mobile cultural heritage: the case study of locri

Mobile Cultural Heritage:The Case Study of Locri

Giuseppe Cutrı1, Giuseppe Naccarato2, and Eleonora Pantano3

1 University of Turin, 10124, Turin, [email protected]

2 University of Calabria, 87036, Arcavacata di Rende, [email protected]

3 University of Calabria, 87036, Arcavacata di Rende, [email protected]

Abstract. The goal of this project is to study the use of mobile tech-nologies equipped with global positioning systems as an information aidfor archaeological visits. In this study we will focus in the study of thetechnologies used to implement these systems. To this end we analyzean archaeological site where this systems have been tested. In this ex-periment we have applied state of the art technologies in virtual andaugmented reality to implement a system that allows users to access thesite using their mobile devices. We conclude that the use of this kind oftechnologies is an effective tool to promote the archeo-geographical valueof the site.

Keywords: mobile device, mobile virtual navigation, digital reconstruc-tion, GPS, cultural heritage.

1 Introduction

Advances in mobile technologies are enjoyed by an increasing percentage of thepopulation. This is due mainly to lower prices and to the technologization of lifeand work style standards of the population [1].

Most of the current communication processes are based on the use of mobiledevices. Some of the most used are tablet pc, pocket pc, smart-phone, PDA(Personal Digital Assistant), and iPod. These technologies provide several webtools like, search engines, virtual communities and e-advertising among others.

Adapting the power of these technologies to the field of cultural heritage,allows the broadcast of local heritage to a worldwide level. Innovative uses oftechnology can stimulate curiosity and interest in users, satisfy their informa-tion needs and ultimately allow the creation of a digital heritage [2] [3]. Thesedevices can guide users in virtual or real world spaces. Virtually reconstructedenvironments take advantage of information rich databases providing the userswith historical, cultural, and geographical data. In these environments the usercan better explore in an augmented reality space. This system empowers theuser giving a knowledge rich environment that facilitates learning [4] [5] [6].

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Mobile Cultural Heritage: The Case Study of Locri 411

This type of systems can mix real and virtual worlds, allowing the combinationof the geographical location with the exact historical or cultural information. Anadded tool that identifies the geographical position [8] allows the system to have acombined view of a culturally interesting artefact with its virtual reconstruction(3D model). This 3D model represents its original shape. The user can also benefitby using the user friendly interface of the device, to view other multimedia datarelated to the artefact, for example the reconstruction of the virtual reproductionof the original environment and the historical source [9].

The aim of this paper it to highlight the possibility to apply these technologiesto regions such as Calabria, which is rich in cultural and archaeological resourcesnot always exploited. In particular we study the system at the archaeologicalpark of Locri and study how the tools we describe can improve and value theenjoyment of the place.

2 Mobile Virtual Navigation

New mobile devices are becoming more and more popular due to their low costand their advantages in connection to new services and social interaction. Thesedevices are not mere cell phones or organizers, but powerful computing devices[7]. In this study we have used a mobile implementation of a Virtual NavigationSystem (VNS). Current VNSs were developed as a desktop application to simu-late visits for a wide range of environments, ranging from a reconstructed city toa museum. Today the high performance of mobile devices offers the possibility tocombine the capabilities of a desktop Virtual Navigation System with the onesof a Global Positioning System (GPS) device. Using a mobile device with GPS(often already integrated on most PDAs and cell phones) the VNS provides moreexciting features such as allowing the user to have real and virtual informationcombined depending on its location. This system has been developed with thegoal of offer a better experience while visiting archaeological sites.

3 System Architecture

The system we present is a program that enriches the exploration of open spaceswith additional data. The system provides real time visualization, on a mobiledevice, of a 3D reconstruction of the environment. This environment also givesnavigation capabilities using its GPS data system.

To achieve this task we designed a new graphical engine for the mobile device.The system is built on top of a set of new graphic libraries developed in collabo-ration with the E-Guide S.R.L. which were called Q3 libraries. These C++ APIs(Application Program Interfaces) are divided in two parts:

� Q3Engine: is a 3D graphic engine;

� Q3Widgets: is a GUI library for rendering the GUI (Graphic User Interface).

412 G. Cutrı, G. Naccarato, and E. Pantano

These two set of APIs are linked together by these other libraries:

� Q3Toolkit: is the glue between the 2D layer and the 3D layer and the OS(Operating System);

� Q3Lib: offers many platform independent functions as well as computationalgeometry functions used to manipulate meshes and other 3D and 2D objects;

� Q3GPS: receive and process GPS data.

The API is built on top of OpenGL ES and OpenVG [10] libraries that arethe standard de facto in mobile environments (Many CPU manufacturers sup-port natively these libraries on their products). A converter allows the importof a COLLADA [11] file or a Google Earth file (Google Earth 4 files are com-pressed COLLADA files, with textures and other information) and save them asa compressed format specifically designed for.

The system processes GPS data to obtain the user position and move the vir-tual environment along with the user’s movements. It is also possible to connecta GPS with an integrated compass in order to know the user’s orientation. If thecompass data is missing the user has the possibility to move the view using thejoypad of the device. The meshes position is stored in xml format together withother information such as a text and multimedia contents so the user can clickon any object of the world and read the description, watch images, and so on.

Since most of today’s mobile devices do not have FPU (Floating-Points Unit)the system hasn’t the possibility to be compiled using fixed-points and a speciallibrary for fixed-point algebra was developed.

The GUI has many graphical effects like shading, anti-aliasing and is plannedto be used using a touch screen. The 3D engine can show any textured mesh andsupport multiple light effects.

4 The Case Study of Locri

We chosed to analyze the case study of Locri because of the rich archaeologicalheritage of the zone and because, at the moment, it hasn’t been studied yet,using the latest technologies.

