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Showing papers in "Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage in 2018"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The article surveys the state-of-the-art in augmented-, virtual-, and mixed-reality systems as a whole and from a cultural heritage perspective and identifies specific application areas in digital cultural heritage and makes suggestions as to which technology is most appropriate in each case.
Abstract: A multimedia approach to the diffusion, communication, and exploitation of Cultural Heritage (CH) is a well-established trend worldwide. Several studies demonstrate that the use of new and combined media enhances how culture is experienced. The benefit is in terms of both number of people who can have access to knowledge and the quality of the diffusion of the knowledge itself. In this regard, CH uses augmented-, virtual-, and mixed-reality technologies for different purposes, including education, exhibition enhancement, exploration, reconstruction, and virtual museums. These technologies enable user-centred presentation and make cultural heritage digitally accessible, especially when physical access is constrained. A number of surveys of these emerging technologies have been conducted; however, they are either not domain specific or lack a holistic perspective in that they do not cover all the aspects of the technology. A review of these technologies from a cultural heritage perspective is therefore warranted. Accordingly, our article surveys the state-of-the-art in augmented-, virtual-, and mixed-reality systems as a whole and from a cultural heritage perspective. In addition, we identify specific application areas in digital cultural heritage and make suggestions as to which technology is most appropriate in each case. Finally, the article predicts future research directions for augmented and virtual reality, with a particular focus on interaction interfaces and explores the implications for the cultural heritage domain.

473 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Results from the framework evaluation suggest that the proposed design elements are useful in facilitating learning and that the experience of using the virtual environment affected the end users’ sense of awareness and appreciation toward heritage value and preservation.
Abstract: Virtual environment has the potential to be used as a medium to facilitate cultural learning. However, this requires guidelines on how to design the environment. This article provides a conceptual framework that guides the design of a virtual environment that facilitates cultural learning for casual users. The exploratory sequential mixed-method design approach was used as the basis for the overall research design. Five studies involving experts and end users were performed to identify and evaluate the framework components. The framework consists of four important components: (i) Information Design, (ii) Information Presentation, (iii) Navigation Mechanism, and (iv) Environment Setting, and outlines two types of design elements: basic elements, which are essential for cultural learning to take place, and extended elements, which provide options for enhanced user experience. Results from the framework evaluation suggest that the proposed design elements are useful in facilitating learning and that the experience of using the virtual environment affected the end users’ sense of awareness and appreciation toward heritage value and preservation.

36 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: CENDARI as mentioned in this paper is a research-supporting platform designed to provide tools for transnational historical research, focusing on two topics: medieval culture and World War I. The main tools are the note-taking environment and its faceted search capabilities; the data integration platform including the Data API, supporting semantic enrichment through entity recognition; and the environment supporting the software development processes throughout the project.
Abstract: The CENDARI infrastructure is a research-supporting platform designed to provide tools for transnational historical research, focusing on two topics: medieval culture and World War I. It exposes to the end users modern Web-based tools relying on a sophisticated infrastructure to collect, enrich, annotate, and search through large document corpora. Supporting researchers in their daily work is a novel concern for infrastructures. We describe how we gathered requirements through multiple methods to understand historians’ needs and derive an abstract workflow to support them. We then outline the tools that we have built, tying their technical descriptions to the user requirements. The main tools are the note-taking environment and its faceted search capabilities; the data integration platform including the Data API, supporting semantic enrichment through entity recognition; and the environment supporting the software development processes throughout the project to keep both technical partners and researchers in the loop. The outcomes are technical together with new resources developed and gathered, and the research workflow that has been described and documented.

25 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article describes a prototype natural user interface, named the Intangible Musical Instrument, which aims to facilitate access to knowledge of performers that constitutes musical Intangible Cultural Heritage using off-the-shelf motion capturing that is easily accessed by the public at large.
Abstract: This article describes a prototype natural user interface, named the Intangible Musical Instrument, which aims to facilitate access to knowledge of performers that constitutes musical Intangible Cultural Heritage using off-the-shelf motion capturing that is easily accessed by the public at large. This prototype is able to capture, model, and recognize musical gestures (upper body including fingers) as well as to sonify them. The emotional status of the performer affects the sound parameters at the synthesis level. Intangible Musical Instrument is able to support both learning and performing/composing by providing to the user not only intuitive gesture control but also a unique user experience. In addition, the first evaluation of the Intangible Musical Instrument is presented, in which all the functionalities of the system are assessed. Overall, the results with respect to this evaluation were very promising.

10 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: How the Social Display Environment (SDE) promotes participation in cultural spaces whilst keeping the physical connection with the exhibition objects is described, which makes use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology to augment physical artifacts in an exhibition with overlays of digital information generated by the end user.
Abstract: Technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Social Computing offer promising opportunities to envision and shape augmented experiences in a wide variety of cultural spaces. Such interactive technologies act as a hook to attract visitor's attention, but if they do not provide opportunities to engage people in a more personal and meaningful way, they can be soon discarded. Augmented experiences need to be motivating and connect with values and expectations of visitors and institutions. In a world that is becoming more and more connected and moving towards a participatory culture, the need to participate actively to co-produce knowledge and meaning can be exploited as a powerful intrinsic motivator. In this article, we describe how the Social Display Environment (SDE) promotes participation in cultural spaces whilst keeping the physical connection with the exhibition objects. The SDE makes use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology to augment physical artifacts in an exhibition with overlays of digital information that is generated by the end user (e.g., the visitor). The prototype was exhibited in a cultural center over a weekend to investigate different dynamics in terms of content generation, visitors’ interactions and perceptions with respect to the interplay of digital information and physical artifacts. The prototype was assessed as easy to learn and useful and showed potential to promote a number of meaningful social interactions around the objects involved in the exhibition.

5 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Saphir process uses a specifically designed colour illuminator that exploits the reflective properties of the disc material to highlight subtle changes in orientation of the groove walls, even at highest frequencies (20kHz).
Abstract: The goal of optical playback of analogue audio discs records has been pursued since at least 1929. Several different approaches have been demonstrated to work. But in most cases the playback quality is worse than using mechanical playback. The Saphir process uses a specifically designed colour illuminator that exploits the reflective properties of the disc material to highlight subtle changes in orientation of the groove walls, even at highest frequencies (20kHz). A standard colour camera is used to collect rings of pictures from the disc. Audio signal is extracted from the collected pictures automatically, under user control. When colour signal is not useable, track slope can be used as an alternative. The process is slow—several hours per disc—but has a wide range of operation on recorded and printed discs, from earliest Berliner recordings to recent vinyl records, and its strength is at decoding direct-recording lacquer discs. An Elementary Shortest Path Solver with a reward (negative cost) on the number of turns is used to re-connect all the sub-tracks obtained, allowing to reconstruct, with limited human intervention, the correct playback order. We describe the approach and present the main advantages and drawbacks. The process was used to play back a number of extremely damaged (broken, de-laminated…), physically unplayable records.

4 citations