Showing papers in "ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage in 2013"
TL;DR: An authoring framework that aims to provide structured support, from content design to final implementation, of the SandBox Serious Game, a conceptual model which relies on a generalization of task-based learning theory, and proposes a top-down methodology for content preparation.
Abstract: Serious games present a promising opportunity for learning, but the genre still lacks methodologies and tools for efficient and low-cost production, particularly for teacher and domain experts This article gives an authoring framework that aims to provide structured support, from content design to final implementation In particular, we have abstracted a conceptual model—the SandBox Serious Game - which relies on a generalization of task-based learning theory The model invites players to perform cognitive tasks contextually while exploring information-rich virtual environments We consider it particularly suited for cultural heritage entertainment applications The model defines games that are set in realistic virtual worlds enriched with embedded educational tasks, which we have implemented as minigames This approach simplifies the authoring work, which can easily be supported by visual authoring tools for ontology-based urban 3D modeling and implementation tasks, thus allowing an approach similar to the mind-maps concept We propose a top-down methodology for content preparation, starting from a city-level analysis down to the single points of interest and associated tasks, which are instances of simple predefined minigame/quiz typologies We provide examples and discuss criteria for selecting task typologies according to the authors' cognitive targets Finally, we discuss the results of a user test, which took place in a lab, aimed at verifying the acquisition of cultural heritage knowledge in a pleasant and engaging way Games appear particularly suited for supporting the study of images, especially of iconography Compared to reading text, a game forces the player to focus more strongly on problems, which favors knowledge acquisition and retention Learning complex concepts requires an investigative attitude, which can be spurred by well-designed games Good design involves usability, graphic appeal, appropriate content, and the presence of connections which a player must discover in the content Players should be asked to pay attention to and reason about their whole game activity - including the relationships between the game content, the brief introduction, and concluding texts More comprehensive tests are needed to better investigate the educational effectiveness—however, the first results are promising, especially in terms of user motivation and creation of new opportunities for learning about CH
144 citations
TL;DR: This article presents a novel technique for automatic archaeological sherd classification that uses the representative sherds of a bunch of sherds found in the field in order to correctly classify the remaining sherds.
Abstract: This article presents a novel technique for automatic archaeological sherd classification. Sherds that are found in the field usually have little to no visible textual information such as symbols, graphs, or marks on them. This makes manual classification an extremely difficult and time-consuming task for conservators and archaeologists. For a bunch of sherds found in the field, an expert identifies different classes and indicates at least one representative sherd for each class (training sample). The proposed technique uses the representative sherds in order to correctly classify the remaining sherds. For each sherd, local features based on color and texture information are extracted and are then transformed into a global vector that describes the whole sherd image, using a new bag of words technique. Finally, a feature selection algorithm is applied that locates features with high discriminative power. Extensive experiments were performed in order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed technique and show very promising results.
48 citations
TL;DR: The descriptive model to be used as a classification method for games of different characteristics for cultural heritage sites is presented and the model is used for the creation of different cultural heritage games.
Abstract: The unique aspects of different places seem to require games of different characteristics. This paper describes the initial steps of an attempt to design games for different places of cultural heritage and consists of three parts. In the first part, the descriptive model to be used as a classification method for games of different characteristics for cultural heritage sites is presented. In the second part, the model is used for the creation of different cultural heritage games. Finally, the third part presents a detailed case study of one of the developed games, showing the implementation and user testing processes as well as its efficiency in terms of education and visit motivation.
39 citations
TL;DR: The development of the 3D online learning game, ThIATRO, that immerses the player an exhibition and, as a side-effect communicates knowledge of art history concepts to the player, whose playful approach not only increases motivation to learn but also raises interest in art history and cultural heritage in general.
Abstract: Games have become an integral part of today's culture, most obviously among younger people. At the same time, learning games have proved that they can be a source of enjoyment and are, if well-made, powerful tools for communicating knowledge. For cultural heritage projects targeted to raising the awareness of the general public, the integration of interactivity and innovative storytelling techniques can be supporting elements to capture their target audiences' enthusiasm. In particular, games that deal with art history have particular flaws in integrating motivating elements. This observation led us to the development of the 3D online learning game, ThIATRO, that immerses the player an exhibition and, as a side-effect communicates knowledge of art history concepts to the player. Its playful approach not only increases motivation to learn but also raises interest in art history and cultural heritage in general. We provide an overview of the design ideas behind ThIATRO and summarize the results of evaluations conducted with a group of 14-year-old pupils in a classroom environment. The results indicate that ThIATRO changes the player's aesthetic response and allows him or her to perceive art on a deeper level.
