This presentation explains the creation of some of the digital assets for the V-MusT Keys2Rome exhibition, and shows why they can be re-used and exchanged with other museums

1. Digital Heritage Assets
in Keys2Rome
Daniel Pletinckx
Visual Dimension bvba
Belgium
Stan Verbeek
Allard Pierson Museum
Netherlands
V-MUST is funded by the European Commission under the Community's Seventh
Framework Programme, contract no. GA 270404.

2. The old museum
Bologna archaeological museum

3. The old museum
Bologna archaeological museum

4. 3D Digital & Virtual Museums
• What does 3D offers to digital & virtual museums?
– Digitise existing buildings, traces and objects
– Recreate and visualise the historical context
– See evolution in time until today
– Digitally restore museum objects
– Explore virtual spaces
– Put in online repositories (Europeana)
• Monuments & landscapes are essential part of
digital & virtual museums
• Provide better understanding of museum objects
• Provide a visual reference framework for 2 people out of 3

5. Virtual reconstruction
• We want to show and experience the past
• We can’t reconstruct the past
• Available data is (extremely) insufficient
• We only have a partial knowledge of a certain period
(many things don’t leave archaeological or historical traces)
• The effort to reconstruct the past requires a very large budget
“Only Hollywood can reconstruct the past”
• We can show what we know of the past
• We can combine sources from different disciplines
• We can use the best experts to interpret these sources
• We need to make a consistent image of the past,
so we need to fill in the missing parts

6. Sustainable historical reconstruction
• Reconstruction of
• Buildings and man-made structures (immovable)
• Objects (movable)
• Behaviour (immaterial)
• Landscape (nature, altered by man)
• Sustainable
• Virtual reconstruction is a never ending story
• Concatenation of different high-end software packages => flexible
• Use of standards (.obj, Collada) and OpenSource software (Blender)
• High-level documentation of process and data
• Transmedia approach

7. AdMotum @ Keys2Rome
AdMotum setup

8. Roman villa in Mook (Netherlands)
Roman villa of Mook-Plasmolen (Nijmegen, Netherlands)

9. Roman villa in Mook (Netherlands)
Roman villa of Mook-Plasmolen (Nijmegen, Netherlands)

10. Roman villa in Mook (Netherlands)
Landscape reconstruction of Roman villa of Mook-Plasmolen

11. Roman villa in Mook
From models (Valkhof museum) and drawings to a full building reconstruction

12. Roman villa in Mook
Entrance

13. Roman villa in Mook
Interior view

14. Roman villa in Mook
Interior view

15. Roman villa in Mook
Kitchen

16. Roman villa in Mook
Triclinum

17. Roman villa in Mook
Lararium

18. Roman villa in Karanis (Egypt)
Outdoors

19. Roman villa in Karanis
Indoors

20. 3D Visual Artists in Digital Heritage

21. 3D Visual Artists in Digital Heritage
Materials
• Mook
• Inhouse specialist: Wim Hupperetz
• Publication: “Romeins Nijmegen boven het
maaiveld”, Valkhof Museum
• External specialist: Lara Laken (murals)
• Karanis
• Inhouse specialist: Branko van Oppen
• Publication: “Domestic Life at Karanis” –
University of Michigan
• External specialist: Olaf Kaper

22. Virtual reconstruction of Cim (Mostar)
• Early Christian basilica (5th – 6th century)
• Basilica and memoria
• Seat of a bishop
• Excavated in 1970s
• Published in 1974, excavation log books available
• Archaeological park
• Remains poorly preserved
• Silver & ivory objects disappeared in the 1992-1995 war
• Should be significant community
• Only one house excavated

23. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
Archaeological site of Cim (Mostar)

24. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
Archaeological site of Cim (Mostar)

25. Virtual reconstruction of Cim

26. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
Reconstruction drawing from original publication

27. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
First reconstruction by ETF team

28. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
First reconstruction by ETF team

29. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
Revised reconstruction by ETF team

30. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
Detailed terrain model

31. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
Real time reconstruction with terrain

32. Virtual reconstruction of Cim

33. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
Revised version with terrain

34. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
Revised version with terrain

35. Virtual reconstruction of Cim
Final version in night setting

36. Digital restoration
• Digital restoration is necessary for
recontextualisation
• Digital restoration
• can go further than physical restoration
• can provide hypotheses or multiple alternatives
• can reveal aesthetics or the original object
• Documentation is very similar to
virtual reconstruction
• Tools
• Digital sculpting
• Restoration of material

37. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Relics found in cache under the altar

38. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Digitally restored relics from Cim basilica (lost in the 1992-1995 war)

39. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Altar: excavated parts, logbook, reconstruction drawing (excavation publication)

40. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Altar 3D digital restoration

41. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Altarscreen 3D digital restoration - fragments

42. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Altarscreen 3D digital restoration - hypotheses

43. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Altarscreen 3D digital restoration

44. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Altarscreen 3D digital restoration

45. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Altarscreen 3D digital restoration

46. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Final visualisation of the interior

47. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Final visualisation of the interior

48. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Peacock lintel

49. Digital restoration for Cim basilica
Peacock lintel – digital restoration
DEMO PDF

50. Keys2Rome @ Sarajevo
Natural interaction implementation of Cim basilica in Keys2Rome exhibition

51. Keys2Rome @ Sarajevo
Natural interaction implementation of Cim basilica in Keys2Rome exhibition

52. NextGen Natural Interaction
Natural interaction implementation of Ename abbey interior (http://youtu.be/PmINQiptDYQ)

53. Documenting virtual reconstruction
• For different audiences
• General public: blogs
• Cim basilica: http://worldwidemuseum.wordpress.com/
• Specialists: PDF
• Demo Cim basilica documentation
• Re-use and exchange
• Documentation of process, data and context
• Sources
• Source assessment
• Correlation
• Hypotheses
• Transmedia ready
• IPR

54. K2R in Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Bibliotheca Alexandrina

55. K2R in Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Greco-Roman Museum - Submerged Antiquities in Bibliotheca Alexandrina

56. K2R in Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Caesarion in Bibliotheca Alexandrina

57. Digital restoration for BA
Caesarion – digital restoration

58. Digital restoration for BA
Caesarion – digital restoration

59. Digital restoration for BA
Caesarion – digital restoration

60. Digital restoration for BA
Caesarion – scratch marks

61. Digital restoration for BA
Caesarion – digital restoration

62. Digital restoration for BA
Caesarion – digital restoration

63. Landscape simulation workflow
Conceptual model of reconstructed buildings and terrain features

64. Workflow
Top view map in Photoshop

65. Workflow
Separation of terrain types in layers in Photoshop

66. Workflow
Creation of height maps through painting in Photoshop

67. Workflow
Scaled height maps in Photoshop (16 bit TIFF)

68. Workflow
Terrain types and applied height map (Vue)

69. Workflow
Terrain without vegetation (Vue)

70. Workflow
Terrain with water and vegetation after population (Vue)

71. Workflow
Terrain with vegetation, buildings and (animated) objects (Collada)

72. 4D visualisation: 1020-1730
Procedural landscape simulation in Vue (1730)

73. Thank you!
heritage@visualdimension.be
exploitation@v-must.net
skype: daniel.pletinckx