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Emerging trends in virtual heritage

Article  in  IEEE Multimedia · May 2000

DOI: 10.1109/93.848421 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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Alonzo C. Addison

University of California, Berkeley

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From the pyramids at Giza to the verdantlandscape of Kakadu National Park inAustralia, the world’s cultural and nat-ural heritage has stood the test of time.

Today though, the pace of progress—from urbansprawl to pollution, neglect, conflict, looting, andeven tourism—threatens these landmarks of ourpast at an ever-increasing pace.

Rapid advances in digital technologies inrecent years, from new media to virtual reality(VR) and high-speed networks, have offered her-itage new hope. Yet from Pompeii to Luxor andStonehenge, the first wave of VR worlds failed tolive up to the promise. Although a growing num-ber of low-resolution, three-dimensional, andeven immersive virtual tours, photo albums, andmultimedia pieces have now been constructed,few of the early forays satisfied the preservation-ist’s need for documentation, the historian’s forinterpretation, or the public’s for visual realism.As with much of early VR, the hype, questionableaccuracy, and lack of visual realism of the first vir-tual heritage works gave ammunition to thenaysayers and Luddites in their argument againstdigital answers.

Today, the forward march of technology hasquietly enabled a second wave of VR applications,with reality finally beginning to live up to its titlerole. Digital tools and techniques now emergingfrom academic, government, and industry labsoffer new hope to the often painstakingly com-plex tasks of archaeology, surveying, historicresearch, conservation, and education. Theseemerging second-generation technologies can begrouped into three domains:

❚ 3D documentation (everything from site sur-veys to epigraphy),

❚ 3D representation (from historic reconstructionto visualization), and

❚ 3D dissemination (from immersive networkedworlds to “in situ” augmented reality).

What follows is a glimpse at a few of these emerg-ing trends.

Documentation—getting the data inThe first challenge in heritage work, whether

virtual or real, has always been to gather data ofexisting conditions. These surveys can be quitelocalized and precise if, for example, the sample isa small flower or carving, or quite extensive in thecase of a vast monument like the Nazca lines or anatural sanctuary like Yosemite Valley. Traditionalmethods—from the use of tapes and rules totheodolites—although potentially precise, havebeen slow (since many points have to be physi-cally visited with a probe or “touched”) and digi-tally cumbersome for VR (the data must then beentered into a computer). Although quite a leapforward, even the new survey-grade global posi-tioning system (GPS) receivers suffer from thetouch limitation.

In the past few years a new breed of noncontact,or camera, documentation systems has emerged.Moving beyond their traditional manufacturingand Hollywood markets, 3D digitizing systems areincreasingly finding use in heritage work. Asdetailed in Addison and Gaiani and in Zheng,portable scanners such as those from Ricoh,Cyberware, Cyra Technologies, and others havebegun to see virtual heritage field use. Also, asdemonstrated in recent high-profile academic pro-jects such as Stanford’s Digital Michaelangelo or thejoint Universities of Rome, Ferrara, and Californiaat Berkeley 1999 Lidar Colosseum Survey (seehttp://www.cdv.berkeley.edu/research/Colosseoand Figure 1), emerging long-range, battery-pow-ered 3D laser scanners from Cyra and others over-come many of the limitations of traditionalmethods. With these new digital documentationtools it’s now possible to rapidly gather extensiveand highly accurate data sets for 3D model and vir-tual world construction (while simultaneously cre-ating an important historical archive).

Photographically based modeling techniqueshave also seen increased interest recently. Movingbeyond Apple’s elegantly simple QuickTimeVR

22 1070-986X/00/$10.00 © 2000 IEEE

Emerging Trendsin VirtualHeritage

Alonzo C. AddisonUniversity of California, Berkeley

Survey

panoramic still-image technology,emerging panoramic video toolkitsfrom the likes of iMove, Immersive-Media, and others promise QTVR’sphotorealism with motion. For full3D documentation, although not yetas accurate as scanning technologies,modern digital photogrammetry orimage-based modeling tools now letyou build simple 3D models fromstereo imagery with machine assis-tance. Examples include my Berkeleycolleague Paul Debevec’s Façaderesearch project (see http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~debevec and Figure 2)and the commercial 3D Builder andCanoma.

There has also been increasingresearch in the areas of digital imag-ing and restoration of artworks andartifacts. In this issue, Li presentsmethods of artwork cataloguing andrestoration, and Kanaya’s machinevision system establishes an interesting way ofpuzzling together pieces of a broken vase.

Representation—authoring, modeling,and rendering

As illustrated by Kos et al., multimedia envi-ronments and Web sites have reached a sophisti-cation and maturity where highly complex worldsand histories can be portrayed. Sophisticated syn-theses of real and modeled conditions by Malik,Ikeuchi, Levoy, Debevec, and others in image-based rendering for architectural scenes hasreached a level where even a trained eye cannottell what is synthetic and what is real (for exam-ple, see Figure 3 and http://fiatlux.berkeley.edu).

To date, virtual worlds have been largely staticand lifeless. Global networks, new forms of sensors,and fast computers now make it possible to add life.As Refsland discusses, with the Virtual Kinka Kuji

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Courtesy R. Migliari, M. Gaiani, A. Addison et al., Univ. of Rome, Ferrara, and Univ. of California, Berkeley

Figure 2. Virtual model of Campanile tower created from aerial

kite photos in Façade.

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Figure 1. Millions of scanned, survey-grade 3D coordinates of a bay of the

Colosseum in Rome.

Figure 3. Image from

Fiat Lux movie showing

natural lighting and

inter-reflections

between the real St.

