Maria Chiara Liguori

Databases and virtual environments: a good match for communicating complex cultural sites

This work presents the state of the art pr ICT applications related to Cultural Heritage conceived by the project New Institutions for Communicating the City, of Bologna City Council (director Mauro Felicori) and by the Visit Lab of CINECA (project manager Antonella Guidazzoli)

Bologna porticoes project: A 3D repository for WHL UNESCO nomination

The system of Bologna porticoes, included in 2006 in the Italian tentative list of World heritage sites of UNESCO, will undergo a definitive recognition of the nomination as part of the program of the current municipal council. The nomination is aimed at highlighting the portico, not only as a high-quality architectural work, which in the past centuries has become a distinctive feature of the town, but also in its social, community and anthropological meanings, as a meeting place, a protected space. The nomination project refers to different subjects and is divided into many levels of action. Among them we are going to develop a platform conceived for on-line accessing the wealth of data and resources related to the Bolognese porticoes system, such as historical, artistic, architectural resources, besides all those data regarding its actual management. The platform will perform the harvesting of several already existing databases, making the data available to citizens, tourists and scholars thanks to a graphic interface allowing a navigation in space and time. Therefore our system will facilitate the development of further cultural and promotional cross-medial applications, such as apps for mobile devices, augmented graphics and 3D architectural mapping events. Through social media tools, citizens will be invited not only to enjoy and share the proposed contents, but also to take an active stance in the project by uploading contents and comments. The core of our platform will consist of reality-based high quality 3D models usable and navigable within the system as main user interface. Uniform quality and consistency of our reality-based 3D digital models along the more than 40 km of porticoes was ensured by a controlled, low-cost process starting from photo-modeling techniques.

Etruscan cultural heritage: The Sarcophagus of the Spouses project: Virtual storytelling embedded in sensory audiovisual environments

This poster presents a creative media design project which combines digital technologies, virtual narration and visual metaphors in audio-visual environment, focusing on an Etruscan artwork dating back to 52 0 BC, the so called Sarcophagus of the Spouses. The project, developed by CINECA, in collaboration with Villa Giulia National Etruscan Museum and the Genus Bononiae History Museum in Bologna, aims to develop methodologies with an interdisciplinary applicative-creative perspective for sharing Etruscan heritage and promoting increased participation in culture and the humanities.

X3D/X3DOM, Blender Game Engine and OSG4WEB: Open source visualisation for cultural heritage environments

Cultural Heritage applications have often exploited 3D reconstructions in order to better convey contents, but virtual environments need also new solutions to be accessed in a flexible as possible way. X3DOM, Blender Game Engine and OSG4WEB are three different tools able to perform on-line, mobile and desktop visualisations, each one with pros and cons. Do they meet the requirements raised by Cultural Heritage curators? This paper will be offering an overview of these navigation tools by means of some case studies in order to better highlight problems and opportunities.

A google cloud approach to implement a graphical data access interface binding heterogeneous cultural repositories

The paper describes a prototype system based on Google Earth that can display cultural heritage data superimposed on the landscape. The prototype employs OAI-PMH protocol (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) to connect to data repositories. This work is part of the multi-disciplinary ParSJAd project and involves IBACN (Emilia-Romagna Regional Directorate for Cultural Heritage) DIPARCH (Archaeological Department, University of Bologna) and Cineca Interuniversity consortium.

Collecting, sharing, reusing geo and time-variant 3D models of the City of Bologna: An open project

CINECA and Bologna City Council are undertaking the creation of a framework that can both collect and share 3D models and all the useful knowledge to create them. A repository, dedicated to the area of Bologna and with geo and time referenced data among others, would handle the already existing historical, archaeological, artistic and architectural 3D models, making them available to the community for new cross platform and transmedial projects.

Open Creative Framework for a Smart Cultural City: Bologna Porticoes and the Involvement of Citizens for a UNESCO Candidacy

ICT projects dedicated to Cultural Heritage, in order to both democratise knowledge and act as an additional attraction towards audiences, should not neglect the communicative aspects. This approach can led towards two different perspectives: the creation of emotional and engaging events, and the creation of applications aiming at a more active participation of users in the development of the final product. The candidacy of the porticoes of Bologna as a UNESCO World Heritage Site will exploit the second solution to best involve citizens in the effort, offering, at the same time, training opportunities to students and young professionals.

Blender: a framework for cross-media cultural heritage applications

Cultural Heritage cross-media applications can greatly benefit by the use of the Blender open framework in terms of flexibility, content reuse capacity, character design up to on-line 3D model browsing and social virtual sharing of cultural virtual worlds. Through different case-study projects, carried on at Cineca VisitLab, several Blender key features will be outlined in the present paper.

Ati the Etruscan: a transmedia CG character for educational storytelling

Ati the Etruscan is a 3D character developed in Blender at VisitLab Cineca. It can be considered as a versatile mascot of the Etruscan civilization, part of the recent efforts sustained in Italy by different cultural institutions to promote knowledge about the Etruscans. It can also be seen as an example of a methodology in educational video making, based on open source, multiple re-use and sharing of 3D assets opened towards new cross-media applications.

Experience Etruria: a cross-media platform for e-culture and tourism

Experience Etruria aims at promoting the Italian Latium, Tuscany and Umbria regions starting from their common Etruscan roots, their landscape and food and wine wonders. The project includes a web portal, a downloadable and printable map with 4 sensory routes, related to local food and Etruscan sites and museums, and an emotional video. The video merges Computer Graphics and real-life shootings, joining a trend that is spreading among the educational productions.