Communications of the ACM
New Digital Tools Could Help Speed Up Cultural Heritage Work
The European Union-funded PRESIOUS project is developing software tools intended to facilitate the work of archaeologists via computer simulation.
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The European Union-funded PRESIOUS project is developing software tools intended to facilitate the work of archaeologists via computer simulations.
Once the project is completed, the tools will be made freely available for archaeologists to download.
"In order to better understand what monuments will look like under certain erosive conditions, for example, we built simulation software--within the timescale and resources available--that enables an archaeologist to scan a stone object and estimate erosion patterns under different conditions," says Norwegian University of Science and Technology professor Theoharis Theoharis.
Other objectives for the software include helping archaeologists piece together fragmented findings, such as solving three-dimensional (3D) puzzles, and filling in gaps in archaeological objects with symmetry.
To accelerate the digitization process, the consortium's industry partner helped develop predictive scanning, which uses predictions based on 3D object retrieval from repositories of previously digitized objects. The technique is useful for applications in which cost reductions are essential and precise scanning is not necessarily the end-goal.
Feedback on the PRESIOUS tools from the archaeological community at various conferences, seminars, and demonstrations has been very positive, according to Theoharis.
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