Category Archives: infrastructure

Landscape Data, Art/Artefacts & Models as Linked Open Data Perth, Australia

Announcements, archaeology, Architecture, augmented reality, Conference, digital heritage, heritage, HIVE, infrastructure, talks, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , ,

For those interested in the above, please keep Friday 27 July 2018, open for an all-day free event in Perth.

We will be inviting speakers to talk on Australia-specific cultural issues and digital (geo) projects in relation to the above event.

More details to follow shortly and announced via http://commons.pelagios.org/:

So there is an Australian working group for Pelagios – Linked Open Data. We will run an event on 27 July at Curtin. News to follow.

http://commons.pelagios.org/2018/05/its-international-workers-day-announcing-our-2018-working-groups/

Australia LAMLOD Group: led by Erik Champion (UNESCO Chair of Cultural Visualisation and Heritage, Curtin University) and Susan Fayad (City of Ballarat), this WG seeks to address the problem of linking materials between academic research and cultural heritage in an Australian context. This is not so much about extending Pelagios linked data practice to an entirely new continent, though that is important; the problem this WG seeks to address is the multi-layered and contentious representation of cultural heritage, namely: the vast scale of Australian landscapes and historic journeys; the local and highly specific Aboriginal ways of describing, navigating and experiencing the landscapes with hundreds of different languages; and the specific problem of integrating UNESCO designated built and natural heritage with its surrounding ecosystems. The LAMLOD WG will create landscape data and visualisation displays, investigate related cultural artefact knowledge (Indigenous and colonial), and build towards the integration of linked open data and 3D models.

 

abstract for CDH 2018

Conference, digital heritage, heritage, infrastructure, respositories, virtual heritage,

Centre for Digital Heritage meeting 2018:
3D archives, (re)use and Knowledge production, Lund 18–20 June 2018

Our abstract:

Integrating 3d Models and GIS for Digital Cultural Heritage

Recent advances in technology have helped make the capture and modelling of 3D digital cultural objects increasingly affordable. Ever growing numbers of cultural institutions have been digitizing their digital artefacts and sites. Regards the availability of 3D geometric modelling methods and 3D file formats, there are hundreds to choose from. However, an extremely challenging task is to identify the most appropriate 3D geometric modelling method and file format for the specific purposes of digital cultural heritage. In order to overcome those challenges, this paper first summarizes the most-common 3D geometric modelling methods such as constructive solid geometry, non-uniform rational B-splines, triangle meshes, and discusses their advantages, disadvantages and their typical application in the digital cultural heritage domain. Second, various 3D file formats are systematically analysed and discussed, with particular reference to architecture, to archaeology and to heritage studies. Third, future possibilities of 3D file formats and their potential for linking with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and geospatial databases are outlined. What are the successful exemplars but also major challenges for linking GIS, 3D models and heritage aims? Where do these modelling methods, formats, aims and disciplines converge or diverge? Would such combinations create major problems for archives?

Keywords: 3D geometric modelling, 3D file formats, 3D archives, digital cultural heritage

Ikrom Nishanbaev, Erik Champion, Hafizur Rahaman, Mafkereseb Bekele

Digital Humanities Research Infrastructures in Australia

Digital Humanities, infrastructure, respositories, , , ,

Thanks to Curtin’s Faculty of Humanities and Computational Institute I attended the Australian Academy of Humanities 2 day Humanities Arts and Culture Data Summit, 14-15 March, hosted by the AHA https://www.humanities.org.au/ at the National Film and Sound Archive (NSFA), Canberra.

The below is from a brief report but may be of interest to those who’d like a quick guide to what is happening regards digital humanities research infrastructures at a National level in Australia.

