scholarly journals Virtual Loom: a tool for the interactive 3D representation of historical fabrics

Author(s):  
Cristina Portalés ◽  
Manolo Pérez ◽  
Pablo Casanova-Salas ◽  
Jesús Gimeno

Abstract3D modelling of man-made objects is widely used in the cultural heritage sector, among others. It is relevant for its documentation, dissemination and preservation. Related to historical fabrics, weaves and weaving techniques are still mostly represented in forms of 2D graphics and textual descriptions. However, complex geometries are difficult to represent in such forms, hindering the way this legacy is transmitted to new generations. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of SILKNOW’s Virtual Loom, an interactive tool aimed to document, preserve and represent in interactive 3D forms historical weaves and weaving techniques of silk fabrics, dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries. To that end, our tool only requires an image of a historical fabric. Departing from this image, the tool automatically subtracts the design, and allows the user to apply different weaves and weaving techniques. In its current version, the tool embeds five traditional weaving techniques, 39 weaves and six types of yarns, which have been defined thanks to close collaboration of experts in computer graphics, art history and historical fabrics. Additionally, users can change the color of yarns and produce different 3D representations for a given fabric, which are interactive in real time. In this paper, we bring the details of the design and implementation of this tool, focusing on the input data, the strategy to process images, the 3D modelling of yarns, the definition of weaves and weaving techniques and the graphical user interface. In the results section, we show some examples of image analysis in order to subtract the design of historical fabrics, and then we provide 3D representations for all the considered weaving techniques, combining different types of yarns.

Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 742
Author(s):  
Mar Gaitán ◽  
Cristina Portalés ◽  
Javier Sevilla ◽  
Ester Alba

Symmetry is part of textile art in patterns and motifs that decorate fabrics, which are made by the interlacement of warp and wefts. Moreover, the 3D representation of fabrics have already been studied by some authors; however, they have not specifically dealt with preserving historical weaving techniques. In this paper, we present the SILKNOW’s Virtual Loom, a tool intended to document, preserve and reproduce silk historical weaving techniques from the 15th to the 19th centuries. We focus on the symmetry function and its contribution to art history, textile conservation, and modern design. We analyzed 2028 records from Garin 1820 datasets—a historical industry that still weaves with these techniques—and we reconstructed some historical designs that presented different types of defects. For those images (including fabrics and drawings) that had a symmetrical axis, we applied the symmetry functionality allowing to reconstruct missing parts. Thanks to these results, we were able to verify the usefulness of the Virtual Loom for conservation, analysis and new interpretative advantages, thanks to symmetry analysis applied to historical fabrics.


1986 ◽  
Vol 18 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 15-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Segar ◽  
E. Stamman

Most historical marine pollution monitoring has proven useless in a management context. A strategy for development of effective marine pollution monitoring programs is outlined. This strategy is based on the following steps: 1) systematic evaluation of the management information needs, 2) identification of the hypothetical impacts associated with those management concerns, and 3) investigation of the feasibility of monitoring those effects such that the existence, or absence, of a specified level of effects can be established in a statistically-valid manner. There are two fundamentally different types of monitoring program: site-specific and regional. These two types of program differ markedly in scope and approach when designed through application of this strategy. The strategy requires development of null hypotheses which address management concerns and which are amenable to scientific testing. In order for the program to be successful, the null hypotheses selected for inclusion in a marine pollution monitoring program must address levels of effect which are predefined to be environmentally significant. The definition of environmentally significant effect levels is a difficult process which must be primarily the responsibility of the managerial community.


Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Federico Lessio ◽  
Alberto Alma

This paper reviews the existing predictive models concerning insects and mites harmful to grapevine. A brief conceptual description is given on the definition of a model and about different types of models: deterministic vs. stochastics, continuous vs. discrete, analytical vs. computer-based, and descriptive vs. data-driven. The main biological aspects of grapevine pests covered by different types of models are phenology, population growth and dynamics, species distribution, and invasion risk. A particular emphasis is put on forecasting epidemics of plant disease agents transmitted by insects with sucking-piercing mouthparts. The most investigated species or groups are the glassy-winged sharpshooter Homalodisca vitripennis (Germar) and other vectors of Xylella fastidiosa subsp. fastidiosa, a bacterium agent of Pierce’s disease; the European grape berry moth, Lobesia botrana (Denis and Schiffermuller); and the leafhopper Scaphoideus titanus Ball, the main vector of phytoplasmas agents of Flavescence dorée. Finally, the present and future of decision-support systems (DSS) in viticulture is discussed.


1954 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 84-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. B. Kerferd

Plato's Sophist begins with an attempt to arrive by division at a definition of a Sophist. In the course of the attempt six different descriptions are discussed and the results summarized at 231 c-e. A seventh and final account may be said to occupy the whole of the rest of the dialogue, including the long digression on negative statements. The first five divisions characterize with a considerable amount of satire different types of sophist, or more probably different aspects of the sophistic art. The sixth division (226 a–231 b) is very different. To quote Cornford's words, ‘satire is dropped. The tone is serious and sympathetic, towards the close it becomes eloquent’.


This book is a ground-breaking study of the phenomenon of migration in and to England over the medieval millennium, between c. AD 500 and c. AD 1500. It reaches across traditional scholarly divides, both disciplinary and chronological, to investigate, for the first time, the different types of data and scholarly methods that reveal evidence of migration and mobility within the medieval kingdom of England. England offers the opportunity for studying migration and migrants over the longue durée, because it has been a recognisable political unit for over a millennium and because a wealth of source material has survived from these centuries. The data vary unevenly in quality and quantity across this period, but become considerably more powerful through multi-disciplinary approaches to data collection and interpretation. Fifteen subject specialists synthesise and extend recent research in a wide range of disciplines, including archaeology, art history, genetics, historical linguistics, history, literature and onomastics. They evaluate the capacity of different genres of evidence for addressing questions around migration and its effects on the identities of groups and individuals within medieval England, as well as methodological parameters and future research potential. The book therefore marks an important contribution to medieval studies, and to modern debates on migration and the free movement of people, arguing that migration in the modern world, and its reverberations, cannot be completely understood without taking a broad historical perspective on the topic.


Author(s):  
Abigail Berry

The famous anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu argued that there is an “unnatural idea of inborn culture, of a gift of culture, bestowed on certain people by Nature.” [1] Bourdieu is arguing that people, who have not been born into a higher class, or who cannot receive a high level of education, are unable to appreciate and understand art. The study of art history is expensive, and often involves extremely high travel costs, thus making it inaccessible to anybody who does not enjoy the means to pursue it. How can we address this accessibility problem in the study of art history? Is there any way to bring art to the people who do not possess “inborn culture?” Bourdieu wrote his book on art and class in 1984, at a time when the computer, and its democratizing potential, was a new and little -understood invention. My research proposes that modern technology provides an answer to this problem, which has plagued the discipline of art history. This presentation will examine three research projects that I’ve been working on at Queen’s. Each project uses digital technologies to improve the general public’s knowledge and access to art. The projects are all different: the first focuses on creating a digital model of 18th - century Canterbury Cathedral based on a book from W.D. Jordan Rare Books and Special Collections, the second project works on understanding Herstmonceux Castle and medieval England through technology, and the third involves image processing for art historical investigations. Despite their differences, each project makes art accessible to people who do not possess Bourdieu’s definition of “inborn culture.”        


