Vid Petrovic

The future of the CAVE

The CAVE, a walk-in virtual reality environment typically consisting of 4–6 3 m-by-3 m sides of a room made of rear-projected screens, was first conceived and built in 1991. In the nearly two decades since its conception, the supporting technology has improved so that current CAVEs are much brighter, at much higher resolution, and have dramatically improved graphics performance. However, rear-projection-based CAVEs typically must be housed in a 10 m-by-10 m-by-10 m room (allowing space behind the screen walls for the projectors), which limits their deployment to large spaces. The CAVE of the future will be made of tessellated panel displays, eliminating the projection distance, but the implementation of such displays is challenging. Early multi-tile, panel-based, virtual-reality displays have been designed, prototyped, and built for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. New means of image generation and control are considered key contributions to the future viability of the CAVE as a virtual-reality device.

Dealing with Archaeology's Data Avalanche

The increasing availability and relatively low cost of digital data collection technologies have created a data avalanche for archaeologists. In this paper, we discuss a system that integrates geographic information system (GlS)-based artifact and material sample data sets with massive point clouds within an interactive visual analysis environment. Our system lets researchers revisit archeological sites virtually, with the entirety of the captured record accessible for exploration.

Terrestrial laser scanning for the comprehensive structural health assessment of the Baptistery di San Giovanni in Florence, Italy: an integrative methodology for repeatable data acquisition, visualization and analysis

Abstract The ravages of time, natural and man-made disasters, pollution, fatigue, overexposure, mismanagement, and the unintended consequences of efforts to preserve our cultural patrimony, have all taken a major toll on historical structures. Structural health assessment is the first pivotal step towards creating a strategy for long-term life-cycle management. Historical structures provide an abundance of unique challenges that when combined serve as a great qualifying test for the study of as-built structures. This paper explores the diagnostic value of terrestrial laser scanning for the structural health assessment of the Baptistery di San Giovanni in Florence, Italy and proposes an integrative methodology for repeatable data acquisition, processing, visualization and analysis. The presented study proves that even under challenging circumstances, efficient documentation of entire structures is possible. The case study at the Baptistery demonstrates that even when objectives are not formed prior to the survey, comprehensive data sets of high quality and reliability will enable meaningful structural health assessments. With a reliable comprehensive baseline model in place, it can be annotated, qualitatively analyzed and recurring surveys can be conducted to track changes and damages throughout time.

Digital archaeological landscapes & replicated artifacts: Questions of analytical & phenomenological authenticity & ethical policies in cyberarchaeology

As cyberarchaeology pushes the boundaries of digital replication of space, objects, and arguably, time itself, it simultaneously adjusts mankinds perception of these things, their connection to the individual and to culture, and our ability to analyze these increasingly solid intangible data sets. When considered as part of the evolving global modernist perspective, and as something valuable as a comparative analytical tool-these are useful developments. However, with every innovation, comes a price. And in creating virtually solid simulacra of cultural heritage, we must consider the implications of the removed authenticities cyberarchaeologists are creating. How might the ability to have a virtual copy affect international conservation policies for archaeological sites and collected artifacts? What does a virtual and potentially 3D printable version of an artifact mean to the economics of looting? How might digital augmentation in museums be balanced so as not to replace the real artifacts themselves? In developing the interdisciplinary and collaborative big-system cyberarchaeological methodologies and systems like those at the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture, and Archaeology at the University of California, San Diego, the ethical implications of reactions to digitization and digital analysis are being concurrently evaluated so that some flexible contingencies can be built in as a safety measure to protect the authentic from the misuse of its heterotopic virtual counterparts.

Scaling the Annotation of Subtidal Marine Habitats

Visually documenting seafloor habitats has the potential to answer challenging questions in several maritime disciplines including: ecology, geology, and archaeology. Unfortunately, the attenuation of visible light underwater limits the imaging footprint of a single image to square meters. This limitation makes representing large habitats, on the order of hundreds of square meters and beyond, an intensive process requiring the collection, storage, processing and annotation of thousands of high resolution images per hundred square meters of seafloor. This paper describes a pipeline for dealing with these challenges efficiently and effectively using visual data of coral reef communities processed into a three dimensional model. We evaluate the resources and technological advancements required to scale this problem to orders of magnitude larger than the current state of the art and motivate the need for networked underwater data collection platforms to push the scalability of this method.

Airborne imaging for cultural heritage

We present our work in designing and deploying airborne sensor vehicles specifically for cultural heritage applications. Numerous practical cultural heritage missions in survey, assessment, and conservation work can benefit from the utility of specializing commodity and customizable airborne platforms to collect visual and non-visual data. These systems and customizations therein have undergone several generations of development both in our own designs and in the research community at large. We discuss the historical application of airborne imaging to cultural heritage conservation and surveying as well as discuss the design evolution towards multi-rotor systems from conventional rotary-wing and fixed-wing systems. This discussion addresses the fundamental principles of operation, as well as the capabilities, contemporary methods and commodity components available for the implementation of such a system. We present our current system and its features in concert with example payloads of utility in conducting these practical reconnaissance missions, as well as useful post-processing techniques, as well as future work in applied visualization.