Category Archives: heritage

Publications Available for Download

heritage, Journal, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, , ,

Fo those interested, many of my publications are available for download at

https://curtin.academia.edu/ErikChampion

Also, the following paper passed its embargo period so feel free to download that one as well.

Defining Cultural Agents for Virtual Heritage Environments

(Presence, Vol. 24, No. 3, Summer 2015, 179–186, doi:10.1162/PRES_a_00234, 2015, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Abstract
This article describes the primary ways in which intelligent agents have been employed in virtual heritage projects and explains how the special requirements of virtual heritage environments necessitate the development of cultural agents. How do we distinguish between social agents and cultural agents? Can cultural agents meet these specific heritage objectives?

3D models: Advanced challenges, UCLA

3D and game editors, archaeology, Architecture, augmented reality, Conference, digital heritage, heritage, infrastructure, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, ,

Daisy-O’lice I. Williams, University of Oregon, presents to the insitute on day 1, 20 June 2016, UCLA.

I was very fortunate to be invited to the NEH-funded Advanced Challenges in Theory and Practice in 3D Modeling of Cultural Heritage Sites Institute, hosted at University of Massachusetts in 2015 and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) 20-23 June 2016.
Some points I noticed reoccurring over the four days (and which I also added to the #neh3D twitter stream) were:

  1. People are still inventing the wheel when it comes to interaction in virtual environments. But you all knew that anyway.
  2. There is still a gap between educators and libraries who just want to get projects made, students engaged, and assets saved and those who talk about the big metadata / ontology questions. Nobody apart from Piotr used CIDOC-CRM for example and as he and I agreed, there needs to be more useful examples for archaeologists and architects.
  3. We still need an open source augmented reality platform: Content providers will try to lock you in to their own devices (http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/602484/google-building-its-own-smartphone-report-says/) and AR software is commercial, risky and when the AR company disappears so does your augmented reality project! To add insult to injury many AR software apps store you models offline or in a secure cloud so you cannot directly access them even though you made them.[I have just heard of ARGON, will have to investigate].
  4. There is no suitable 3D model+scholarly journal, the editor in chief of Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Bernard Frischer, admitted their 3D solution was not yet a fully usable solution plus Elsevier say they own the model. Actually, I think the ownership of the scholarly content is as much an issue as the lack of a suitable 3D viewer. Other journals that may offer similar issues but 3D model potential are http://intarch.ac.uk/ (“All our content is open access”) and ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH). However at the workshop one of the founders of SCALAR expressed interest in exploring 3D for SCALAR so hopefully something eventuates with this working party.

Many thanks to Alyson Gill (UMass) and Lisa Snyder (UCLA) for the opportunity to hear about US developments and the really cool CULTURAL HERITAGE MARKUP LANGUAGE CIDOC_CRM project that Piotr Kuroczyński (Herder Institute Germany) presented.

VH has to be realistic? Not Necessarily

Digital Humanities, heritage, virtual heritage,

In Ancestor Veneration Avatars, by William Sims Bainbridge, National Science Foundation, USA, he writes:

Some scholars of human-centered computing believe that virtual architecture must be visually very realistic to achieve psychological immersion (Champion, 2011), but in this project the emphasis was placed on realistic function

No, I never said that! I have seen this several times by academics, but I only referred to others who said that the lack of photorealism is an issue in Virtual Heritage (VH). But where in Playing With The Past do I argue for photorealism?

What I actually said, in Chapter 2, (page 20-23), was

Without content relating directly to how we perceive the world, an emphasis on formal realism is not creating a virtual reality, but a storehouse of visually represented objects…Meaningful interaction seems to be a crucial issue here. Research surveys indicate that when presented with realistic visual fidelity users also expect highly realistic interaction in order to be engaged (Mosaker 2001). While others have indicated that meaningful interaction is preferable to photo-realism (Eiteljorg 1998).

Grr.

EDIT: Found an earlier reference to the passage that so irked me, it was in

Archaeology, Heritage, and Civic Engagement: Working Toward the Public Good

By Barbara J Little, Paul A Shackel, page 45.