36 citations
TL;DR: It is verified that integrating the cross-disciplinary methods of anthropologists, history teachers, tribal elders, and game designers to establish instructional goals and design foci for game development and to create a cultural heritage serious game-creation framework warrants further study and effort.
Abstract: This study utilizes the characteristics of the Annales School, including their emphasis on total history and space and time integration, their focus on the economic world, and their use of structural analysis to develop a creation framework for a serious video game related to the cultural and life history of Taiwan's indigenous people. Game development comprised the tiers of data, logic, and presentation. During the data tier, we used taxonomy to extract the cultural components of Taiwan's Atayal tribe. During the logic tier, we employed an analysis of cultural characteristics and comparisons of historical education goals to confirm the game's framework and storytelling engine, selecting a construction management simulation game genre to present tribal life and economic operations. Finally, in the presentation tier, we converted cultural components into elements in the game's user interface.The game evaluation results showed that “Papakwaqa” (our serious game) had positive benefits for enhancing schoolchildren's learning motivation and performance regarding indigenous life and history. Our research verified that integrating the cross-disciplinary methods of anthropologists, history teachers, tribal elders, and game designers to establish instructional goals and design foci for game development and to create a cultural heritage serious game-creation framework warrants further study and effort.
28 citations
TL;DR: A combination of corpus and knowledge-based approaches provide the best results in both experiments for identifying similar items in cultural heritage collections.
Abstract: Large amounts of cultural heritage content have now been digitized and are available in digital libraries However, these are often unstructured and difficult to navigate Automatic techniques for identifying similar items in these collections could be used to improve navigation since it would allow items that are implicitly connected to be linked together and allow sets of similar items to be clustered Europeana is a large digital library containing more than 20 million digital objects from a set of cultural heritage providers throughout Europe The diverse nature of this collection means that the items do not have standard metadata to assist navigationA range of methods for computing the similarity between pairs of texts are applied to metadata records in Europeana in order to estimate the similarity between items Various methods for computing similarity have been proposed and can be classified into two main approaches: (1) knowledge-based, which make use of external knowledge sources and (2) corpus-based approaches, which rely on analyzing the frequency distributions of words in documents Both techniques are evaluated against manual judgements obtained for this study and a multiple-choice test created from manually generated categories in cultural heritage collections We find that a combination of corpus and knowledge-based approaches provide the best results in both experiments
28 citations
TL;DR: This project explores the use of x-ray micro-CT technology to scan the Cantonese chess pieces with a voxel separation of less than 9 μm, and generates 3D surface models of the separate parts to enable close inspection of both exterior and interior sections.
Abstract: Laser scanning has been widely adopted for the digital preservation and study of cultural heritage artifacts. However, surface scans alone are not sufficient for a variety of intricate objects such as the Cantonese chess pieces that were delicately carved from ivory throughout the 19th Century. These pieces incorporate a puzzle ball base, which is comprised of several balls, one inside the other. In this project we explore the use of x-ray micro-CT technology to scan the piece with a voxel separation of less than 9 μm, By using masking and editing software we generate 3D surface models of the separate parts to enable close inspection of both exterior and interior sections. Visualizing the dataset at a much larger scale enables the viewer to appreciate the fine surface details imperceivable in the original piece. Finally, 3D scaled versions are printed where the small details are also easily observed and the inner balls within the puzzle ball base move freely. The work flow demonstrated in this article has important possibilities in digital preservation, documentation, and presentation.
22 citations
TL;DR: It is found that in this case, improving the coverage is the more difficult task, and a new algorithm to increase recall (coverage) is introduced—which is applicable to many other problems as well, and demonstrates significant improvement in the corpus.
Abstract: This article describes methods for semiautomatic thesaurus construction, for a cross generation, cross genre, and cross cultural corpus. Semiautomatic thesaurus construction is a complex task, and applying it on a cross generation corpus brings its own challenges. We used a Jewish juristic corpus containing documents and genres that were written across 2000 years, and contain a mix of different languages, dialects, geographies, and writing styles. We evaluated different first and second order methods, and introduced a special annotation scheme for this problem, which showed that first order methods performed surprisingly well. We found that in our case, improving the coverage is the more difficult task, for this we introduce a new algorithm to increase recall (coverage)—which is applicable to many other problems as well, and demonstrates significant improvement in our corpus.
