innovative ways that leverage recent endeavors in artificial intelligence and semantic web technologies to enrich cultural data. Our contributions mitigate these issues either by recovering metadata of mislabeled assets or curating their damaged visual capture through new and advanced deep learning and semantic web technologies. The presented approaches are being studied in Qatar in the course of the CEPROQHA project. 2019 IEEE. Scopus

This research discusses how cultural heritage resources can be designed and used as Generous Interfaces alongside MOOCs, to encourage open-ended explorations in digital heritage collections. As an online platform, MOOCs is opening the doors to one’s cultural collections by making their digital materials available for educational use, and further enriches the cultural heritage experience. This paper presents the practical experience in creating a generous interface in coexistence with MOOCs—the courses developed by Keio University, focusing on the history, culture, and design of rare Japanese books—and allows learners to explore contextual details, as well as connections across digital cultural heritage.

Cultural heritage takes an important part of the history of humankind as it is one of the most powerful tools for the transfer and preservation of moral identity. As a result, these cultural assets are considered highly valuable and sometimes priceless. Digital technologies provided multiple tools that address challenges related to the promotion and information access in the cultural context. However, the large data collections of cultural information have more potential to add value and address current challenges in this context with the recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) with deep learning and data mining tools. Through the present paper, we investigate several approaches that are used or can potentially be used to promote, curate, preserve and value cultural heritage through new and evolutionary techniques based on deep learning tools. The deep learning approaches entirely developed by our team are intended to classify and annotate cultural data, complete missing data, or map existing data schemes and information to standardized schemes with language processing tools. 2019 IEEE. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This publication was made possible by NPRP grant 9-181-1-036 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors (www.ceproqha.qa). Scopus

Museums act as a vehicle to collect, preserve and demonstrate historical, cultural and scientific heritage to a larger community of end users. However, there is neither increase in the number of physical visitors nor visitors to online museum, despite their availability on the web. On the other hand, Augmented Reality has emerged as a potential technology to support and enhance experience of end users in different communities especially in digital heritage. In this paper, we propose Augmented Reality Museum (ARM) as an application that can enhance online museum visitor experience. Augmented Reality can be integrated as a mobile application that provides 3D view of an artifact, along with information about its historic, artistic and/or scientific importance. We present the design and development of ARM and demonstrate it for the case study of Online British Museum. Our user experience study conducted with 21 volunteers shows that ARM is potentially a good way to enhance user experience.

In the context of digital heritage artifacts, this research investigates how best to recreate in virtual space the natural interactions a visitor experiences with artifacts in a museum. The first phase of the research involved observing and documenting visitors’ engagement with paintings and sculptures in five museums in Qatar and then based on the insights gained, building a digital heritage artifact called Al-Lulwa. This desktop application features a collection of photos, songs, and videos about the history of pearl-fishing in Qatar presented as a virtual gallery and an underwater scene. Viewers can navigate and explore this application using either a mouse or eye-gaze facilitated by a Tobii eye-tracker 4c. The next phase of the study involved an experiment with Al-Lulwa that examined the experience of a group of 60 participants, one half of whom were randomly assigned initially to mouse interaction and the other half to eye-gaze interaction. Those participants who used eye-gaze had a significantly higher mean affective response to their mode of interaction compared with users who used a mouse (p-value=2.195e-05). After viewing the virtual gallery and the underwater scene using both interaction modes, both groups of participants had significantly higher affective responses for eye-gaze over mouse interactions (p-values = 4.59e-06 and 1.025e-11 respectively). These results together with further qualitative analysis of the interaction experience provide useful guidelines for improving the design of digital heritage artifacts for real world deployment.

The popularization of virtual reality brings together educational fields such as science, art, and culture. However, most current cultural education regarding archaeological civilization is based on excavated cultural relics. In this research, we script the process of the Taiwan First Dog being unearthed. Based on this story, we develop a virtual reality application which guides players to experience the process of excavating relics in a virtual world with reconstructed archaeological scenes and various pieces of apparatus. In addition, we also provide non-contact haptic feedback devices and well-arranged guidance to improve the immersive experience.

The field of Digital Heritage is ideal for re-engineering computational curricula by integrating critical humanities and community engagement approaches with computer science practices to address the deep entanglement of digital technologies and culture in tension today. This paper will present a series of brief case studies to share lessons learned from the development of Digital Heritage curriculum design. In analyzing these case studies, we identify a set of best practices in Digital Heritage curricular design.

The paper examines the research methodology and technology used at Milan Malpensa International Airport (Varese, Italy) throughout the construction of the public transportation railway link between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2, during which excavation works revealed a necropolis of the Final Bronze Age. The project was carried out through the recording and presentation of the 3D data of the necropolis and the exhibition of the archaeological finds brought to light during the excavations. This research examines the use and potentials of modern digital 3D modelling techniques applied at archaeological heritage to increase research, study and presentation of the archaeological heritage.