Centres that engage in virtual heritage, archaeology and games research

heritage, PhD, Postdoc, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality

I get asked this by people quite often and while this is by no means a definitive list, it might help those interested in game-focussed archaeology/heritage PhD opportunities and postdocs:

USA:

Europe:

Asia-Pacific:

As I said, this is by no means a definitive list (and very English language-biased) but I have noticed the above often promote PHD and Postdoc opportunities. I will have some opportunities in PhD positions and a postdoc that I will put on this site, hopefully before June.

Cultural Presence

archaeology, digital heritage, heritage, virtual heritage

I have written quite a bit about the above in virtual heritage and this terms has since shown itself in quite a few papers (Flynn, Tyler-Jones, Tost et al.) but now I feel compelled to state

  • I wrote about cultural presence because it and social presence seem conflated in ISPR telepresence/presence literature and
  • UNESCO’s terms of culture and cultural heritage did not seem linked to the aims and results of many virtual heritage projects and
  • Culture and Society are not the same, and I wrote about that in the latest MIT Presence journal.
  • Archaeology and heritage sites don’t all have cultural presence that we could or should always try to simulate in digital heritage projects.
  • Cultural presence isn’t the sole criterion for virtual heritage but it is interesting when thinking about simulated designed places (and why virtual heritage and otherwise historic places seem so shallow compared to real places).
  • I should update my thoughts on this so people won’t think I believe cultural presence is the be-all and end-all!

Revolutionary Woe: Notes on Assassin’s Creed III

archaeology, game, heritage, virtual heritage

Invalid Memory

1.

Against better judgment, I always felt compelled to give Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series the benefit of the doubt, an undoubtedly foolish errand motivated mostly by a long-standing craving for a decent blockbuster open-world action series. I consider these games a kind of equivalent to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, titillating a base desire for silly, undemanding madcap fun loaded with swashbuckling rogues and propulsive energy. The first few games are amusing at times, bolstered primarily by the easy charisma of Ezio Auditore in his narrative trilogy. At other times, these early games even touted what could be argued as thematic depth or artistic risk, sentiments that emerge when considering the first Assassin’s Creed’s allegory for a post-9/11 political landscape or the underappreciated Assassin’s Creed: Revelation’s Brutalist architectural abstractions.

But these instances are merely outliers that have more to do with capable critics than the games…

View original post 2,899 more words

Virtual Heritage Article free to download until 21 April 2016

archaeology, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, virtual heritage, , , , ,

Elsevier have kindly let me and others download the below article from the Journal Entertainment Computing, (Volume 14, May 2016, Pages 67–74) up until 21 April 2016. From 22 April it will be behind the Elsevier paywall again.

http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Se406gYiZRYG4
No sign up or registration is needed – just click and read!

Title: Entertaining The Similarities & Distinctions Between Serious Games & Virtual Heritage Projects

Abstract:
This article summarizes past definitions of entertainment, serious games and virtual heritage in order to discuss whether virtual heritage has particular problems not directly addressed by conventional serious games. For virtual heritage, typical game-style entertainment poses particular ethical problems, especially around the simulation of historic violence and the possible trivialization of culturally sensitive and significant material. While virtual heritage can be considered to share some features of serious games, there are significantly different emphases on objectives. Despite these distinctions, virtual heritage projects could still meet serious games-style objectives while entertaining participants.

archaeology publishers mostly in the area of digital archaeology and video games

Academic, archaeology, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, Open Access, press, publication, virtual heritage, , , , , ,

I have been given a deadline of February 3 to source funding for a flight to the Netherlands to the “Interactive Pasts” Value conference 4-5 April 2016. They said they hope to publish an edited book from the conference and I asked them if they had heard of the below publishers (although they probably have their own) so I added the below links. Hope this is of use to someone. Happy to add links to publishers that I have missed.

Call for Book Chapters: “Place and the Virtual”

Architecture, Book, cfp, heritage, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, , ,

I am seeking 8-12 chapters for an edited book on “Place and the Virtual”. Proposed chapters can be on

  1. Definitions, main concepts, historical interpretations.
  2. Critical reviews of virtual places (theoretical or individual existing or past or future examples).
  3. Investigations into the similarities dissonances and differences between real places and virtual places.
  4. Applications of theories in other fields to the design or criticism of virtuality and place.
  5. Implications of related technologies, social trends, issues and applications.