18 citations
TL;DR: A system that was developed to enable museum curators and/or scholars to document relationships between multiple 3D digital representations of museum objects using web-based annotation tools and improves scholars’ capabilities to undertake cultural heritage research is described.
Abstract: Understanding the similarities, differences, and relationships between cultural heritage artifacts is critical for determining their significance and their provenance. It also provides valuable information for ensuring the long-term preservation of cultural heritage artifacts. Consequently, as more museums develop online three-dimensional (3D) collections, curators and scholars are demanding online tools that enable them to document and interpret variances and similarities between related 3D digital objects. This article describes a system that was developed to enable museum curators and/or scholars to document relationships between multiple 3D digital representations of museum objects using web-based annotation tools. The 3D Semantic Association (3DSA) system enables users to annotate relationships between multiple whole objects, parts of objects, or features on objects (surface features or volumetric segments). The annotations are stored on a server in an interoperable format that can be shared, discovered, browsed, and retrieved through a web browser interface. This approach not only improves scholars’ capabilities to undertake cultural heritage research but also enables researchers to document, share, discuss, and compare alternative hypotheses about the relationships between artifacts.
16 citations
TL;DR: A 3D information system that has been designed to manage cultural heritage information that allows information layers to be associated with the surface of the artifact, following an approach similar to that used in geographical information systems.
Abstract: The information about cultural heritage artifacts that archeologists must manage is usually very heterogenous, and, due to its spatial nature, cannot be easily represented using conventional data management frameworks. The strong spatial dependence of this data suggests that the information should be linked to a 3D model of the artifact. This article presents a 3D information system that has been designed to manage cultural heritage information. The system allows information layers to be associated with the surface of the artifact, following an approach similar to that used in geographical information systems. This permits relationships between the different elements to be ascertained, and allows both specialists and the layperson to more easily understand the information. We describe here the structure and functionality of the system.
16 citations
TL;DR: A four-fold table regarding the relationship between cultural heritage (or history) and digital technology is introduced and the dimension of the internality/externality of history and cultural heritage in regard to the digital game cultural context is introduced.
Abstract: Digital gaming and digital technologies have their own unique cultural history while at the same time, the cultural heritage of digital technology is emerging. Digital technology has been understood as merely an apparatus that can be utilized for transferring nondigital historical content to novel digital products. These products, including types such as multimedia shows, games, Web sites, and online course environments, are targeted at juvenile audiences, who are typically considered to be the primary users of such new media forms. For decades, the changes and new continuities in both mediated content and the technology of mediation were mostly hidden in the shadow of educational goal-attainment. This article draws inspiration from ideas on media archaeology and the cultures of history. In this article we suggest an approach of internal and external cultural heritage of games cultures. We introduce a four-fold table regarding the relationship between cultural heritage (or history) and digital technology. The four-fold table consists of the dimension of a researcher's comprehensive/applied goal-attainment and the dimension of the internality/externality of history and cultural heritage in regard to the digital game cultural context. Within these cultures, there are several alternative ways of discussing the relationship between history, cultural heritage, and digital technology, separate from the traditional edutainment perspective. The dimensions are illustrated with practical examples, including a typologization of historiographical computer games, retrogaming, and educational workshops on game classics.
TL;DR: This article introduces DN, argues its great cultural significance, provides market research results showing directors' interest in using it, and reports on two controlled experiments confirming its effectiveness—including its usability in a practical context and its ability to represent and communicate the necessary information.
Abstract: DirectorNotation (DN) is a symbolic language intended to express the content of film (motion pictures), much as notes provide a language for the writing of music. It thus constitutes a new approach to the creative process of filmmaking. Musicians, and also choreographers, have long been able to express their creative choices using logical symbolic structures (music notation and dance notation), yet those working in the movie industry have to rely on cartoons and verbal description. Development of a successful notation becomes appropriate today because of its dependence upon the parallel development of effective notation-based software tools such as visualisation (automatic animated storyboard generation), production budget estimation, and automated rough editing of dailies. Directors maintain complete control of their creative decisions when using DN. It is an artistic language supported by technical tools for planning and analysis. The notation is not merely a graphical user interface for these tools, and the tools are never intended to make decisions for the director. This article introduces DN, argues its great cultural significance, provides market research results showing directors' interest in using it, and reports on two controlled experiments confirming its effectiveness—including its usability in a practical context and its ability to represent and communicate the necessary information.
TL;DR: A number of experiments were conducted to look for quantitative differences in movement in virtual versus material environments, using both “virtual” studio reconstruction as well as material reconstructions of a British Iron Age round house.
