Øyvind Eide

The arrigo showcase reloaded—towards a sustainable link between 3D and semantics

It is still a big technical problem to establish a relation between a shape and its meaning in a sustainable way. We present a solution with a markup method that allows for labeling parts of a 3D object very much like labeling parts of a hypertext. A 3D markup can serve both as hyperlink and as link anchor, which is the key to bidirectional linking between 3D objects and Web documents. Our focus is on a sustainable 3D software infrastructure for application scenarios ranging from email and Internet over authoring and browsing semantic networks to interactive museum presentations. We demonstrate the workflow and the effectiveness of our tools by redoing the Arrigo 3D Showcase. We are working towards a best practice example for information modeling in cultural heritage.

TEI and cultural heritage ontologies: Exchange of information?

The content in information systems and virtual reconstructions in the cultural heritage sector is to a large degree directly based on information deduced from the study of texts. In many cases, even if the texts are available electronically, the links from the deduced facts to the original texts are not available and in many cases very costly to re-establish. Reproducibility of results is a core concept in text-based research as in all research. Thus, such links should be expressed explicitly in the systems and in accordance with the data standards developed in the fields of text encoding and conceptual modelling. To do this it is necessary to create a combined understanding of text encoding represented by the TEI guidelines and the understanding of conceptual models represented by initiatives like the CIDOC CRM and FRBR oo . In this article, we study a part of this complex by comparing the expressive power of the real world descriptions TEI P5 by mapping central parts of the CIDOC CRM onto TEI P5. It is clear that the TEI P5 has moved a great step in the direction towards an event-oriented model compared with TEI P4. Our use of CIDOC CRM as a yardstick shows that the expressive-ness of TEI P5 can be greatly improved by extending the scope of very restricted elements like the relation element and adding a few new elements to the TEI.

CRMgeo: A spatiotemporal extension of CIDOC-CRM

CRMgeo is a formal ontology intended to be used as a global schema for integrating spatiotemporal properties of temporal entities and persistent items. Its primary purpose is to provide a schema consistent with the CIDOC CRM to integrate geoinformation using the conceptualizations, formal definitions, encoding standards and topological relations defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium in GeoSPARQL. To build the ontology, the same ontology engineering methodology was used as in the CIDOC CRM. CRMgeo first introduced the concept of Spacetime volume that was subsequently included in the CIDOC CRM and provides a differentiation between phenomenal and declarative Spacetime volume, Place and Time-Span. Phenomenal classes derive their identity from real world phenomena like events or things and declarative classes derive their identity from human declarations like dates or coordinates. This differentiation is an essential conceptual background to link CIDOC CRM to the classes, topological relations and encodings provided by Geo-SPARQL and thus allowing spatiotemporal analysis offered by geoinformation systems based on the semantic distinctions of the CIDOC CRM. CRMgeo introduces the classes and relations necessary to model the spatiotemporal properties of real world phenomena and their topological and semantic relations to spatiotemporal information about these phenomena that was derived from historic sources, maps, observations or measurements. It is able to model the full chain of approximating and finding again a phenomenal place, like the actual site of a ship wreck, by a declarative place, like a mark on a sea chart.

The Exhibition Problem. A Real Life Example with a Suggested Solution

As the number of scholarly encoded digital texts is increasing, creating models of these kinds of texts with the help of digital tools is becoming more and more interesting. In connection with this type of work, it is important to have a clear understanding of what these particular models are based on. They will clearly be based on certain readings of the source texts, but we need to keep track of the relationships between the texts, readings of the texts and the models based on such readings. In this article, a problem of potentially great significance for this kind of modelling is discussed. The problem is called the exhibition problem and is based on the difference in ordinary linguistic communication between asserting a fact, e.g. that a certain person has a certain name, and exhibiting the same fact. In many cases, the latter is modelled as if it was the former. As a solution to this problem, an event-oriented modelling method is proposed.

Modelling in digital humanities: Signs in context

In this paper we focus on modelling as a creative process to gain new knowledge about material and immaterial objects by generating and manipulating external representations of them. We aim at enriching the current theoretical understanding by contextualising digital humanities practices within a semiotic conceptualisation of modelling. A semiotic approach enables us to contextualise modelling in a scholarly framework well suited to humanistic enquiries, forcing us to investigate how models function as signs within specific contexts of production and use. Kralemann and Lattmann’s semiotic model of modelling complemented by Ellestroms theories on iconicity are some of the tools we use to inform this semiotic perspective on modelling. We contextualise Kralemann and Lattmann’s theory within modelling practices in digital humanities by using three examples of models representing components and structure of historical artefacts. We show how their model of models can be used to understand and contextualise the models we study and how their classification of model types clarify important aspects of digital humanities modelling practice.

Putting the Dialogue Back Together Re-Creating Structure in Letter Publishing

In this paper, we will present a publication system in which selectedmaterial from letter collections is presented as dialogues between twopersons.

GIS and Digital Mapping

The possibilities for integrating texts and maps and for creating map-based narratives are important in the spatial humanities, and those questions deserve both theoretical and practical studies. The results from the research described in this book are important for the application of computer-based methods for spatial information implemented in GIS and deep map systems in the humanities.1 Such applications are usually connected to textual information, and the spatial data are often drawn from textual sources. The consequences the current work may have for the way in which we conceive digital maps and texts in academia and beyond will be discussed in this chapter. In Chapter 8, similar questions will be asked about modelling in general and critical stepwise formalisation specifically.

Texts, Maps, and the Landscape

People move in space, and we live our lives in time. In the time-scale of a human life, our surroundings change at different speeds, from the unmoving rocks through the slow shift of the course of a river, the growth of a tree and the slow walk of an elephant, to the frenetic sniffing of a mouse. Moving through a landscape, finding one’s way, can involve all these different rhythms of change, but when we tell others how to traverse the same ground, or record our experience with the intention of communicating the journey somehow, they figure in our account quite differently.

Towards a Typology of Media Differences

In this chapter I will summarise how the hypothesis presented in the previous chapter is supported by the evidence also presented there and outline some implications of the results. Do they point beyond the study of S1 towards a broader perspective on texts and maps in general? This will lead up to Part III where maps and texts will be discussed at a more general level.

Texts and Maps as Media Expressions

In the previous chapter it was shown how the hypothesis was supported, and a typology of media differences was established based on the results from the experiments. I also discussed what the consequences might be if one proceeded to create maps based on textual information, and I outlined some general ideas about the relationships between maps and texts. In order to develop this further, I will now turn to broader theoretical landscapes.