Typical book chapter length: 5,000–8,000 words

Current Status of Proposal: The book proposal will be sent to the below editors for review when I have approximately 8-12 chapter abstracts.
Submission format: by email or attached word or RTF (rich text format) document, approximately 300-500 words.
Deadline for chapter abstracts: Still considering applications.

Email your abstract to: erik DOT champion AT Curtin DOT edu DOT au

Proposed to be part of a new planned Bloomsbury Books Series: Thinking Place, Series Editors Jessica Dubow and Jeff Malpas.Please distribute to interested parties.

Teotihuacán

archaeology, Architecture, Conference, heritage,

NB The feathered serpent (Quetzalcóatl) and Tláloc (a sort of lizard) entwine the human mountain (the temple) which in the Temple of the Moon (not the larger Temple of the Sun) hold a cave, symbolising fertility (and I assume, creation).

The two thousand year old murals and frescos are fascinating, the sinuous shape near the mouths indicate (flowery) speech:

My thanks to INAH for inviting me to Mexico and to fascinating archaeological sites such as Teotihuacan (INAH:in Spanish) and Xochicalco (see the solar hexagonal shaped overhead solar tunnel as per the below!)

Historical traps and tricks-are there any?

archaeology, digital heritage, game, heritage, , , , ,

Could historical traps and tricks be used in game designs to encourage thinking about other cultures and create an engaging games?

I raised the below question on twitter (partially to see if twitter was good at answering):

Were any of the traps and tricks in any Indiana Jones movies actually historically plausible and authentic/accurate?

Well I found some interesting answers at
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1cm11z/is_there_any_history_basis_for_the_traps_in_tombs/

And one example (Qin Shi Huang) seemed plausible:
The Secret Tomb of China’s 1st Emperor: Will We Ever See Inside?

Buried deep under a hill in central China, surrounded by an underground moat of poisonous mercury, lies an entombed emperor who’s been undisturbed for more than two millennia.The tomb holds the secrets of China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who died on Sept. 10, 210 B.C., after conquering six warring states to create the first unified nation of China.

http://www.giantbomb.com/qin-tomb-of-the-middle-kingdom/3030-12977/

 

And there was a game, Qin: Tomb of the Middle Kingdom, which leverages this idea! Not sure I can find and play it (I tried some years ago) but perhaps a working copy is still out there somewhere.

There are still vimeo and youtube videos online.

NB it was very interesting to read of mercury being buried with a tomb, as they have recently found liquid mercury at Teotihuacán:

Liquid mercury found under Mexican pyramid could lead to king’s tomb. Researcher reports ‘large quantities’ of the substance under ruins of Teotihuacan in discovery that could shed light on city’s mysterious leaders.

Theoretical Issues for Game-based Virtual Heritage

3D and game editors, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, heritage, ,

Another book chapter published

Theoretical Issues for Game-based Virtual Heritage

Abstract:

This paper critiques essential features in prominent theories of serious games, and compares them to interaction features of commercial computer games that could be used for history and heritage-based learning in order to develop heuristics that may help future the specific requirements of serious game design for interactive history and digital heritage.

Champion, E. (2015). Theoretical Issues for Game-based Virtual Heritage. In M. Ebner, K. Erenli, R. Malaka, J. Pirker & A. E. Walsh (Eds.), Immersive Education (Vol. 486, pp. 125-136): Springer International Publishing.

It gives the reader an idea of my upcoming book:

Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage (Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities)

The Egyptian Oracle Project: Ancient Ceremony in Augmented Reality (Bloomsbury Egyptology)

3D and game editors, Book, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, heritage, , , ,

Strange, authors don’t have a copy yet, and it says the book will be available from July 30 but my library already has a copy. Anyway, I wrote an introductory chapter on virtual heritage and the other chapters will be of interest to Egyptologists, Classicists, AI researchers, puppeteers, and of course Virtual Heritage designers..

http://www.amazon.com/The-Egyptian-Oracle-Project-Bloomsbury/dp/1474234151

For more than 2,000 years, between 1500 BCE and 600 CE, the Egyptian processional oracle was one of the main points of contact between temple-based religion and the general population. In a public ceremony, a god would indicate its will or answer questions through the movements of a portable cult statue borne by priests or important members of the community.