Abstract: Experimental archaeology has long yielded valuable insights into the tools and techniques that were featured in past peoples’ relationships with the material world around them. However, experimental archaeology has, until now, confined itself to rigid, empirical, and quantitative questions. This article applies principles of experimental archaeology and serious gaming tools in the reconstructions of a British Iron Age round house. This article explains a number of experiments conducted to look for quantitative differences in movement in virtual versus material environments, using both “virtual” studio reconstruction as well as material reconstruction. The data from these experiments was then analysed to look for differences in movement that could be attributed to artefacts and/or environments. This article also explains the structure of the experiments, how the data was generated, what theories may make sense of the data, what conclusions have been drawn, and how serious gaming tools can support the creation of new experimental heritage environments.
TL;DR: An architecture for a dialogue management system to be employed in serious games for natural language interaction with nonplayer characters and it provides an easy to use authoring tool, which allows cultural heritage experts to define the character's knowledge without the need for learning a scripting language.
Abstract: This article describes an architecture for a dialogue management system to be employed in serious games for natural language interaction with nonplayer characters. The aim of this work is to improve the learning experience by enhancing the immersiveness felt by the player. The system is implemented in a Service Oriented Architecture perspective and it exposes its functionalities through Web services. It also provides an easy to use authoring tool, which allows cultural heritage experts to define the character's knowledge without the need for learning a scripting language. We tested the system by embedding it in a simple serious game, where the user could interact with the virtual representation of a XVI century Geneoese artist, Luca Cambiaso, in order to acquire knowledge about his life and artworks. These early lab test results showed a high level of appreciation for the usability of the system and for the user engagement. Tests also showed that the system is a good didactic tool, since players demonstrated a similar level of knowledge acquisition to that achieved by reading a text.
TL;DR: A WebGL-based presentation framework in which reflectance information is represented via Bidirectional Texture Functions (BTF) and handles the huge amount of data needed by employing a novel progressive streaming approach for BTFs, which allows for the smooth interactive inspection of a steadily improving version during the download.
Abstract: Museums and Cultural Heritage institutions have a growing interest in presenting their collections to a broader community via the Internet. The photo-realistic presentation of interactively inspectable virtual surrogates is one of the most challenging problems in this field. For this purpose, we seek to employ not only a 3D geometry but also a powerful material representation capable of reproducing the full visual appeal of an object. In this article, we propose a WebGL-based presentation framework in which reflectance information is represented via Bidirectional Texture Functions (BTF). Our approach works out-of-the-box in modern Web browsers and allows for the progressive transmission and interactive rendering of digitized artifacts consisting of 3D geometry and reflectance information. We handle the huge amount of data needed for this representation by employing a novel progressive streaming approach for BTFs, which allows for the smooth interactive inspection of a steadily improving version during the download. We demonstrate an interesting use-case of this technique at a cross section of Cultural Heritage, medical education, and research and provide an evaluation of the capabilities of our framework in the scope of BTF compression and transmission.
TL;DR: This article addresses the problem of automatic reconstruction of a 3D relief object from a line drawing by showing how the interdependencies of the strokes can be exploited to automatically generate a good initial interpretation of the line drawing.
Abstract: This article addresses the problem of automatic reconstruction of a 3D relief object from a line drawing. Our main application is reconstruction of archaeological artifacts based on line drawings. The problem is challenging due to five reasons: the small number of orthogonal views of the object, the sparsity of the strokes, their ambiguity, their large number, and their interrelations. We partition the reconstruction problem into two subproblems. First, we reconstruct the underlying smooth base of the object from the silhouette. Assuming that the variation of bases belonging to the same class of objects is relatively small, we create the base by modifying a similar base retrieved from a database. Second, we reconstruct the relief on top of the base. Our approach can reconstruct the relief from a complex drawing that consists of many interrelated strokes. Rather than viewing the interdependencies as a problem, we show how they can be exploited to automatically generate a good initial interpretation of the line drawing. Even though our algorithm is generic, its strength is demonstrated by the reconstruction of artifacts from manual drawings taken from real archaeological reports. These drawings are highly challenging, since artists created very complex and detailed descriptions of artifacts regardless of any considerations concerning their future use for shape reconstruction.
TL;DR: The overall goal is to sketch the landscape of the state-of-the-art in the field, investigating the actual benefits of SGs for the cultural heritage stakeholders and highlighting the challenges that need to be faced in order to really meet the requirements of the field.
