Our goals for the 2013 CISA3 field season were wrapped round mine and Vid’s primary research to adapt and engineer new diagnostic imaging tools, field methodologies to utilize these tools, software (like Vid’s gigapixel and gigapoint layered visualization software), and dissemination concepts (i.e. Augmented Reality interfaces, etc) for collaborative analysis and public consumption.

 A big part of this is creating bridges of engagement between the cultural heritage practitioners and the engineers themselves- often the cultural heritage entities and analysts don’t know what technology is available or could be designed for them and the engineers don’t know what art historians, architects, and archaeologists need. We are filling that gap both being an interdisciplinary collaborative team ourselves and by going out and using our multifaceted experiences to connect all the various pieces of the puzzle together to create a way for cultural heritage sites around the world to be diagnostically imaged, for all of that information to be collated together in cross-reference-able layers and for it to be visualized in multiple realities (2D, 3D, AR, etc) by teams of scientists for analysis and by the public, both for crowd-sourcing analytics and for engaging on deeper levels with these significant monuments.

The systems and methodologies that are being built are important surveying tools not just for surveying and sharing our past, but as imperative steps towards the larger seemingly science fiction goals of exploration and visualization where the things one normally associates with movies about space exploration become a reality (like the Star Trek holodeck, the Prometheus LiDAR balls, or the Avatar annotated holographic surveying maps). Cultural heritage sites are perhaps one of the most excellent case studies the development of these far-reaching systems could have- we have limited time access to engage with them, a need to collect a huge amount of data in multiple formats that needs to be layered together in order for analytical sense to be derived, and a need for all of this information to be engaged with on multiple levels once it is collected. The over-arching concept that we are building the systems for the future while preserving the past is rather awesomely profound ;)

We like it anyhow….

For each of the Florence projects, see the subsequent blogs:

Digital Investigations Outside the Baptistery

Digital Investigations Inside the Baptistery

Digital Investigations Under the Baptistery

Digital Investigations Above the Baptistery

Digitizing & Diagnostics of Palazzo Vecchio’s Exterior

Digitizing & Diagnostics of Palazzo Vecchio’s Interior

and more…