The Egyptian Oracle Project is an interactive performance that adapts this ceremony to serve as the basis for a mixed-reality educational experience for children and young adults, using both virtual reality and live performance. The scene is set in a virtual Egyptian temple projected onto a wall. An oracle led by a high priest avatar (controlled by a live human puppeteer) is brought into the presence of a live audience, who act in the role of the Egyptian populace. Through the mediation of an actress, the audience interacts with the avatar, recreating the event.

The series of carefully focused essays in this book provides vital background to this path-breaking project in three sections. After a brief introduction to educational theatre and virtual reality, the first section describes the ancient ceremony and its development, along with cross-cultural connections. Then the development of the script and its performance in the context of mixed-reality and educational theatre are examined. The final set of essays describes the virtual temple setting in more detail and explores the wider implications of this project for virtual heritage.

Curtin Research Fellowships

Academic, Announcements, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, Postdoc, , ,

For research fellows and other scholars who have a PhD awarded after 1 March 2010, please consider applying for a Curtin Research Fellowship (there are also indigenous and senior research fellowships for those with a PhD awarded before 1 March 2010):

http://research.curtin.edu.au/conducting-research/curtin-research-fellowships/

The internal expression of interest deadline is June 4 (the head of a school or centre has to support the application).
Please note this is a very competitive scheme.

I’m particularly interested in talking to researchers who focus on virtual heritage, digital archaeology, game design, VR evaluation, machinima, digital humanities, interaction design or similar subjects that could take place in the Humanities..

Ideas on how to adapt Kinect camera tracking for 3D presentations in archaeology

3D and game editors, Academic, Biofeedback, Hand tracking, heritage, HIVE, , , ,

I did not mention all these in my 22 May presentation at Digital Heritage 3D conference in Aarhus (http://conferences.au.dk/digitalheritage/)

But here are some working notes for future development:

How Xbox Kinect camera tracking could change the simulated avatar:

  1. Avatars in the simulated world change their size clothing or inventories – they scale relative to typical sizes and shapes of the typical inhabitants, or scale is dependent on the scene or avatar character chosen.
  2. Avatars change to reflect people picking up things.
  3. Avatars role-play – different avatars see different things in the digital world.
  4. Narrator gestures affect the attention or behavior of the avatar.

How Xbox Kinect camera tracking could change the simulated world or digital objects in that world:

  1. Multiple players are needed to lift and examine objects.
  2. Objects move depending on the biofeedback of the audience or the presenter.
  3. Interfaces for Skype and Google hangout – remote audiences can select part of the screen and filter scenes or wire-frame the main model.
  4. Levels of authenticity and time layers can be controlled or are passively / indirectly affected by narrator motion or audience motion / volume / infrared output.

The fictional use of reality

digital heritage, heritage, Journal,

The above could be the title of my next writing on virtual heritage..

Over their lifetime should every academic write at least one thing that threatens their very career? Just a (Wittgensteinian?) thought!
In digital heritage there is a great deal of talk about authenticity and how to maintain it. What if that approach is completely mistaken?

Ok I think I have the start of a very controversial journal article but writing the article may be easier than finding the appropriate journal to publish it in..

new book chapter in “The Egyptian Oracle Project Ancient Ceremony in Augmented Reality”

Book, Digital Humanities, heritage, ,

Editor(s): Robyn Gillam, Jeffrey Jacobson, Published: 30-07-2015 Format:PDF eBook

See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/the-egyptian-oracle-project-9781474249256/#sthash.HybJBxFg.dpuf

For more than 2,000 years, between 1500 BCE and 600 CE, the Egyptian processional oracle was one of the main points of contact between temple-based religion and the general population. In a public ceremony, a god would indicate its will or answer questions through the movements of a portable cult statue borne by priests or important members of the community.

The Egyptian Oracle Project is an interactive performance that adapts this ceremony to serve as the basis for a mixed-reality educational experience for children and young adults, using both virtual reality and live performance. The scene is set in a virtual Egyptian temple projected onto a wall. An oracle led by a high priest avatar (controlled by a live human puppeteer) is brought into the presence of a live audience, who act in the role of the Egyptian populace. Through the mediation of an actress, the audience interacts with the avatar, recreating the event.

