Survey of 3D digital heritage repositories and platforms

Abstract

<jats:p>&lt;p class="VARAbstract"&gt;Despite the increasing number of three-dimensional (3D) model portals and online repositories catering for digital heritage scholars, students and interested members of the general public, there are very few recent academic publications that offer a critical analysis when reviewing the relative potential of these portals and online repositories. Solid reviews of the features and functions they offer are insufficient; there is also a lack of explanations as to how these assets and their related functionality can further the digital heritage (and virtual heritage) field, and help in the preservation, maintenance, and promotion of real-world 3D heritage sites and assets. What features do they offer? How could their feature list better cater for the needs of the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) sector? This article’s priority is to examine the useful features of 8 institutional and 11 commercial repositories designed specifically to host 3D digital models. The available features of their associated 3D viewers, where applicable, are also analysed, connecting recommendations for future-proofing with the need to address current gaps and weaknesses in the scholarly field of 3D digital heritage. Many projects do not address the requirements stipulated by charters, such as access, reusability, and preservation. The lack of preservation strategies and examples highlights the oxymoronic nature of virtual heritage (oxymoronic in the sense that the virtual heritage projects themselves are seldom preserved). To study these concerns, six criteria for gauging the usefulness of the 3D repositories to host 3D digital models and related digital assets are suggested. The authors also provide 13 features that would be useful additions for their 3D viewers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Highlights:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;A survey of relevant features from eight institutional and eleven commercial online 3D repositories in the scholarly fieldof 3D digital heritage.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Presents a critical review of their hosting services and 3D model viewer features.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Proposes six features to enhance services of 3D repositories to support the GLAM sector, heritage scholars andheritage communities.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;</jats:p>

Shedding light on pre-Columbian crania collections through state-of-the-art 3D scanning techniques

“…Going forward, we seek to upload the 3D models into a digital platform such as Google Arts & Culture, Sketchfab, or Morphosource to increase the visibility of the Museum Montané collection (Champion & Rahaman, 2020). Once the 3D models are uploaded to the chosen online platform, we will include information explaining the intangible resources associated with each cranium.…”

Sharing Archaeological Knowledge: The Interactive Reporting System

“…At the moment, the IRS is just a presentation front-end, interconnected with the 3DGIS archive at data level, but not fully interoperable for metadata and query-based access. This integration would represent a valuable contribution to the current debate on the responsible archiving of archaeological data (Huvila 2016;Börjesson and Huvila 2019;Champion and Rahaman 2020) in terms of accessibility, transparency, and completeness of archived and presented data. The use of the system requires some improvement: the authoring process is easy enough for an archaeologist to create report nodes with a little training, but, still, the help of a computer scientist is required to connect the results of the authoring and publish the finished report.…”

Integrated Methods for the Conservation and Restoration of Archaeological Sites. An Experimental Application on the “Balneum” of Piazza Dante In Catania (Italy)

“…(Denoyel, 2020) Indeed, this 3D model viewer web-based allow different type of actions (zooming in and out, walk around the model, wireframe and textured views of the model, measuring and analysing sections of the model, etc.) which enable the user to study and investigate the model in many different ways (Champion et al, 2020).…”