Locri Epizefiri is one of the most important Greek poleis of Calabria. Itsarchaeological park covers a big area: more than 568,34 acres. It spreads outalong the coast and the mountains (Fig. 1 shows the findings of famous GreekTheatre built the IV century b.C.)[12], [13].

To implement the systems for the archaeological site we followed several steps:

� Evaluation of findings accessibility;

� Evaluation of most interesting routes inside the park;

� Access to useful information to reconstruct ancient artefacts.


Fig. 1. An image from the archaeological site of Site

Fig. 2. The zone of Centocamere, in the archaeological site of Locri (image from GoogleEarth)

Inside the archaeological park of Locri, tourist can visit 3 zones: Centocamere(Fig. 2), Museum (Fig. 3), Theatre (Fig. 4).

In these zones there are few routes that allow tourists to access the mostinteresting findings. Archaeologists have excavated the ancient ruins especially inthe zone of Centocamere, where the ruins of the ancient city centre are located.These are characterized by houses, and workshops where clay ceramics weremanufactured and sold.

For example, in Fig. 5 we show the map of the zone of Centocamere in thepark, where we highlight the possible routes:


Fig. 3. Museum zone, in the archaeological site of Locri (image from Google Earth)

Fig. 4. Theatre zone, in the archaeological site of Locri (image from Google Earth)

We investigated the required details to develop the virtual reconstructions ofthe ancient objects of the zone to test and validate the system. This test showsseveral routes that a tourist can visit (Fig. 6). The system gives the user also theopportunity to choose a fixed route from the list of all possible ones. In fact, theuser can visit the archaeological park with his personal mobile device and use itto choose his preferred route to visit the park. For example the user can choose afixed route or can invent his own choosing the most interesting findings to see.

The most important part of the visit is the route and it is a fundamental factorto exploit the territory. From a mathematical point of view, we can describe the


Fig. 5. A map with the possible routes of zone of Centocamere in the archaeologicalpark of Locri

Fig. 6. Mathematical representation of place of interest and connections among them

place by using a graph G, defined G=(V,E), where V is a set of vertices andrepresents the places of interest and E is the set of links and represent the possibleconnections among them (the communication channels) [14].

After the mathematical formalization of the routes, we can apply mathemati-cal tools to find the itinerary that maximizes the travel performance and a morepersonalized route [14].

It is possible to use technologies of virtual reality and computer graphics touse in terrains in an efficient way. These allow to reconstruct archaeological sitesand environments which existed only in the past [15]. The traditional access toarchaeological ruins required a mental effort from visitors because they had toreconstruct in their minds the ancient scenario. Using this system the virtual


Fig. 7. Virtual reconstruction of the Centocamere zone

Fig. 8. An example of the user-friendly interface for language choice

reconstruction of objects and environment using graphics, audio/video repro-duction allow users to live a more interesting and immersive experience [16] [18].Virtual reconstructions and their related multimedia contents make visit moreinteresting and instructive (Fig. 7).

4.1 How the System Is Working

In may museums or archaeological sites, tourists can find audio-guides whichguide them along fixed routes, or force them to use information points with a pcin which visitors can get access interactive information. In this paper we present


Fig. 9. An example of the user friendly interface to choose the route

Fig. 10. Stoa in the zone of Centocamere

a different tool, because it is not stationary, it can be personalized by user, andit is based on the geographical position of the user.

Mobile devices, and wireless communication systems, are combined with vir-tual and augmented reality to obtain a new tool which can be an electronic,personalized and mobile guide through archaeological sites [17].

We can summarize the use of this system in the following fundamental steps:

� STEP 1: User accesses to archaeological site and decides to rent the partic-ular mobile device or to use his own (in this case he has to download on hisdevice all the useful information, like maps, photos or other data);


Fig. 11. Access to Stoa from mobile device

� STEP 2. The user starts the application and chooses the language (Fig. 8)and route (a fixed route from the list or personalize his own) (Fig. 9);

� STEP 3. The device becomes a tourist guide. It locates the geographicalposition of user (using a GPS system) in the park. When the user is closeto a particular object (Fig. 10), the display shows a virtual reconstruction.The user can see the real object while comparing with the reconstruction inthe mobile device(Fig. 11). The user can play the object (as a game) andhe can choose to listen to historical data, or information about the struc-ture or manufacturing process, read the text or visualize other multimediainformation.

5 Conclusion

We illustrate how the archaeological park of Locri, and is big extension, canbe enjoyed in a more effective and efficient way by using this new system. Thissystem allows users to understand, learn and appreciate also parts that don’texist anymore, artefacts, which were destroyed by weather or man. The usercan experience an immersive and more interesting experience, especially for thatpart of population which is less interested in the archaeological heritage butmore sensitive to the use of new technologies [19].

A similar system could be applied to other archaeological sites with the samesuccess.

6 Future Work

Next generation of mobile devices will have more powerful CPUs and many willhave a GPU also, which means that there will be no problem rendering very


complex meshes with a low frame rate. These new kind of devices will allow torender even more realistic scenes.

But the future is not only based on new powerful hardware. AR (AugmentedReality) systems will play an important rule on the current scenario. Even todaya lot of mobile phones and PDAs have a camera inside which already permits toembed real image data in order to overlap the 3D reconstruction on top of thereality. People can experience new HCI (Human Computer Interaction) that willpermit a more interaction with the environment and many new exciting features.

The next step will be the integration of maps and a multi-modal guidance en-gine which will permits the user to be guided throw a city using various transportservices (bus, train, taxi, etc.). These technologies are currently under develop-ment in collaboration with the E-Guide S.R.L.

Furthermore, the system we presented will be tested and evaluated througha quantitative analysis with consumers in the archaeological park of Locri.

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