The series of carefully focused essays in this book provides vital background to this path-breaking project in three sections. After a brief introduction to educational theatre and virtual reality, the first section describes the ancient ceremony and its development, along with cross-cultural connections. Then the development of the script and its performance in the context of mixed-reality and educational theatre are examined. The final set of essays describes the virtual temple setting in more detail and explores the wider implications of this project for virtual heritage.

Table Of Contents

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Background to the Project and This BookIntroduction (Robyn Gillam, York University, Canada, and Jeffrey Jacobson, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, USA)PART I The Egyptian Oracle
Chapter 1: Historical Foundations (Robyn Gillam)
Chapter 2: Cross-Cultural Analysis (Robyn Gillam)
Chapter 3: The Virtual Temple of Horus and Its Egyptian Prototypes (Robyn Gillam)

PART II The Performance
Chapter 4: Technical Description (Jeffrey Jacobson)
Chapter 5: Mixed Reality Theater and the Oracle (Josephine Anstey and David Pape, University of Buffalo, New York, USA)
Chapter 6: Educational Purpose and Results (Jeffrey Jacobson)

PART III The Technology
Chapter 7: Puppetry and Virtual Theater (Lisa Aimee Sturz, Red Herring Puppets, Asheville, North Carolina, USA)
Chapter 8: Introduction to Virtual Heritage (Erik Champion, Curtin University, Perth, Australia)
Chapter 9: The Virtual Temple: Construction and Use (Jeffrey Jacobson)

Conclusion (Robyn Gillam and Jeffrey Jacobson)

International CIPA Summerschool, 12-19 July 2015, Paestum (Italy)

heritage, summer school, virtual heritage, , , ,

The CIPA (http://cipa.icomos.org) summer school on “Cultural Heritage 3D Surveying and Modeling” gives the opportunity to scholars, PhD students, researchers and specialists in the surveying and heritage fields to deepen their knowledge and expertise with reality-based 3D modeling techniques. The summer school consists of theoretical lectures (surveying, photogrammetry, active sensors, etc.) and practical work, in the field and in the lab. The participants will learn the basics in surveying and data acquisition (with digital cameras, laser scanning sensors and UAV platforms) as well as practice with data processing methods for 3D models and metric products generation. The summer school is organized within the research project PAESTUM (http://paestum.fbk.eu/) and by CIPA within its dissemination and technology transfer activities and with the financial support of the CIPA sustaining members. VENUE: The location of the school is Paestum, 50 km south of Salerno (Italy). Paestum can be reached by car or train. The closest international airports are Rome or Naples. The event will take place in the Hotel Villa Rita (http://www.hotelvillarita.it) and inside the archaeological area and museum of Paestum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paestum). REGISTRATION FEE and PARTICIPATION: The registration fee for the participation is 600 Eur. The fee includes: lecture material, entrance to the site and museum, full-board hotel, welcome party, social dinner. For the participation, please send a CV to Fabio Remondino – remondino – before June 5th, 2015. The max number of participants is 24. The participant selection will be done according to the CV and order of arrival of the request.

URL: http://paestum.fbk.eu/node/14

DiGRA 2015 in Germany 14-17 May 2015

3D and game editors, Conference, heritage, , , , ,

Looking forward to returning even if briefly to Europe, I will be presenting the below paper (which I just sent off, hopefully complete) for the proceedings of the 8th international conference of the Digital Games Research Association taking place May 14th-17th at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Title: Role-playing and Rituals For Heritage-Oriented Games Abstract: Roles and rituals are essential for creating, situating and maintaining cultural practices. Computer Role-Playing games (CRPGs) and virtual online worlds that appear to simulate different cultures are well known and highly popular. So it might appear that the roles and rituals of traditional cultures are easily ported to computer games. However, I contend that the meaning behind worlds, rituals and roles are not fully explored in these digital games and virtual worlds and that more work needs to be done to create more moving rituals, role enrichment and worldfulness. I will provide examples from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda, 2006, 2011) to reveal some of the difficulties in creating digitally simulated social and cultural worlds, but I will also suggest some design ideas that could improve them in terms of cultural presence and social presence.