Touching and Interacting with Inaccessible Cultural Heritage

Abstract

The sense of touch provides a particular access to our environment, enabling a tangible relation with it. In the particular case of cultural heritage, touching the past, apart from being a universal dream, can provide essential information to analyze, understand, or restore artifacts. However, archaeological objects cannot always offer tangible access, either because they have been destroyed or are too damaged, or because they are part of a larger assembly. In other cases, it is the context of use that has become inaccessible, as it is related to an outdated activity. We propose a workflow based on a combination of computed tomography, 3D images, and 3D printing to provide concrete access to cultural heritage, and we illustrate this workflow in different contexts of inaccessibility. These technologies are already used in cultural heritage, but seldom combined, and are most often employed for exceptional artifacts. We propose to combine these technologies in case studies corresponding to relevant archaeological situations.

INSIDE Interactive and Non-destructive Solution for Introspection in Digital Environments

“…1) Scan of the subject First, when an artifact is to be studied in virtual reality, the first thing to do is to 2 You can find more details on this object in [17] Fig. 1.…”

eXtended Reality for Cultural Heritage

“…For example, in the case of an excavation site, it is required to manage the scale of the whole site that can be very large and the scale of artifacts discovered on the site. Depending of the context, both tangible and intangible interactions must be considered, for example, to enable a physical interaction with an artifact [12], or to represent human activities in a context of intangible heritage [13]. Finally, Cultural Heritage experts need to collaborate and share their knowledge, which is related to collaborative virtual environments [8] and environment enrichment with annotations [14].…”

Evaluating Learnability in a 3D Heritage Tour

“…In the last two decades, recent computing enhancements have made possible the use of various technologies and environments, allowing the creation of different kinds of virtual heritage Champion, 2016;Bustillo, Alaguero, Miguel, Saiz, & Iglesias, 2015;Nicolas et al, 2015;Bergamasco, Frisoli, & Barbagli, 2002).…”