Flexibility of Dense 3D Data Capture

The knowledge and study of built heritage is now deeply connected to methodologies associated with the capture of surface details via the production of point-data. These methodologies enable researchers to gather a wider range of information, which is increasingly more connected to technological advances. Such approaches influence the management of data, and these data are often redundant due to the ways in which they are captured. Massive data capture does not include preliminary selection based on metric, geometric, and material features of the object. A multi-scalar approach, in which the criteria for data capture depends on the goals of the survey, is needed to optimize the relationship between information and the scale of the models to be built. This case study involving a selection of fountains in Rome aims to apply these principles to urban contexts defined by a strong spatial connection between architectural and sculptural elements. Survey can express this distinctiveness through complex, dynamic, and effective digital models.

3D Reconstruction of a Roman Bridge in Canosa di Puglia (Italy)

The Roman bridge near Canosa di Puglia (Southern Italy) currently has a very different morphology from the one planned by its builders in the second century AD as part of the program for the construction of the Via Traiana. Although the piers, the abutments and the foundation platea are still preserved from the Roman age, the changes made over the centuries have altered its aspect, forgetting the traces of its monumental past. Starting from the surviving elements and the few available sources, an investigation has been carried out to reconstruct its original structure, thanks to a multidisciplinary and metrological approach and the combined use of aerophotogrammetry and 3D modeling. The usage of these technologies proved to be an essential tool, since they made it possible to carry out a survey otherwise hampered by the bulk of the artifact and the presence of the Ofanto River flowing below. The outcome of this research has led to a reconstruction hypothesis that returns a majestic monument that deserves an adequate place in the panorama of Roman architecture.

Virtual Reconstructions in Bernardino Amico’s Treatise on the Plans and Images of the Sacred Buildings of the Holy Land

This essay explores the role of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land in cultivating perceptions of the Catholic pilgrimage buildings as worthy of preservation, especially by employing techniques of representation in printed books that engaged with the potential restoration of the real buildings in the Holy Land. The essay discusses the particular example of the printed book created by Bernardino Amico that was published in two editions of 1610 and 1620, with interactive perspectival renderings of the exteriors and interiors of the Christian pilgrimage churches in Palestine and Egypt, along with maps of ancient and modern Jerusalem. Centuries before the emergence of cyber archaeology, Franciscans like Bernardino Amico explored the potential for virtual reconstruction in the realm of printing to demonstrate the value of buildings as symbols of a shared history and faith, while also challenging those who actively sought to dismantle the same buildings in both real and virtual space. Bernardino Amico’s treatise exemplifies the potential of such virtual reconstructions of historical buildings to blur the boundaries between the empirically observed present, the imagined past, and a desired future.

3D Reproductions of Cultural Heritage Artifacts: Evaluation of Significance and Experience

3D digitization of cultural heritage has long been used to preserve information about cultural heritage (CH) objects such as architecture, art, and artifacts. 3D dissemination of CH objects through technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and 3D printing have impacted the fields of art history and cultural heritage and have become more common. Yet, studies that go beyond the technical aspects of 3D technology and treat such topics as their significance for restoration, conservation, engagement, education, research, and ethics hardly exist. The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, it aims to get a better understanding of the applicability of each technology for different purposes (education, research, conservation/restoration, and museum presentation), and, on the other hand, it focuses on the perception of these technologies. This research was carried out by combining a literature review with quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data acquired through (1) a questionnaire of eleven questions and (2) a workshop with a group of specialists and non-specialists who were asked to brainstorm about the different uses of the 3D technologies and their applicability to their areas of work and research. Based on the analysis of these quantitative and qualitative data, we provide some criteria for using 3D digitized and printed reproductions to enhance cultural experiences. The results demonstrate the importance of carefully designing 3D interactions in the personal and cultural contexts of end-users and cultural institutions in order to create authentic cultural experiences.

Putting Space Syntax to the Test

While space syntax analysis has been widely applied to archaeological sites (including Pompeii), it is fundamentally limited by its isolation within the social sciences and its omission of decoration from the analysis of human cognition and movement within structures. At the same time, phenomenology in archaeology has typically arisen from the physical experiences of a limited number of professional archaeologists in a landscape, with little interest in digital embodiment in virtual spaces. The Virtual Pompeii Project has produced an updated version of space syntax which combines network measures common in the social sciences with visibility graphs to produce predictive models of movement within a set of three ancient Roman houses in Pompeii. These predictive models are tested through the navigation of virtual models of the houses by human subjects, demonstrating the significance of decoration in shaping movement, and, through quantitative and qualitative data, the value of digitally embodied phenomenology. This points ahead to the use of crowd-sourced, web-based global testing, diversifying the subject pool far beyond the narrow bounds of professional classicists or archaeologists.