SUMMARY:

Quick guide to social sciences/sciences platforms and RIs

  • Dr John La Salle, Director, Atlas of Living Australia https://www.ala.org.au/ biodiversity data
  • Dr Merran Smith, Chief Executive, Population Health Research Network http://www.phrn.org.au/
  • Andrew Gilbert, General Manager, Bioplatforms http://www.bioplatforms.com/andrew-gilbert/
  • Professor Bert Roberts, Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, 1 year into Centre of Excellence https://epicaustralia.org.au/  “Now is the time to tell a culturally inclusive, globally significant human and environmental history of Australia. We like to call it, Australia’s Epic Story. The ARC Centre of Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) will undertake research that will safeguard our national heritage, transform research culture, connect with communities and inform policy.”

Humanities

  • Professor Linda Barwick FAHA, University of Sydney – PARADISEC http://www.paradisec.org.au/ has funding issues but well respected, may require more computing to scale. “PARADISEC (the Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures) is a digital archive of records of some of the many small cultures and languages of the world”
  • Professor Julian Meyrick, Flinders University – AusStage http://www.flinders.edu.au/ehl/firth/focus/digitalhumanitiesanderesearch/ausstage.cfm “AusStage provides an accessible online resource for researching live performance in Australia. Development is led by a consortium of universities, government agencies, industry organisations and collecting institutions with funding from the Australian Research Council and other sources.”
  • Professor Mark Finnane FASSA FAHA, Griffith University – Prosecution Project https://prosecutionproject.griffith.edu.au/ “The criminal trial is the core of the Australian criminal justice system. It is the product of police investigation and its outcomes include the sentences of imprisonment that populate our prisons.” It is an impressive historical database. Overseas law researchers and historians (UK etc.) use it because it is better than theirs, apparently.
  • Alexis Tindall, Research Engagement Specialist – Humanities and Social Sciences Data Enhanced Virtual Lab (HASS DEVL https://www.ersa.edu.au/1-1-million-funding-humanities-arts-social-sciences-data-enhanced-virtual-lab/ “Humanities, Arts and Social Science researchers will get access to cutting-edge online tools and services thanks to $1.1 million in new funds for a collaborative virtual laboratory project. The Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) Data Enhanced Virtual Lab (DEVL) will bring together fragmented data, tools and services into a shared workspace.”

Others included (but there were more)

  • Adam Bell https://aiatsis.gov.au/ (very good talk on problems funding and running archives), Canberra. “The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) is a world-renowned research, collections and publishing organisation. We promote knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, traditions, languages and stories, past and present.”
  • Roxanne Missingham, University Librarian, Australian National University, showed the library books destroyed by flood, said to applause that infrastructure included people.
  • Alison Dellit, Assistant Director-General, National Collections Access, National Library of Australia. Discussed the National Library’s Trove https://trove.nla.gov.au/ “Find and get over 569,383,366 Australian and online resources: books, images, historic newspapers, maps, music, archives and more”)
  • Professor Rachel Fensham, Chief Investigator Social and Cultural Informatics Platform, University of Melbourne https://scip.unimelb.edu.au/about “SCIP responds to current demand and future growth in the digital humanities, arts, and social sciences by providing the necessary informatics skills and technology platforms to support researchers, research students and strategic research activities.”

AAH-HAC-Data-Summit-Program(2).pdf

AAH-HAC-Data-Summit-Discussion-Paper.pdf

“power of archives” food for thought.

Conference, heritage, infrastructure, publication, respositories,

We regularly hear about the ‘power of the archive’ and know about the importance of the archive for accountability and identity within our societies. But do we ever actually stop to think about the term ‘power of the archive’? What is the nature of this power? Do archives have inherent power? Or is it those…

via Considering “The Power of the Archive” — Identity & Archives

Curtin Cultural Makathon

Academic, augmented reality, Biofeedback, design, digital heritage, game, heritage, infrastructure, respositories, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, workshop, , , , ,

Hack/slash/cut/bash/scrape/mod/mash – it’s a culture thing

Join the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts and Curtin Library Makerspace to hack cultural datasets and heritage information.

