E. Oberländer-Târnoveanu, Corina Nicolae, Mihai Bozgan, Marius Amarie and Tudor Martin, 'Creating Virtual Reality for Cultural Heritage. 3D Icons Project in Romania ', presentation given at the Congress 3D-Documentation in Archaeology & Monument Preservation, held at LWL Industrial Museum, Dortmund (Germany), 16th-18th October 2013

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Creating Virtual Reality for Cultural Heritage.
3D Icons Project in Romania
E. Oberländer-Târnoveanu, Corina Nicolae, Mihai Bozgan, Marius Amarie, Tudor Martin
Romanian National History Museum, Bucharest, Ro
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3D Digitisation of Icons of European Architectural and Archaeological
Heritage (3D Icons) project is a pilot project funded under the European
Commission’s ICT Policy Support Programme, built on the results of
CARARE and 3D-COFORM.
3D-ICONS proposes to digitize a series of architectural and
archaeological masterpieces of world and European cultural significance
and provide 3D models and related digital content to Europeana, with
the aim of contributing to the critical mass of highly engaging content
available to users.
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The project will exploit existing tools and methods, to integrate them in a
complete supply chain of 3D digitization to contribute a significant mass
of 3D content to Europeana.
The project will focus on UNESCO World Heritage monuments and other
monuments of outstanding value at European level, to illustrate a
particular strand of Europe’s history.
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Partners
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Università degli Studi de Napoli L’Orientale, Italy
MDR PARTNERS (CONSULTING) LIMITED, Great Britain
CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE, Italy
ATHENA RESEARCH AND INNOVATION CENTER IN INFORMATION COMMUNICATION &
KNOWLEDGE TECHNOLOGIES, Greece
THE DISCOVERY PROGRAMME LBG, Irland
UNIVERSIDAD DE JAEN, Spain
CMC Associates Ltd., Great Britain
POLITECNICO DI MILANO, Italy
Visual Dimension bvba, Belgiun
ASSOCIATION POUR LE DEVELOPPEMENT DE L’ENSEIGNEMENT ET DES RECHERCHES
AUPRES DES UNIVERSITES, DES CENTRES DE RECHERCHE ET DES ENTREPRISES
D’AQUITAINE, France
FONDAZIONE BRUNO KESSLER, Italy
KONINKLIJKE MUSEA VOOR KUNST EN GESCHIDENIS, Belgium
THE CYPRUS RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION, Cyprus
CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE, France
Romanian National History Museum
NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS, Greec
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The digital content will include overall 3D models and reconstructions, enlarged
models of important details, images, texts, videos. It will also include and recontextualize in 3D, objects belonging to a monument but presently located
elsewhere, for example in a museum.
Technology
• 3D model generation via
- image-based modeling, requiring mainly a digital camera;
- 3D scanning, a medium- or long-range 3D scanner required;
- procedural modeling and 3D sketching, using free or inexpensive specific software
• 3D model and digital information storage management: requires standard
computer resources and an open source repository management system
• 3D visualization tools: open source or free software
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Romanian National History Museum
Saint Michael Romano-Catholic Cathedral, Alba
Iulia, one of the most important medieval architectural
monuments from Transylvania, candidate on the
UNESCO lists
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Romanian National History Museum
Sarmizegetusa Regia, the Dacian
fortress from the Orăștie Mountains,
UNESCO monument, together with
the archaeological finds from its
neighborhood
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The softwares used in the project are based mainly on open-source
technologies or on technologies that have a low acquisition costs.
Besides the 3D content that the project intends to make available to the
general public, another important task is to make publicly available the
production pipeline to other cultural institutions or owners of 3D cultural
content.
Photogrammetry offers accurate results, being a method suited for personnel
from cultural heritage domain, with a limited technical background, but as
well it is able to deliver measurable, accurate and detailed 3D information.
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Data acquisition
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Canon EOS 5D Mk II ISO 100, t=1/60/ zoom lens EF 24-105 AF IS @
35 mm f: 22
2 Studioflash 1000w
2 Studioflash 300w
Processing and post processing
Hardware: APPLE MAC 2.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up
to 3.3GHz) cu 6MB L3 cache (2 buc.), Intel HD Graphics 4000, 32GB
1600MHz DDR3
Software: Agisoft Photoscan – fully automated 3D modeling method,
based on a structure from motion approach
MeshLab v.1.3.2
Blender 2.67
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Stone relief, depicting a Bishop, Saint
Michael Romano- Catholic Cathedral,
Alba Iulia
Statue of a Transylvanian leader, made
of stone, dated to the XVIIth c., Saint
Michael Romano-Catholic Cathedral,
Alba Iulia
Holy water font, made of marble, dated to the
XVIIth c., Saint Michael Romano-Catholic
Cathedral
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Stone niche, Saint Michael RomanoCatholic Cathedra, Alba Iulia
Wooden statue of Mary, XIIIth c., Saint
Michael Romano-Catholic Cathedral,
Alba Iulia
Northern entrace, XIXth c., Saint Michael
Romano-Catholic Cathedral, Alba Iulia
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Web visualisation
• Possibility to visualize different level of information
• Segmented information may lead to historical interpretation by analyzing models
which are located in different places, but belong to the same culture
• Visualisation for the public
• Visualization and usage by cultural heritage experts , which us still considered as a
medium to reach the public, rather than a basic instrument for research and
conservation
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Up on the cloud
p3d.in
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Sketchfab
3Dfile.io
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Conclusions
Web-based vizualisation offers the possibility for documentation of heritage sites
and artefacts at different scales and resolutions for applications such as
conservation, restoration or education
3D replicas communicate in an effective way
Characteristics such as metrics, accuracy and photorealism should be taken
into consideration when it comes to study and research
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