2021 ◽  
Vol 91 (8) ◽  
pp. 887-911
Author(s):  
Manuel F. Isla ◽  
Ernesto Schwarz ◽  
Gonzalo D. Veiga ◽  
Jerónimo J. Zuazo ◽  
Mariano N. Remirez

ABSTRACT The intra-parasequence scale is still relatively unexplored territory in high-resolution sequence stratigraphy. The analysis of internal genetic units of parasequences has commonly been simplified to the definition of bedsets. Such simplification is insufficient to cover the complexity involved in the building of individual parasequences. Different types of intra-parasequence units have been previously identified and characterized in successive wave-dominated shoreface–shelf parasequences in the Lower Cretaceous Pilmatué Member of the Agrio Formation in central Neuquén Basin. Sedimentary and stratigraphic attributes such as the number of intra-parasequence units, their thickness, the proportions of facies associations in the regressive interval, the lateral extent of bounding surfaces, the degree of deepening recorded across these boundaries, and the type and lateral extent of associated transgressive deposits are quantitatively analyzed in this paper. Based on the analysis of these quantified attributes, three different scales of genetic units in parasequences are identified. 1) Bedset complexes are 10–40 m thick, basin to upper-shoreface successions, bounded by 5 to 16 km-long surfaces with a degree of deepening of one to three facies belts. These stratigraphic units represent the highest hierarchy of intra-parasequence stratigraphic units, and the vertical stacking of two or three of them typically forms an individual parasequence. 2) Bedsets are 2–20 m thick, offshore to upper-shoreface successions, bounded by up to 10 km long surfaces with a degree of deepening of zero to one facies belt. Two or three bedsets stack vertically build a bedset complex. 3) Sub-bedsets are 0.5–5 m thick, offshore transition to upper-shoreface successions, bounded by 0.5 to 2 km long surfaces with a degree of deepening of zero to one facies belt. Two or three sub-bedsets commonly stack to form bedsets. The proposed methodology indicates that the combination of thickness with the proportion of facies associations in the regressive interval of stratigraphic units can be used to discriminate between bedsets and sub-bedsets, whereas for higher ranks (bedsets and bedset complexes) the degree of deepening, lateral extent of bounding surfaces, and the characteristics of associated shell-bed deposits become more effective. Finally, the results for the Pilmatué Member are compared with other ancient and Holocene examples to improve understanding of the high-frequency evolution of wave-dominated shoreface–shelf systems.


1970 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 261-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. V. S. Megaw

Nearly seventy years ago Wilhelm Worringer first wrote that ‘ultimately all our definitions of art are definitions of classical art’ (Worringer, 1953, 132). Today, the study of Western European art history, old or modern, the products of peasant craft-centres or urban ‘schools’, has in the course of time developed its own methodology and, almost, mystique. In contrast, the study of many branches of prehistoric art in Europe and elsewhere is all too often seen as a mere extension of the skilled but subjective approaches of classical archaeology without considering the suitability of the latter's application. The use of the classical art-historian's intuitive methods built up not just from visual exprience but a detailed background of literary, historical and philosophical studies must in fact be almost entirely denied the student of prehistoric or primitive art. It is perhaps only natural that principles of classical art history should be applied to later European prehistory, though it is often difficult to arrive at a precise definition of these principles. It was Johann Joachim Winckelmann who made the first systematic application of categories of style to the history of art (Gombrich, 1968, 319). Sir John Beazley, the greatest of all modern classical art historians followed in this tradition basing attributions ‘on the grounds of tell-tale traits of individual mannerisms’ (Carpenter, 1963, 115 ff.) a scheme first applied to painting less than a century ago by the Italian physician Giovanni Morelli (Gombrich, 1968, 309 ff.) and followed at the turn of the nineteenth century in the study of Italian painting (Lermolieff, 1892–3). With Beazley it is, however, difficult to follow step by step his methods of work.


1994 ◽  
Vol 348 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Dafinei ◽  
E. Auffray ◽  
P. Lecoq ◽  
M. Schneegans

ABSTRACTIn the quest for low cost scintillators to equip the very large electromagnetic calorimeters for future High Energy Physics experiments, scintillating glasses can offer an attractive alternative to crystals. The expected production price is indeed supposed to be reduced as compared to crystals, especially for very large volumes. An intense R&D effort has been made by the Crystal Clear collaboration to develop heavy scintillating fluoride glasses in close collaboration with the industry. Results will be shown on the fluorescence and scintillation properties as well as on the radiation resistance of different types of fluoride glasses. Ideas about possible improvement of present performances will also be given.


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