Use government and institutional research data, gallery, library, archive and museum information as data sources. Experiment with data for a research project or proposal; create something accessible, beautiful and/or useful using craft, games, augmented or virtual reality, apps or something else: it’s up to you.

Date:    Thursday 10 November 2016 (afternoon) & Friday 11 November 2016 (9am – 5pm)

Location: Makerspace, level two, Robertson Library (building 105), Curtin University,  Kent Street, Bentley

Registration: Free via Eventbrite

For more information visit the Curtin Cultural Makathon website.

To volunteer to assist with data or to sponsor a prize please contact Dr Lise Summers or Dr Karen Miller.

Curtin Cultural Makathon is funded by a MCCA strategic grant. For more details on the project contact Professor Erik Champion.

Presentations, GCH2016, Genoa

archaeology, infrastructure, Presentation, respositories

Time: 15:45 – 17:15 (session) , Wednesday 5 October.

Location: Area della Ricerca di Genova, Via De Marini 6, 16149 Genova (Genoa), Italy.

Title: The Missing Scholarship Behind Virtual Heritage Infrastructure

This theoretical position paper outlines four key issues blocking the development of effective 3D models that would be suitable for the aims and objectives of virtual heritage infrastructures. It suggests that a real-time game environment which composes levels at runtime from streaming multimédia components would offer advantages in terms of editing, customisation and personalisation. The paper concludes with three recommendations for virtual heritage infrastructures.

Time: 11:00 – 12:00 (short paper, session) , Thursday 6 October.

Location: Area della Ricerca di Genova, Via De Marini 6, 16149 Genova (Genoa), Italy.

Title: 3D in-world Telepresence With Camera-Tracked Gestural Interaction

While many education institutes use Skype, Google Chat or other commercial video-conferencing applications, these applications are not suitable for presenting architectural or urban design or archaeological information, as they don’t integrate the presenter with interactive 3D media. Nor do they allow spatial or component-based interaction controlled by the presenter in a natural and intuitive manner, without needing to sit or stoop over a mouse or keyboard. A third feature that would be very useful is to mirror the presenter’s gestures and actions so that the presenter does not have to try to face both audience and screen.

To meet these demands we developed a prototype camera-tracking application using a Kinect camera sensor and multi-camera Unity windows for teleconferencing that required the presentation of interactive 3D content along with the speaker (or an avatar that mirrored the gestures of the speaker). Cheaply available commercial software and hardware but coupled with a large display screen (in this case an 8 meter wide curved screen) allows participants to have their gestures, movements and group behavior fed into the virtual environment either directly or indirectly. Allowing speakers to present 3D virtual worlds remotely located audiences while appearing to be inside virtual worlds has immediate practical uses for teaching and long-distance collaboration.

Conference URL: http://gch2016.ge.imati.cnr.it/index.php/technical-program

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.

Virtual Heritage Models: in Search of Meaningful Infrastructure

Book, infrastructure, virtual heritage, , , ,

Above is title of book chapter being revised/reviewed for Ashgate’s Cultural Heritage Creative Tools and Archives (edited book).

At 7,799 words I hope I am not asked to revise upwards!

Alternative title: Preserving the Heritage Component of Virtual Heritage

Abstract:
Teaching virtual heritage through the careful inspection, contextualization and modification of 3D digital heritage models is still problematic. Models are hard to find, impossible to download and edit, in unusual, unwieldy or obsolete formats, and many are standalone 3D meshes with no accompanying metadata or information on how the data was acquired, how the models can be shared (and if they can be edited), and how accurate the scanning or modeling process was, or the scholarly documents, field reports, photographs and site plans that allowed the designers to extract enough information for their models. Where there are suitable models in standard formats that are available from repositories, such as in Europeana library portal, they are encased in PDF format and cannot be extended, altered or otherwise removed from the PDF. Part of the problem has been with the development of virtual heritage; part of the problem has been with a lack of necessary infrastructure. In this chapter I will suggest another way of looking at virtual heritage, and I will promote the concept of a scholarly ecosystem for virtual heritage where both the media assets involved and the communities (of scholars, shareholders and the general public) are all active participants in the development of digital heritage that is a part of living heritage.