This paper presents Capsule, a design prototype using augmented reality to encourage students to learn the cultural heritage on campus. Based on a pilot study with prospective and current students, Capsule not only provides students the cultural histories of campus but strengthens the connection between students and heritage by adding features of improving the interaction between students and the heritage. The performance of the prototype was evaluated in a user study with 10 students, which provides design implications for future cultural heritage.

Wars are often described and discussed from a single point of view. Vietnam War Stories: Stories from All Sides is an interactive digital storytelling platform that incorporated video interviews recorded from over 150 Vietnam War veterans and survivors from all sides, including U.S., North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Europe, and Asia on a historically accurate map. This project utilizes the perspectives of network science to integrate digital historical multimedia artifacts into a coherent network of linked resources that can then be visualized and represented in an interactive prototype. This allows the historians, researchers, and scholars to easily access the previously undocumented and segmented historical content, and easily explore connections between them. It also serves as an educational platform, allowing the public to navigate war stories in a highly personal and engaging fashion. Most importantly, "Vietnam War Stories" enables historical argumentation and interpretations of the individual experiences of Vietnam War by presenting multiple accounts and perspectives from primary sources as previously undocumented evidence of both sides of the Vietnam War. Furthermore, "Vietnam War Stories" will inform the design of future platforms that will offer the veterans a way to connect with other veterans and survivors and empower them with a channel to share their own stories.

Textures are the most important features that describe an image. To find the relevant and specific information about images and classify them properly, a robust machine learning algorithm should be trained. The paper focuses on identifying monuments by applying statistical texture analysis and classification using SVM algorithm. Our case study is towards the monuments in and around Hubli-Dharwad city that is collected as crowd sourced image database and tested as a part of the Indian digital heritage project

International audience; Megalithic art is a spectacular form of symbolic representation found on prehistoric monuments. Carved by Europe's first farmers, this art allows an insight into the creativity and vision of prehistoric communities. As examples of this art continue to fade, it is increasingly important to document and study these symbols. This paper presents MAAP Annotate, a Mixed Reality annotation tool from the Megalithic Art Analysis Project (MAAP). It provides an innovative method of interacting with megalithic art, combining cross-disciplinary research in digital heritage, 3D scanning and imaging, and augmented reality. The development of the tool is described, alongside the results of an evaluation carried out on a group of archaeologists from University College Dublin, Ireland. It is hoped that such tools will enable archaeologists to collaborate worldwide, and non-specialists to experience and learn about megalithic art.

This work presents the MUVI project — Virtual Museum of Daily Life — as a test bed for evaluating different cross-media outputs as a key to audience development for cultural contents. The open source framework of the project is based on Blender and Blend4Web.

We have developed a Virtual Museum with real-time 3DCG capable of exhibiting arbitrary planar artifacts such as paintings which have been specified by a user. The pictures are collected from the Internet sites such as Wikimedia Commons by giving bookmarks by the user. The artifact images are displayed in its life size automatically aligned on the wall of the museum with picture frames and generated captions. This process is done based on metadata extracted using a technique called Web scraping to extract necessary information from the target Web sites. The museum space is realistically modeled with high resolution and sophisticated illumination where the user can walk through in the space. The system enables the users to create their own personalized museums with their favorite pictures exhibited in the realistic way.

Recent advances in low-cost sensor technologies, such as Microsoft Kinect and Leap Motion allow bare hand or full body interactions to be easily included in interactive 3D applications. It has already been recognized that museums and heritage institutions can significantly benefit from this new paradigm by providing a more experiential and engaging approach to culture through interactive installations. This paper presents the development and evaluation of a cultural heritage application for learning about Cycladic sculpture, which places users in the role of the sculptor and lets them progressively create a statue by selecting and applying the appropriate tools. The application is based on bare hand interactions supported by Leap Motion. The evaluation results indicate that users found the experience positive and engaging, and lead to a number of issues for further consideration regarding the system setup and the user experience.