Abstract: Information and communication technologies provide powerful tools to build cultural heritage applications that facilitate a better understanding and appreciation of our present and past both by specialists and the general public and support the preservation, reproduction, representation, and fruition of artifacts, sites, and intangible goods in the form of virtual heritage. While multimedia archives and the digitization of artifacts and sites offer easy access to cultural content with no space or time constraints, game mechanics have the potential to engage the public in the fruition of such valuable resources. As a matter of fact, games with educational purposes, namely, Serious Games (SG), are becoming ever more popular. The main feature of a SG is an accurate combination of fun and instruction. The fun aspects favor engagement and can be determined by several factors such as storyboards, graphics, usability, interaction modalities, etc. The instructional aspects are the result of a proper pedagogical design, addressing in particular the organization of the learning content, the adaptation to the player’s profile and abilities, and the implementation of virtual tutor characters, or similar guidance/support systems. The goal of SGs in the cultural heritage domain is to actually spread cultural content to its maximum extent by exploiting the intrinsic features of this medium. SGs are suited to represent both the tangible and intangible heritage, as they can faithfully represent characters, environments, behaviors, and events. In this context, we called for papers reporting on case studies and perspective applications for tangible and intangible heritage, as well as providing insights about technological and methodological design and implementation issues. The overall goal is to sketch the landscape of the state-of-the-art in the field, investigating the actual benefits of SGs for the cultural heritage stakeholders and highlighting the challenges that need to be faced in order to really meet the requirements of the field. We have selected four articles that present a variety of contexts and solutions, addressing topics in areas such as artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, pedagogy, etc. J. Froschauer, D. Merkl, M. Arends, and D. Goldfarb describe ThIATRO, an art history SG, where the player acts as a museum curator who has to arrange an exhibition on several topics, collecting paintings from different museums. The article also suggests an inspiring methodology for evaluating the player learning gain, which is a key potential advantage of educational SGs. T. Coehen, L. Mostmans, and K. Naessens et al. report the case study of MuseUs, a pervasive mobile game, designed to enhance museum visits. The article describes requirements and provides new design solutions using common mobile devices to stimulate visitors to gain familiarity with the artworks on exhibit. C.-H. Huang and Y.-T. Huang describe Papaqwaka, which realistically simulates the life of the Atayal minority in Taiwan. Intangible cultural assets like tribal beliefs, customs, and ceremonies (e.g., the harvesting festival) are well integrated within the game objectives and mission levels. Finally, D. Mori, R. Berta, A. De Gloria, V. Fiore, and L. Magnani present an ad-hoc dialogue management system designed to support natural language interaction within SGs. The goal is to support
TL;DR: A portable, cost-effective pattern projector system powered by the flash of a camera is presented, to aid the reconstruction of areas containing little or no texture and in the presence of repetitive patterns.
Abstract: Computer vision techniques have been applied for rapid and accurate structure recovery in many fields. Most methods perform poorly in areas containing little or no texture and in the presence of repetitive patterns. We present a portable, cost-effective pattern projector system powered by the flash of a camera, to aid the reconstruction of such areas. No calibration is required between the camera-projector, projector-scene, or pattern. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system on various representative surfaces like stone, metal, clay, porcelain, and natural fibers, with different inherent colors/textures. A pipeline is presented to automatically generate textured, true-scale metric models, that can be used for quantitative studies or visualization. The practicability of our system is explored in the specific area of digital archiving of historically significant objects. We show results from field trips to 12th century temples at Belur and Halebidu in South India and objects from the Wintherthur museum, Delaware, USA.
TL;DR: This work introduces a novel compression mechanism that exploits spatial coherence in the data to allow the bins to be computed with only 1.01 bytes of I/O traffic for each byte of input, compared to 2 or more for previous schemes.
Abstract: Laser range scanning is commonly used in cultural heritage to create digital models of real-world artefacts. A large scanning campaign can produce billions of point samples—too many to be manipulated in memory on most computers. It is thus necessary to spatially partition the data so that it can be processed in bins or slices. We introduce a novel compression mechanism that exploits spatial coherence in the data to allow the bins to be computed with only 1.01 bytes of I/O traffic for each byte of input, compared to 2 or more for previous schemes. Additionally, the bins are loaded from the original files for processing rather than from a sorted copy, thus minimizing disk space requirements. We demonstrate that our method yields performance improvements in a typical point-processing task, while also using little memory and guaranteeing an upper bound on the number of samples held in-core.