—About 7000 words later —

Conclusion: A New Virtual Heritage Infrastructure

I hope I have been clear about three major points. I have argued that virtual heritage will not successful as digital heritage if it cannot even preserve its own models and it will not be effective if it cannot implement digital technologies great advantages: real-time reconfiguration to suit the learner, device and task at hand; individual personalization; increased sense of agency; automatic tracking and evaluation mechanisms; and filtered community feedback. My suggestion is to implement not so much a single file format but to agree upon a shared relationship between assets. For want of a better word, I have described the overall relationship of components of virtual heritage infrastructure as a scholarly ecosystem.

Secondly, in this new age of digital communication the 3D model must be recognized as a key scholarly resource (Di Benedetto et al., 2014). As a core part of a scholarly ecosystem the model should be traceable, it should link to previous works and to related scholarly information. I suggest that the model should be component-based so that parts can be directly linked and updated. Web models would be dynamically created at runtime. The model should be engaging so extensive playtesting and evaluation is required to ensure it actually does engage its intended audience. As part of a scholarly infrastructure, the 3D model format (and all related data formats) should be easy to find and reliable. It should not require huge files to download or it should at least provide users with enough information to decide whether and what to download. Metadata can also help record the completeness, measurement methodology and accuracy of the models and Linked Open Data can help connect these media assets in a sensible and useful way.

Thirdly, the community of scholars, students and the wider public should be involved and we must endeavour to meaningfully incorporate their understanding, feedback and participation, this is a core requirement of UNESCO World Heritage status. Community involvement is a must for scholars as well and so I suggest that the virtual heritage projects dynamically link to journals and refereed conference papers and to the list of tools and methods that were used in the project. A robust feedback system could help continually improve the system. Other shareholder issues such as varying levels of learning skills, and varying levels of knowledge required or cultural knowledge that needs to be hidden (privacy and ownership issues) should also be incorporated into the project.

What has pushed me towards Open Access, or at least, more open and scholar friendly publications

infrastructure, Journal, publication, , , , ,

I was asked to help manage a special session of Entertainment Computing on Entertainment in Serious Games and Entertaining Serious Purposes, UTS, Sydney 2014.
Then I was asked to help edit a special issue of Entertainment Computing on Serious Games. I accepted, nice people.
My paper “Entertaining The Similarities And Distinctions Between Serious Games and Virtual Heritage Projects” also went through review (by reviewers unknown) and after some serious defense of my essay which I think is relevant to virtual heritage people in general, it was accepted.
And now today Elsevier the publisher asked me to sign online forms.
This is what dumbfounded me:

Open Access: No, I do not want to publish my article gold open access, and would like my final published article to be immediately available to all subscribers.

I have to sign this and agree to this, OR pay. No alternatives.
I do want my journal article to be open access but as I helped edit the special issue FOR FREE, wrote the article FOR FREE, and have to sign away all my rights to a journal publisher that did nothing except create a huge amount of work for me, I am rather UPSET that I am forced to sign that I DON’T WANT OPEN ACCESS. I do, I JUST DON”T WANT TO PAY FOR IT.

So if you are reading this Elsevier, I suggest you change your dictatorial and deliberately misconstruing forms. I suggest you give people more options AT THE START.

With a profit from 2014 of 955 million pounds ($1.27 billion) and 1.18 billion pounds the year before, I think you can afford to!

It saddens me that there are no established open access journals in my research area of virtual heritage (well, unless the author pays for it).
But I will keep looking.

Virtual Heritage Metadata

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

Metadata

Are there recent advancements and agreements in the design use and sharing of metadata for Virtual Heritage? Recent modifications of CIDOC-CRM and Dublin Core particularly for 3D Heritage Models would be appreciated. CARARE version 2 is pubically available and there are various papers on the topic but I have not found any large-scale agreement and deployment of any scheme that focuses on 3D Virtual Heritage.

