Cristiana BARANDONI(Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Italy) Abstract: MannInColours project is at the conclusion of its first year of work; the amount of scientific data acquired is of considerable importance. Now we face the need to use these data for collective knowledge. After analytical and archaeological studies and systematic photogrammetric campaign, the 3D models obtained offer an unmissable opportunity to rewrite events and collecting history. In connection with the undergoing project, MannInColours, we decided to focus on a selected group of statues from the Baths of Caracalla, among which are Colossal head of Antoninus Pius, Farnese Bull, Athena and Hercules Farnese, with the goals of digitally documenting, restoring, and recontextualizing them. After the statues have been digitized and the related 3D models have been made (so-called “state models”), the damage will be digitally repaired (including the loss of polychromy, which—even in the absence of physical traces—will be experimentally restored following the suggestions of Jan Ostergaard and Vinzenz Brinkmann). These “restoration models” will then be recontextualized in the scientifically recreated architecture of the Baths of Caracalla. The aim is twofold: to support scholarly research, and to advance public understanding by presenting a version of the monochrome marble originals that is certainly closer to historical reality and this is the reason why this experimental project is based on a simple but effective assumption that all scholars have long accepted and shared: reconstruction is a fundamental component of the acquisition of knowledge. Only an attempt to restore the original appearance of the sculptures will open up important questions of a technical, artistic, aesthetic and iconographic nature [V. Brinkmann, “Art of Many Colors,” in Serial/Portable Classic, 2015] The report presented at this conference brings together the multidata in a single large purpose: the reconstruction of the...
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Transkribus – recognizing handwritten documents with deep learning
Günter MÜHLBERGER (Universität Innsbruck, Forschungszentrum Digital Humanities, Austria) Abstrakt: Transkribus is an open platform for the recognition of handwritten historical documents. More than 40,000 users are registered on the platform, several hundred of them work with the software every day. As the only platform worldwide, users can train neural networks themselves and are therefore able to optimize the recognition of handwritten documents for their specific documents. Transkribus is based on deep learning and works independently of language and alphabet. Medieval documents in Latin can be processed in the same way as letters from WWI in English and German, or Hebrew and Arabic. More than 6000 models have already been trained by the users. In total, over 17 million pages have been uploaded to Transkribus for processing. Transkribus was developed in an EU research project led by the University of Innsbruck. Following the project, the European Cooperative READ-COOP SCE was founded in 2019. READ-COOP now has more than 60 members, including renowned archives, libraries and universities from all over the world. In this talk we will discuss the opportunities which are offered by Transkribus to everyone interested in recognizing historical documents. This comprises not only text recognition and training of neural networks, but also the searching collections via full-text and keyword spotting. Moreover we will report about new developments for machine learning based layout analysis as well as making recognized documents available for the public....
Read MoreDates & Deadlines 2020
Deadlines Early Bird Registration – Oct. 15, 2020
With gratitude: An affectionate, personal review of 20 years unbroken CHNT participation
David BIBBY, Germany In around 20 years of attendance at the CHNT (or „Workshop Archäologie und Computer” as it used to be called) I have had a unique opportunity to observe and experience the long term development both of the conference and the technologies presented there. The CHNT has become a veritable “landmark” in the topography of technologies applied in archaeology – a regular yearly stopover in Vienna for experiencing the new, taking stock of our own progress and not least meeting colleagues who, over the years in Vienna, have become friends. Personally, my everyday professional activities have profited in many ways from the experiences made and the technologies discovered at the CHNT. But more than that, the CHNT Vienna has fundamentally influenced, even moulded, the direction and structure of my own work in archaeology over the last two decades. And in doing so the CHNT has helped to sporn further valuable project on a European scale – sometimes directly, sometimes to a lesser extent, but always at least hovering in the background. With all this in mind I hope to offer you a short but affectionate review of the “Workshop Archäologie und Computer Vienna”/“CHNT” from a very personal point of...