This research aims to initially address the Digital Mourning concept under the Digital Heritage Management, investigating to what extent we can "Managing the Digital Heritage", namely the content we create on a daily basis on social networks and the Internet.. The ultimate goal is to understand to what extent this issue is important for users and present results showing that items needed to design a system that is accepted and used in practice by users. To assess the need for platforms for the Digital Heritage Management (PGHDs) and what is the desirable content was conducted a questionnaire on the subject. Analyzing the results of this questionnaire it appears that most respondents did not think about the future of your Digital Heritage is not aware about the policies of online services they use. But the evidence is that the higher the technological maturity of most individuals is likely to be future users of this type of platforms. It also notes that the vast majority of users consider necessary technologically developed using PGHDs in the future., Este trabalho de investigação pretende abordar o conceito do Luto Digital no âmbito da Gestão de Herança Digital, apurando em que medida poderemos “Gerir a Herança Digital”, nomeadamente o conteúdo que criamos diariamente nas Redes Sociais e na Internet. O objetivo final consiste em compreender em que medida este tema é importante para os utilizadores e apresentar resultados que evidenciem itens necessários para conceber um sistema que seja aceite e utilizado na prática pelos utilizadores para este fim. Para aferir sobre a necessidade de Plataformas para a Gestão da Herança Digital (PGHDs) e qual o seu conteúdo desejável foi realizado um questionário sobre esta matéria. Da análise dos resultados obtidos neste questionário verifica-se que a maioria dos inquiridos não pensa no futuro da sua Herança Digital, não tendo conhecimento sobre as políticas dos serviços online que utilizam. Contudo prova-se que quanto mais elevada for a maturidade tecnológica dos indivíduos maior é a probabilidade de serem futuros utilizadores deste tipo de plataformas. Verifica-se também que a grande maioria dos utilizadores tecnologicamente desenvolvidos considera necessária a utilização de PGHDs no futuro., Este trabalho foi financiado pelos projetos estratégicos: Centro ALGORITMI (PEst-C/EEI/UI0319/2015) e LIACC (PEst-OE/EEI/UI0027/2015).

Campania is one of the most important region of Italy for its Cultural Heritage, in fact UNESCO has already declared five World Heritage Sites and many others, considered "minor", that are not adequately promoted in spite of their high artistic value. Cultural Heritage is an inestimable resource that should be protected, preserved and promoted by "inserting" it in the digital ecosystem of a Smart City, where economic, tourist, recreational and logistic aspects are all considered together. In this paper, it is introduced and described a framework for the description of the archaeological evidences and artistic artefacts according to the main standards that are in literature. A case study related to the description of archaeological excavations is analysed.

In this paper we offer a preview of the pilot project in progress at the "Paolo Orsi", the Syracuse Regional Archaeological Museum (Italy). Thanks to a free partnership with Google Business Photos/Street View Indoor, we managed to map the entire museum, the only archaeological museum in South Italy that can be visited online on a 360° tour on a Google platform, an unicum on Google Maps. A dozen archaeological finds have been selected for 360° virtual tours. They are provided with descriptive sheets.

Stone pagodas are mysterious heritages about how to be built up and shaped stone components. X-Top is an interactive exhibition system to explore answering about the building method of a famous Korean stone pagoda. Previous digital heritage applications are difficult to give users tangible experiences. We propose an exhibition system(X-Top) to allow visitors to build up a pagoda with its miniature components. We exhibited the X-Top system on various exhibitions and can get positive feedback from visitors. Our project is still working on developing with many types of digital heritage applications.

The education and training of archives and records professionals in Africa can be traced back several decades. Archives and records practitioners in Africa’s different countries have, over the years, taken varying paths to attain their professional qualifications. A number of publications have offered an analysis of the historical developments. This paper outlines progress on an ongoing study by InterPARES Trust Africa Team that examines the curricula in different African educational institutions and investigates the extent to which they address the increasingly complex environment that includes the management of digital records in networked environments. It is hoped that the study will inform curriculum development and review in the area of digital records at the institutions of higher learning in Africa.

This paper explores the methodology and application of laser scanning and photogrammetric recording methods to a very complex castle ruin. These methods allow for exact measurements to be made and the production of 3D digital models of the structure in question. The models built from the respective data combine the measuring strength of laser scanning with the visual aesthetics of photogrammetry. The case study is the medieval castle Burg Hohenecken in the city of Kaiserslautern in southwest Germany. Once digitized as a 3D model, the castle can be virtually controlled and examined, providing an opportunity to determine the age and potentially to reconstruct the castle from the different periods of it construction and expansion. Future analyses will include the identification of the different stone types and ages from the different building phases, the viewsheds from each respective building phase and perhaps the discovery of structures which have been completely lost.

We demonstrate with several examples how historical aerial photos can benefit from being viewed in stereo and how this can be useful as tool in digital heritage research. The main reason why stereo images are important is that they give a much better understanding of what is actually in the scene than single photos can. The important factor is the depth cue that helps understanding the content and adds the ability to distinguish between objects such as houses and trees and the ground as well as estimating heights of objects. There are however still challenges but also possibilities that will be discussed.

In this contribution we explore the challenges and opportunities of innovative mobile historical experiences in the domain of commemorative culture. We present two prototypes conceptualized and implemented for a mobile experience in this field, one as an experiment to apply gamification concepts in this domain, the other one in the utilization of AR technologies. We present first findings on critical aspects and challenges discovered in the development of these prototypes.