Because in 2007 and 2011, Laia Tost and I suggested virtual heritage projects should be based on: care, accuracy, sensitivity, effective and inspirational pedagogical features, is collaborative and evaluation-orientated. Extrapolating from these aims, I suggest the following features are desirable for designing 3D virtual heritage models or developing an infrastructure that can support virtual heritage models for the purpose of classroom teaching and public dissemination:

  1. Data accuracy: the level of accuracy and type of data capture method should be associated with the model, as well as the geographical location.
  2. Format limitations: any known limitations or required conditions due to the digital format or way in which the data was created, should also be associated with the model.
  3. Provenance: the record of ownership and scholarship and community input should be recorded and accessible (the source and the ownership rights).
  4. Community protocols: social, cultural and institutional protocols that guide who accesses the sourced cultural heritage and how that should affect the transmission, distribution and dissemination of the digitally simulated model.
  5. Authenticity: the known, extrapolated, omitted, simplified and imagined areas and components of the model should be identified in some form of thematic (and preferably standardised) schema.
  6. Cultural presence: models should aim towards explaining the cultural significance of the original site, and give an impression of the situated cultural value of the place as experienced by the original inhabitants.
  7. Evaluation Data: these aims should be clearly explained and any evaluation data of participants should be linked to (or otherwise associated with) the models.
  8. Purpose: the generic ways in which original creators and shareholders intended the models could be edited or otherwise modified should be described.

The first three considerations (and possibly all of the others, especially 5: Authenticity) require the careful and appropriate use of metadata.As Wise and Miller (1997) have noted, metadata (‘data about data’), allows users to be informed without having to access the entire body of data, it helps us find information and it helps us to group and link ‘bodies of information’ together. In 2008, Addison proposed the following virtual heritage metadata:

Type#Data Encoding/Format
Whati.HeritageID (a superset of existing WorldHeritageID)
 Ii.Title/brief description
 IiiHeritage Type/Classification (e.g.: cultural: archaeological …)
 iv.Heritage Time Period (e.g.: geologic or historic time)
 v.Heritage Time Span
Whyvi.Purpose (reason recorded/produced)
Howvii.Recording Device Parameters (type, sample rate, precision …)
 viii.Secondary Device(s) (data manipulation)
 ix.Environmental conditions
Whomx.Submitter and Date of Submission
 xi.Rights given/withheld
 xii.Author/Copyright Holder
 xiii.Sponsor/Funder/Client
Whenxiv.Date (of recording, manipulation)
Wherexv.Location (Latitude/Longitude + compass direction if applicable)

References

ADDISON, A. 2008. The Vanishing Virtual. In: KALAY, Y. E., KVAN, T. & AFFLECK, J. (eds.) New Heritage: New Media and Cultural Heritage. Oxon UK: Routledge.

BENNETT, M. J. 2015. Presentation on Evaluating the Creation and Preservation Challenges of Photogrammetry-based 3D Models.

KULASEKARAN, S., TRELOGAN, J., ESTEVA, M. & JOHNSON, M. Metadata integration for an archaeology collection architecture. Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, 2014. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, 53-63.

REINHARD, A. 2013. Publishing Archaeological Linked Open Data: From Steampunk to Sustainability [Online]. Available: http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/7/reinhard/ [Accessed 23 7].

TOST, L. P. & CHAMPION, E. 2011. Evaluating Presence in Cultural Heritage Projects. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 18, 83-102.

WISE, A. & MILLER, P. 1997. WHY METADATA MATTERS IN ARCHAEOLOGY. Internet Archaeology, Online.

3D MODELS YOU CAN DOWNLOAD

3D and game editors, heritage, infrastructure, , , ,

Sketchfab really is impressive! First are castles (since that was requested)