Read MoreVirtual and Augmented Reality for Maritime Archaeology
Fotis LIAROKAPIS, Research Centre on Interactive media, Smart systems, and Emerging technologies, Cyprus Abstract: The project iMARECULTURE (Advanced VR, iMmersive Serious Games and Augmented REality as Tools to Raise Awareness and Access to European Underwater CULTURal heritage) is focusing in raising European identity awareness using maritime and underwater cultural interaction and exchange in Mediterranean Sea. The aim of the project is to bring inherently unreachable underwater cultural heritage within digital reach of the wide public using virtual visits and immersive technologies. This keynote will present results in respect to virtual and augmented reality interfaces for underwater environments. In terms of virtual reality, two different types of applications will be illustrated. The first one is a dry-visit solution for exploring ancient sites and it is focused on the general public. The second one is a serious game that aims in teaching maritime and archaeologist students the main principles of ‘site formation’, ‘surveying’ and ‘excavation’. Moreover, a novel augmented reality underwater interface will be presented which can detect square markers in poor visibility conditions as well as serve as virtual guide for divers that visit underwater archaeological sites. Evaluation results will be presented for all applications illustrating the effectiveness of the interfaces. CV: Dr. Fotis Liarokapis is currently a senior researcher with the Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol, Cyprus as well as with the Research Centre on Interactive media, Smart systems, and Emerging technologies (RISE), Nicosia, Cyprus. He received the D.Phil. degree from the University of Sussex, U.K., and has worked as a Research Fellow with City University, London, U.K., Coventry University, U.K., and most recently at Masaryk University, Czech Republic, where he was an Associate Professor and Director of the HCI Lab. Dr. Fotis Liarokapis has contributed to more than 130 refereed publications with more than 3900 citations (h-index: 30 and i10-index: 70). He has organised multiple conferences and workshops and he is the co-founder of the International Conference on Virtual Worlds and Games for Serious Applications (VS-Games). Currently, he is the co-chair of IEEE CoG 2020 and he is a member of...
Read MorePhygital Heritage
The integration of Digital Technology into Physical Reality for Communicating Heritage Eslam NOFAL, Maastrich University, The Netherlands Abstract: Heritage forms a unique asset by expressing the richness and diversity of our history, possessing vast amounts of information that varies from factual and explicit, to more tacit and embedded. Tacit knowledge of heritage is typically more challenging to communicate to visitors in understandable and engaging ways due to its implicit and abstract character. Therefore, this lecture presents how heritage information can be communicated to visitors in more engaging, educational and meaningful ways. Thus, the approach of “Phygital Heritage” will be presented, which entails how heritage information can be disclosed via simultaneous and integrated physical and digital means. We hypothesize that this approach forms a potential medium for more engaging and meaningful communication of heritage information to a broader public. The lecture will also present a set of in-the-wild studies, in which interactive prototypes were designed and deployed in real-world heritage and museum environments to explore how the ‘Phygital’ approach facilitates the communication of heritage information to museum visitors and how it affects user engagement. Accordingly, a mixed-methods evaluation methodology was deployed in all studies in order to assess heritage communication and user engagement; such as observation, interviews, sketching, and user experience questionnaires. The interactive prototypes were designed to communicate different forms of heritage information in several contexts. The prototypes were created with rapid fabrication, and benefited from emerging technologies and phygital approaches. CV: Dr. Eslam Nofal currently is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Digital Heritage at Maastricht University (Netherlands). He is also affiliated to the Department of Architecture at Assiut University (Egypt). His main research interests are related to digital heritage, interaction design, emerging technologies (e.g. AR, VR, and tangible interaction), human-computer interaction; focusing on designing, implementing and evaluating interactive systems that help users to gain insights and knowledge, in particular the communication of heritage information and visitors’ engagement in museums and beyond. Dr. Nofal holds a five-year bachelor’s degree in Architectural Engineering from Assiut University (Egypt). In 2011, he obtained a joint Master Degree in Management of Cultural Heritage and Landscapes as an Erasmus Mundus scholarship (Université Jean Monnet, France...
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