In this paper, we explore the use of smartphones as remote 3D interaction devices for digital heritage applications. We present a set of single-handed interaction techniques by combining the modern 3D sensing capabilities of these devices with touch-screen inputs, covering the basic 3D manipulation tasks in an intuitive and ergonomic way. A 3D gallery prototype has been developed, and all the proposed techniques have been integrated in an Android application to remotely interact with the gallery through a normal WiFi connection.

We have developed a 3D VR digital heritage App providing a virtual experience of an elaborate labyrinth that existed in the gardens of the Chateau de Versailles in the 17th and 18th centuries. We are now taking this App into an immersive environment (using an Oculus Rift headset); we will report on the progress of and conclusions from this porting process.

This research work addresses the Digital Mourning and the Digital Heritage Management concepts. It tries to explain what is Digital Heritage and what are its constituents. It also provides a Survey on the platforms and systems for Digital Heritage Management currently available undertaking a detailed comparison between the different platforms, Este trabalho de investigação aborda o conceito do Luto Digital no âmbito da Gestão da Herança Digital. Procura explicar em que consiste a Herança Digital e quais os seus constituintes. Apresenta em seguida um Surveysobre as plataformas e sistemas de Gestão da Herança Digital disponíveis atualmente realizando uma comparação detalhada entre as diferentes plataformas.

With the rapid development of digital library as well as the increasing rich digital resources, especially special digital resources and digital heritage resources, digital library is a convenient way to provide a variety of digital resources services for different readers, however it also becomes an aim by hot linking activities. So, how to ensure the provided digital resources services not being hot linked becomes an important and urgent problem. This paper introduces a primary anti-leech technologies and Browser Helper Objects technology, presents an anti-leech method based on Cookies and Browser Helper Objects, and brings in the Public-key cryptography and the session key to ensure the security of the interaction information transmitting.

A critical issue the digital heritage sector faces today in terms of long term data preservation is how to assure the ability to retrieve and preserve data in the face of continued technology evolution and related technology obsolescence. This paper discusses a viable way to minimize the risk of technology obsolescence and proposes a safer method of archiving and monitoring data preservation operations, which comply with the international standards using optical discs such as CD, DVD and BD's. In addition, this method may contribute to the leveling operation in many different digital heritage sectors.

Virtual restoration and reconstruction based on digital technology has been widely applied in protecting and exhibiting the cultural heritage in China. The “digital heritage” which is produced by such virtual restoration and reconstruction technology has been enriched. This paper analyzes the ideas and technologies in practical cases and summaries with three modes. Besides, the importance of accuracy evaluation criterion of the “digital heritage” is emphasized from the perspective of sustainable development.

This paper presents a unique digital heritage resource that integrates community knowledge and user generated content through social media. Our approach allows Sierra Leone diaspora to create, share and exchange information with each other about the Sierra Leone aggregated collections composed of more than 3,000 digital objects from five UK national and regional museums and the Sierra Leone National Museum. Sierra Leone diaspora can augment the digital heritage resource with their own media content, e.g. images, videos and narrative, related to objects in the collection through social media technology based around Facebook. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Based on the legitimacy of legal protection for network virtual identities in the real world, this paper analyses the legal nature and classification of those virtual objects created by network virtual identities. Considering that there is no inheritance legal relationship in real world governing the legacy and abandon of those virtual objects, such as user ID and password in virtual world, this paper studies the legal relationship and legal risk of the "Digital Heritage Inheritance" service in E-commerce areas.

In this paper we describe part of the MediaEvo project on a Digital Heritage application aimed to serve as an edutainment tool. Visitors are able to virtually explore the reconstructed heritage environment of Otranto town and learn about the medieval world through a virtual experience. The project aims to identify the methodologies related to interactive learning and an approach oriented to the instructive paths which take advantage of multi-sensory media and their level of interaction. At the moment the MediaEvo project is in progress and in this paper the obtained results are shown.

All three present technologies for storing single copies of digital data (magnetic, optical, and solid state) are characterized by relatively short lifetimes, ranging from 5 to 30 years. There presently exists no inexpensive way to preserve one's digital data for posterity. This paper describes a research effort which is targeting 1,000 years (a millennium) for a new type of recordable optical storage.

To achieve a successful interactive virtual content where the user can handle devices in the virtual environment requires not only designing an interaction mechanism, but also creating a variety of stories. Well-designed narrative brings the audience into the story with understanding and increases the artistic side of the story as well. However, until now there was not enough effort to improve the weak storytelling side of the VR contents. By combining the interactive aspects of the VR with the storytelling features, it may be more effective to get immersed in the virtual environment and may achieve the intended goal of the VR application. Here, we introduce a novel method of allowing the user to experience changes in both 3D virtual environment and time as an additional dimension of user as well as the author's control. This new method would help the user to get absorbed to the environment and increase the VR contents value by increasing the narrative aspect of the VR contents.