The power of Virtual Globes for valorising cultural heritage and enabling sustainable tourism: NASA World Wind applications

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Inspired by the visionary idea of Digital Earth, as well as from the tremendous improvements in geo-technologies, use of virtual globes has been changing the way people approach to geographic information on the Web. Unlike the traditional 2D-visualization typical of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), virtual globes offer multi-dimensional, fully-realistic content visualization which allows for a much richer user experience. This research investigates the potential for using virtual globes to foster tourism and enhance cultural heritage. The paper first outlines the state of the art for existing virtual globes, pointing out some possible categorizations according to license type, platform-dependence, application type, default layers, functionalities and freedom of customization. Based on this analysis, the NASA World Wind virtual globe is the preferred tool for promoting tourism and cultural heritage. This is because its open source nature allows unlimited customization (in terms of both data and functionalities), and its Java core supports platform-independence. Relevant tourism-oriented World Wind-based applications, dealing with both the Web promotion of historical cartography and the setup of a participatory Web platform exploiting crowd-sourced data, are described. Finally, the paper presents a project focusing on the promotion of the Via Regina area (crossing the border between Italy and Switzerland) through an ad hoc World Wind customization. World Wind can thus be considered an ideal virtual globe for tourism applications, as it can be shaped to increase awareness of cultural history and, in turn, enhance touristic experience.

A new Gis-based map of villa Adriana, a multimedia guide for ancient paths

“…The instruments for adding value are largely multi-media platforms in which 3D modelling, rendering and animation occupy a predominant position (NoReal.it, 2011a). Often, with the objective of allowing people to get to know the heritage site, one aims at the possibility of visiting the site at a distance (Pietroni, 2012a) by using virtual tours (Kohel, 2013), virtual globes (Brovelli, 2013) or spherical photometry (De Amorim, 2013). In order to interest a younger public, and increase the didactic potential, interactive games and virtual realities are created (Pietroni, 2012b).…”

Smart Cities and Heritage Conservation: Developing a Smartheritage Agenda for Sustainable Inclusive Communities

“…There are several virtual globes available, and NASA has made their World Wind virtual globe openly accessible on the web. In the last few years, several applications to cultural heritage have been developed using World Wind (Brovelli et al, 2013b). This idealistic view of creating an open platform for heritage mapping built upon a unifying, open virtual globe, marries very well with the transnational ethos of the ICT environment previously proposed (Riganti & Njikamp, 2006).…”

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“…Virtual globes are multi-scale, multipurpose and multidimensional, i.e. they can even provide a 4D visualization if time component is considered (Brovelli et al 2013). Virtual globes offer high context capability while at the same time providing ease and intuitiveness of use.…”

“…Nonetheless, the capabilities of virtual globes described in section on "Virtual Globes as the New Generation Visualization Platforms" have made them increasingly used in a variety of scientific disciplines. At the time of writing (early 2016), examples include geology (Blenkinsop 2012;Martínez-Graña et al 2013;Zhu et al 2014), ecology (Guralnick et al 2007), history and cultural heritage (Brovelli et al 2013;Valentini et al 2014), cartographic heritage Gede et al 2013), natural disasters and disaster management (Webley 2011;Tomaszewski 2011), environmental analyses and modelling (Chien and Tan 2011;, weather forecast (Smith and Lakshmanan 2011), instruction and education (Lindner-Fally and Zwartjes 2012; Bodzin et al 2014), health (Stensgaard et al 2009), landscape planning (Schroth et al 2011) and urban studies (Nebiker et al 2010). User functions typically include data visualization, collection, exploration, integration, validation, communication and dissemination, modelling, and decision support (Yu and Gong 2012).…”