S12. DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURES AND NEW
(AND EVOLVING) TECHNOLOGIES IN
ARCHAEOLOGY (ROUNDTABLE)
ERIK CHAMPION
15/6/21
SCREENSHOT C/O HEAVEN’S
VAULT

S12. DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURES, NEW
TECH (ROUNDTABLE)
1. The role of new technologies in digital infrastructures.
2. Significant investment, potential risks and rewards.
3. Pros and cons of technology [platforms] already in use within an
archaeological data infrastructure, OR introduction of new
technology [photog; XR, GIS+].
4. Technologies may include, but are not limited to Linked Data,
Natural Language Processing, Image Recognition and
machine/deep learning. OR VR, AR, MR.
5. Challenges and potential usefulness of these technologies within
archaeological data infrastructures
6. Current and future best practice.

ERIK CHAMPION
Editing Virtual Heritage: A Guide, Ubiquity. Free online.
Written RETHINKING VIRTUAL PLACES (Indiana University Press, 2021)
Co-editing Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes, 16 authors.
Co-editing Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom, De Gruyter, 24 authors.
Organic Design in Twentieth-Century Nordic Architecture (Routledge, 2019).
Edited The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places (Routledge, 2018).
Co-edited Cultural Heritage Infrastructures in Digital Humanities (Routledge,
2017).
Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage (Routledge 2016).
Edited Game Mods: Design, Theory & Criticism (ETC Press, 2012).
Playing with the Past (Springer, 2011).

SCHOLARLY ECOSYSTEM ISSUES
1. Missing projects
2. Feature-poor VR platforms, inconsistent 3D formats
3. Augmented + mixed reality now extended reality (XR).
4. Convergence between GIS & 3D (Linked Open Data).
Questions
1. Feature-poor publications because…
2. VH dominated by games but no performance recorded?
3. Sustainable issues for the digital or created by digital
4. Digital heritage ignores immersive literacy.
*Ergodic: work-path, medium where you actively work towards a goal (a
game)

Conference/event name VSMM CAA CIPA EUROMED Digital Heritage
Accessible articles & year of publication
Year No. Year No. Year No. Year No. Year No.
2017 55 2015 117 2017 111 2016 105 2015 270
2016 65 2014 73 2015 82 2014 84 2013 211
2014 53 2013 50 2013 112 2012 95 - -
Total 173 240 305 284 481
Articles reference 3D heritage assets 31 38 79 61 55
References include
(a) Accessible 3D contents 0 1 3 1 4
(b) Accessible Videos 1 2 1 2 6
(c) Other accessible visual materials
(VR models, photographs, images
of 3D models etc.).
1 4 6 5 17
(d) Non-accessible/dead web links 3 0 5 3 8
3D MODELS in
Journals

3D PLATFORMS: COMMERCIAL AND NON-
COMMERCIAL
Champion, Erik, and Hafizur Rahaman. 2020. "Survey of 3D Digital Heritage
Repositories and Platforms." The Virtual Archaeology Review (VAR).
https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2020.13226 https://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/var/article/view/13226.

3D PLATFORMS: COMMERCIAL AND NON-
COMMERCIAL
Champion, Erik, and Hafizur Rahaman. 2020. "Survey of 3D Digital Heritage
Repositories and Platforms." The Virtual Archaeology Review (VAR).
https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2020.13226 https://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/var/article/view/13226.

IKROM NISHANBAEV, 3D, GIS, SEMANTIC WEB
IKROM NISHANBAEV, PHD
STUDENT
3D+GIS+LOD PLATFORM
Aim: Enhance digital
cultural heritage
exploration by utilizing 3D
model visualization, digital
maps, and Linked Open
Data concepts.
How: Uses geo-location of
the cultural heritage places
to integrate locally stored
3D digital cultural heritage
models with Linked Open
Data from DBpedia and
GeoNames
Web GIS-based integration of 3D digital
models with Linked Open Data for cultural
heritage exploration
ikrom.nishanbaev@postgrad.curtin.edu.au
Nishanbaev, Ikrom , Erik Champion, and David A.
McMeekin. 2020. "A Comparative Evaluation of Geospatial
Semantic Web Frameworks for Cultural Heritage." Heritage
3 (3): 875-890. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage3030048

TIME LAYERED CULTURE MAPS
HTTPS://WWW.TLCMAP.ORG/

WEB INTERFACE
https://unesco-
chv.curtin.edu.au/mapplatform

3D models, DBpedia data, and external data sources

QUESTIONS ON LOD
Kathryn Greenhill Librarians Matter, Curtin
What if a concept is fuzzy, sitting between two concepts with URIs?
Jane-Heloise Nancarrow, UWA
LOD.. uses a human-applied, subjective and imperfect linguistic syntax and
classification system…
How do we create metadata for intangible heritage…
Clarity in definitions: ..Semantic web, linked data, and linked open data …
How do we include or enforce LOD considerations for DH projects that generally
have other aims … funding for DH projects is already so tight. … a published
contacts list of LOD practitioners would be a great start :)
..Aboriginal heritage and ownership of indigenous knowledge (and even more
pertinent when that data is produced within colonial contexts)…
How well do 3D data formats fit into any or all of this at present?
Karen Miller, Curtin: the data is “squeezed out of publications” [Tim Sherratt]

DUYFKEN,
MAFKERESEB BEKELE
Bekele, Mafkereseb, Champion, and Erik. 2019. "A
Comparison of Immersive Realities and Interaction
Methods: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage."
Frontiers in Robotics and AI.

TALKBACK AUGMENTED HERITAGE
DR. HAFIZUR RAHAMAN
Rahaman, Hafizur, Michelle Johnston, and Erik
Champion. 2021. "Audio-augmented
arboreality: wildflowers and language." Digital
Creativity: 1-16.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2020.1868
536

DH IS TEXT-HEAVY VIZ. LIGHT &
PEOPLE-ADVERSE
•So why Virtual Heritage? Why should we do it?
•How to engage and educate on: cultural
significance
•What to preserve: survey data; models; cultural
knowledge; remains; paradata; audience
understanding feedback?
•When to stop: artistry, findings, audience
interaction, experts, technical platforms..

Intern project Agathe Limouzy Toulouse (Collaborative Learning)

CONVERGING TRENDS?
1. VR equipment more
consumer-level &
component-based.
2. Smartphone=stereoscopic
viewer & PC (i.e. Samsung
Gear).
3. User creation frameworks
improves access..

CREATING A
SIMPLE GAME
What is the goal? Why try to achieve
it?
Why is it an engaging challenge?
Does it involve
competition/mastery, chance,
imitation, controlling vertigo/rush
of movement/flight?
What is the feedback system,
affordances + constraints, rewards
and punishments?
How level up/advance via
mechanics?
How does it offer different
strategies, options?
What is learnt during or after the

SUMMARY
1. Improving UX and features of web-platforms
2. Data, Experience, Intentions (missing), UXD is part of DH
3. Virtual Reality = ecosystem, virtual heritage = yours/ours
(reusable)
4. GLAM essential people-centric role supported by
GIS/LOD/3D?
5. Collaboration: standards, tools, bootstrap research projects.
Thank you!
Erik Champion
Emeritus Professor, Curtin University, Honorary Research Professor,
ANU, Honorary Research Fellow, UWA erikchampion@gmail.com
t:@nzerik