Online Gaming as Digital Heuristics

While 3D modeling has only come into widespread archaeological use in recent years, it is hardly a new or untested approach in the study of architecture. Even so, archaeological 3D modeling has largely been limited to use in illustrations, rather than treated as a part of the scientific method. Using the case study of the Minoan House of the Rhyta at Pseira, this article discusses the results of applying 3D modeling as not only a visualization, but also a hypothesis testing tool. In the summer of 2014, the Minoan Modeling Project undertook a new intensive architectural examination of the Minoan House of the Rhyta at Pseira. The project produced both state and reconstructed 3D models. The 3D reconstruction became the basis of an educational video game designed as a scientific tool to test architectural theories about the use of space. As gamers interact with and circulate through the various rooms in the House of the Rhyta, their movements are tracked and statistically compared with the results of more traditional methods of access and circulation pattern analysis. This article presents preliminary results of this crowdsourced online game study, in addition to discussing strengths and weaknesses of the technique as learned through the process of building the model and game.

Human versus computer vision in archaeological recording

As 3D scanning and photogrammetry are supplanting traditional illustration techniques with increasing speed, archaeologists and architectural historians have sounded alarms about what stands to be lost if hand drawing is altogether eliminated from fieldwork. This paper argues that the most direct threat is to a particular form of archaeological illustration which does not necessarily share the advantages attributed to other kinds of drawing. Recording by means of “technical drawing” communicates a collectively agreed interpretation of the ancient record, and its primary benefit is not stimulating creative thought but rather enhancing human observation. A review of two cases comparing the illustration of ancient Greek architecture through analogue and digital methods indicates that, in practice, both approaches draw attention away from the ancient subject and focus it on distracting protocols for the great majority of the time spent in the field. Even so, technical drawing requires protracted, in-person scrutiny of the subject, whereas 3D technologies pose a genuine risk of altogether eliminating meaningful human interpretation from the recording process. The greater efficiencies of digital techniques suggest a path forward, as time once allocated to tedious stages of technical drawing might be applied toward more thoughtful interpretive tasks. However, such measures must be deliberately integrated into a digital research program through planning around the very different cadences of the digital process.

Structure from Motion and Archaeological Excavation: Experiences of the Via Consolare Project in Pompeii

The last decade of advances in Image-Based Modeling (IBM) data acquisition based on Structure from Motion (SfM) have made it possible as never before to record excavated archaeological deposits, historical architectural remains, artifacts, and geographical surroundings in the field. Armed only with digital cameras and low-cost or open-source software, researchers can now produce accurate point clouds of millions of points, capturing archaeological information in high-resolution detail. But what changes will IBM really bring to the standards, requirements, and expectations of practical field methodology for projects operating on shoe-string budgets? Since 2010, the Via Consolare Project, a small archaeological research project from a State level University, has employed an entirely open-source and “free for academic use” IBM pipeline to record a variety of archaeological features in Insula VII 6 and the “Villa delle Colonne a mosaico” in Pompeii. Ranging from surviving architecture, to rubble fill layers, to the interiors of inaccessible cisterns and drains, this work has been carried out in preparation for the eventual coordination of these data into a 3D GIS of all recorded stratigraphy. Rarely were sufficient resources available for dedicated equipment or personnel to be devoted to this task. While practical implementation, even in a low-budget excavation environment, has confirmed that this technology can indeed augment archaeological field documentation and provide investigation opportunities that would otherwise be impossible, it failed to replace traditional handdrafted recording techniques and was found to present significant challenges and a number of hidden costs. This emphasizes a need for appropriate and cautious planning in implementation, especially in projects with limited means.

Introduction to the Special Issue on 3D Methodologies in Mediterranean Archaeology

This issue brings together several papers originally presented at the 2019 annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in a panel entitled, “Three-Dimensional Archaeology Comes of Age.” This collection takes stock of a decade’s worth of groundbreaking transformation in archaeological practices with a focus on the ancient Mediterranean. Over this time, a subtle transition has occurred in which contentious debates over the value and practicality of 3D tools, such as photogrammetry, 3D scanning, 3D reconstruction, and virtual reality (VR), have given way to an emergent consensus that these constitute a new and important class of recording and heuristic instruments. Rather than seek to cover this fundamental shift in a comprehensive matter, this issue presents a characteristic cross-section of current archaeological research-based on three-dimensional computational methodologies. The content cuts across some 3,000 years of Mediterranean archaeology, from the Aegean Bronze Age to the later Roman Empire, underlining the discipline-wide impact of this methodological revolution. It seeks to shed light on how digital tools are transforming not just the ways we record data, but the very questions archaeologists ask of this information and how this will shape methodological and analytical trends in the next decade and beyond.

Serious Gaming for Virtual Archaeoastronomy

Many cultures worldwide have left traces of sacred architecture and monuments which often show correlation to astronomical events like solstitial sunrises. Virtual archaeology can be used to explore such orientation patterns using digital reconstructions and positions of celestial objects computed from modern astronomical models. Most 3D editing systems used to build virtual reconstructions of such monuments however fail to provide astronomically accurate solar illumination models which can recreate the slightly different solar positions of antiquity or even prehistory, and even worse, any usable representation of the night sky. In recent years, two systems created independently by the authors of this study have been utilized for investigations into the orientation of architecture with respect to celestial processes. Both had their advantages and shortcomings compared to each other. One extended a dedicated open-source desktop astronomy program with a 3D rendering engine where such monuments can be investigated in the first-person perspective by interactive walkthrough. The other system uses a game engine and external online resources which provides only solar or planetary positions, but no star data. This study presents ways of connecting both systems in an attempt to take advantage of the best of both approaches.