Peter’s in Rome and the

virtual model.

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Project researchers are beginning to add live char-acters linked to real-time data feeds. Although todayit may be stock tickers driving the fish and sea lifein a Virtual Great Barrier Reef (see Figure 4), before

long real-time weather data will guidesynthetic clouds over a Virtual LoireValley or sonar data plus flockingalgorithms will drive birds at a virtualEverglades. In turn, technology origi-nally targeted at the consumer gam-ing market permits experiencingimmersive, texturally rich, fast, navi-gable worlds on a standard PC in thehome (see DeLeon and Berry). A vir-tual Notre Dame (see http://www.vrndproject.com and Figure 5),replete with cloaked monks asguides—although sacrificing somehistorical accuracy for accessibility—is but one of the first of what we hopewill be many fun and user-friendlyvirtual heritage environments.

Presentation anddissemination

Although realistic models areimportant, they are but half the solu-tion. Computer-Aided Virtual Envi-ronments (CAVEs) and even PCs arestill not accessible to much of theworld’s population. Developmentsin augmented reality and immersivepublic presentation offer perhapssome of the most exciting possibili-ties for virtual heritage.

Projection technology has come along way toward solving one of theage-old problems—how to presentmultiple interpretations in situ? The1950s French son et lumière (soundand light show) was a novelty in itstime, but in today’s environment issadly outdated. At cultural siteswhere the base structure is stillextant, it’s now possible to docu-ment, virtually reconstruct, and thenproject in full and vibrant color ontothe monument itself. Imagine analigned projection of a vividly paint-ed and textured 3D historicallyresearched reconstruction onto theAcropolis at night followed by pro-jections of several alternative historicinterpretations. This is not far off.

At the Ename Center in Belgium (see Pletinckx)visitors can control a virtual model superimposedover a live video feed of a largely flat archaeologi-cal site to help imagine what once stood (see

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Figure 5. Real-time,

fully navigable Notre

Dame running via a

consumer game engine

on a standard PC.

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Figure 6. Virtual

overlays seen in

TimeFrame kiosk at

Ename Center, Belgium.

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. Ple

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Figure 4. Great Barrier

Reef project concept.

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http://www.ename974.org and Figure 6). In 1997,with support from Barco, a team from the Centerfor Design Visualization at the University ofCalifornia projected a multimedia presentationwith Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)and QTVR reconstructions on the walls of build-ings in the piazza of Massa Marittima, Italy(http://www.cdv.berkeley.edu/research/Massa),allowing local citizens to immersively embracetheir heritage. Around the same time, Francescavon Habsburg’s Art Restoration for CulturalHeritage (ARCH) Foundation conducted similar,but much larger scale, projections of artists’ inter-pretations of selected heritage sites onto the sideof the mountain overlooking Salzburg, Austriaduring a festive heritage event (see http://www.arch.at and Figure 7).

Finally, in networking and communications,the explosion of new technologies promises tosolve many of the issues remote locales present.Although Iridium never quite got off the ground,real-time satellite uplinks from the likes ofStarguide Digital and Tachyon promise live T1 orbetter Internet feeds from sites anywhere in theworld. Perhaps with realistic enough virtual visits,we can soon curtail some of the tourism that’sthreatening to “love to death” a growing percent-age of our heritage.

Looking aheadMultimedia and virtual technology have a lot

to offer heritage. The works mentioned here arebut a few of the projects and technologies beingapplied in innovative ways by dedicated peoplethe world over to help preserve, protect, andunderstand our heritage.

Virtual heritage can be an invaluable tool, butif not applied wisely has the potential to do asmuch harm as good. Dozens of virtual Pompeii’snow exist, yet few are historically accurate or reli-able enough to be truly useful (and may in factmislead people). Historical accuracy, thoroughdocumentation of sources, and care while at sitesis perhaps more important than ever in the newdigital landscape. We must learn to focus ourassistance and energy where it’s needed most.Although all sites need help, many well-knownand well-protected landmarks—from the David tothe Sphinx—receive a disproportionate share ofscarce technologic expertise. Additionally, sincemany heritage sites are in physically and or tech-nologically remote locales, we must be ever cog-nizant of our role and strive to avoid theperception of cultural or digital imperialism.

Virtual heritage has made great strides in thelast few years but still needs the help and assis-tance of the media and technology communities.World organizations, coordinated by the UnitedNations Educational, Scientific, and CulturalOrganization’s (Unesco) World Heritage Center(http://www.unesco.org/whc), struggle to preserveand protect these monuments, but with limitedfunding and resources need all the assistance dig-ital technologies can provide. I encourage thoseinterested in learning more or applying their skillsor technology to specific projects to write to meor any of the other authors in this special issue.

Perhaps the greatest lesson these virtual forayscan teach us is that heritage is as much about theliving and evolving place, people, and environ-ment as it is about any single static monument orlandscape. MM

Alonzo C. Addison serves as Direc-

tor of the Center for Design Visual-

ization, University of California,

Berkeley. A co-founder of the Vir-

tual Heritage Network, his work

ranges from historical visualization

to design simulation, information architecture, and col-

laborative networks. Currently completing a doctorate in

design theory from Berkeley, he also holds an MA in

architecture from the university and a BSE cum laude in

civil engineering from Princeton University.

Readers may contact Addison at the Center for Design

Visualization, University of California, Berkeley, CA

94720-1839, e-mail addison5@socrates.berkeley.edu.

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Figure 7. 40- by 80-

meter projections of

heritage on

mountainside

overlooking Salzburg.

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