Selma Rizvic

Augmented real-time virtual environment of the church of the holy trinity in mostar

Digital storytelling significantly improves the immersion of the users into virtual environments. The perception of the information contained in the digital story is better perceived if the story is told by a real avatar, rather than the animated character. The paper describes how we improved the approach of inserting the real avatar recorded against a green screen using a sequence of images with an alpha channel in an X3D real time virtual environment.

Surface reconstruction algorithms in cultural heritage digital representation

The goal of our work is to present the application of the modern technologies and computer graphics algorithms in the field of cultural heritage reconstruction and its protection. Here we describe a methodology for digital 3D acquisition of the ldquoStecakrdquo (Stecak - plural Stecci - specific Bosnian Middle Ages tombstones), with purpose of its study and presentation. 3D laser scanning technology has been selected as the most accurate technology available for replicating a complete sampling of the very complex Stecacuteaks surface. Afterwards, three algorithms for surface reconstruction were used to reconstruct its surface from point cloud data. This paper presents the results of that reconstruction and overview of various applications of reconstructed models.

Selective rendering in a multi-modal environment: scent and graphics

Visual perception is becoming increasingly important in computer graphics. Research on human visual perception has led to the development of perception driven computer graphics techniques, where knowledge of the human visual system and, in particular, its weaknesses are exploited when rendering and displaying 3D graphics. It is well known that many sensory stimuli, including smell, may influence the amount of cognitive resources available to a viewer to perform a visual task. In this paper we investigate the influence smell effects have on the perception of object quality in a rendered image. We show how we can potentially accelerate the rendering of images by directing the viewers attention towards the source of a smell and selectively rendering at high quality only the smell emitting objects. Other parts of an image can be rendered at a lower quality without the viewer being aware of this quality difference. By doing this, we can significantly reduce rendering time without any loss in the users perception of delivered quality.

4D virtual reconstruction of white bastion fortress

White bastion fortress has been standing in defense of Sarajevo since medieval period. In time it was changing together with various dominations upon the city. 4D virtual presentation aims to display the historical development of this cultural heritage object through digital storytelling combined with interactive 3D models of the Bastion in various time periods. These models contain digitized findings from the site and their 3D reconstructions. In this paper we present a new method of interactive digital storytelling for cultural heritage and its initial user evaluation.

Story guided virtual environments in educational applications

Over the last few years we have witnessed a rapid development and popularisation of serious gaming. This field is becoming approved in not only education, science, medicine, religion or engineering, but also in the area of cultural heritage through serious heritage games. This can be utilised for virtual reconstructions and virtual museums and possibly used for education in the form of edutainment, comprising various techniques, such as storytelling, visual expression of information, interactivity and entertainment [19]. This paper demonstrates a new concept of using story guided virtual environments for cultural heritage virtual reconstruction, with live virtual guides in an interactive Flash format. First we compare the implementations of the same environments in x3D and Flash and then we extend the project with digital storytelling, where a user is guided through the whole application using both narrative, non-interactive, movie-like elements and interactive exploration of the virtual environment. The introduced results can be easily adopted for serious games development.

Project iMARECULTURE: Advanced VR, immersive serious games and augmented reality as tools to raise awareness and access to European underwater cultural heritage

The project iMARECULTURE is focusing in raising European identity awareness using maritime and underwater cultural interaction and exchange in Mediterranean Sea. Commercial ship routes joining Europe with other cultures are vivid examples of cultural interaction, while shipwrecks and submerged sites, unreachable to wide public are excellent samples that can benefit from immersive technologies, augmented and virtual reality. The projects aim to bring inherently unreachable underwater cultural heritage within digital reach of the wide public using virtual visits and immersive technologies. Apart from reusing existing 3D data of underwater shipwrecks and sites, with respect to ethics, rights and licensing, to provide a personalized dry visit to a museum visitor or augmented reality to the diver, it also emphasizes on developing pre- and after- encounter of the digital or physical museum visitor. The former one is implemented exploiting geospatial enabled technologies for developing a serious game of sailing over ancient Mediterranean and the latter for an underwater shipwreck excavation game. Both games are realized thought social media, in order to facilitate information exchange among users. The project supports dry visits providing immersive experience through VR Cave and 3D info kiosks on museums or through the web. Additionally, aims to significantly enhance the experience of the diver, visitor or scholar, using underwater augmented reality in a tablet and an underwater housing. The consortium is composed by universities and SMEs with experience in diverse underwater projects, existing digital libraries, and people many of which are divers themselves.

Visualization and multimedia presentation of cultural heritage

Understanding the past is one of the key factors of human culture. Cultural heritage contributes to the preservation of collective memory. It is difficult to imagine the original appearance of monuments while observing their archeological remains. Digital technologies are an efficient tool for visualization and multimedia presentation of cultural heritage. This paper describes the use of these technologies through the workflow of the White bastion 4D visualization project, from collecting information, through 3D modeling and texturing to interactive web implementation using the most advanced web 3D technologies. We discuss the advantages and drawbacks of each technology for this particular purpose.

Enhancing museum exhibitions with interactive digital content: Sarajevo city model interactive

Digital technologies prove to be a very efficient tool in enhancing museum exhibitions. In this paper we describe the Interactive Sarajevo City Model project. It is an application which shows a digital version of Sarajevo old town physical model which represents the appearance of the city during the Ottoman period. Instead of pointing out particular cultural heritage objects in the physical model, the curators and museum visitors can click on the corresponding info points in the application and obtain the information about those objects and their history. The paper presents the application development workflow together with some issues within the standalone implementation and user perception of such enhanced museum exhibition.

Phoneme reduction in automated speech for computer animation

Accurate facial animation is rapidly becoming a key feature in computer animation, from movie production to software agents. A lot of practical work in computer animation presently is done by 3ds max software. An advantage of this system is that one of the hardest part of an animators work, creating key frames based on prerecorded soundtrack, can be automated using MaxScript control script. However, to achieve realistic results, any generated facial animations must be manually fine tuned by adding facial expressions and emotions. This paper analyses different methods for reducing the problem of phonemes in speech animation for virtual characters. Through examples created using a control parametrization approach, the paper discusses different levels of phoneme reduction, their look and application in several areas of computer animation production.

How to Breathe Life into Cultural Heritage 3D Reconstructions

Virtual 3D reconstructions of destroyed or disappeared cultural heritage enable viewers to effectively travel back through time and visualize monuments whose fragments they can see in museums or archaeological sites. A powerful way to convey information through three-dimensional geometry is to add interactive digital storytelling to virtual models. In this paper we present our work on interactive virtual cultural heritage applications with storytelling and show how users appreciate this presentation form, considering it as breathing life into 3D geometry. We describe the TaAilihan project, which consists of a documentary, interactive digital story and serious game about this valuable cultural monument from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, of which only one wall remains as a memento to its existence.