This open access book presents a collection of papers focusing on current 3D research challenges in the domain of digital cultural heritage. 3D technologies find considerable use within the field of cultural heritage at the beginning of the 21st century, for example in the areas of data acquisition, modeling, archiving in local repositories, harvesting in digital libraries and their long-term preservation. This volume put emphasis on a number of challenges facing 3D research in the 2D/3D digitization of tangible objects and their transformation to digital/virtual/memory twins; the interplay of geometry, semantics and the recovery and management of knowledge in digital cultural heritage; the handling of 3D data via the Cloud on the Internet and mobile devices; the presentation of cultural heritage content in 3D to the general public; and the 3D reproduction of cultural heritage objects from virtual to real.

This book contains selected contributions from some of the most renowned researchers in the field of Digital Heritage and 3D representation of the Past, based in large part on invited presentations from the workshop “Computational Geometry and Ontologies for Cultural Heritage 3D Digital Libraries: What are the future alternatives for Europeana?” which was held in conjunction with the International Conference on Cultural Heritage EuroMed2012 (www.euromed2012.eu) on the island of Cyprus in October 2012. This was the official event of the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union on Progress in Cultural Heritage Preservation. The aim of this book is to provide an insight to ongoing research and future directions in this novel, continuously very promising and multi-disciplinary evolving field, which lies at the intersection of digital heritage, engineering, computer science, mathematics, material science, architecture, civil engineering and archaeology.

This book reflects a current state of the art and future perspectives of Digital Heritage focusing on not interpretative reconstruction and including as well as bridging practical and theoretical perspectives, strategies and approaches. Comprehensive key challenges are related to knowledge transfer and management as well as data handling within a interpretative digital reconstruction of Cultural Heritage including aspects of digital object creation, sustainability, accessibility, documentation, presentation, preservation and more general scientific compatibility. The three parts of the book provide an overview of a scope of usage scenarios, a current state of infrastructures as digital libraries, information repositories for an interpretative reconstruction of Cultural Heritage; highlight strategies, practices and principles currently used to ensure compatibility, reusability and sustainability of data objects and related knowledge within a 3D reconstruction work process on a day to day work basis; and show innovative concepts for the exchange, publishing and management of 3D objects and for inherit knowledge about data, workflows and semantic structures.

Virtual heritage has been explained as virtual reality applied to cultural heritage, but this definition only scratches the surface of the fascinating applications, tools and challenges of this fast-changing interdisciplinary field. This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage. Leading international scholars have provided chapters to explain current issues in accuracy and precision; challenges in adopting advanced animation techniques; shows how archaeological learning can be developed in Minecraft; they propose mixed reality is conceptual rather than just technical; they explore how useful Linked Open Data can be for art history; explain how accessible photogrammetry can be but also ethical and practical issues for applying at scale; provide insight into how to provide interaction in museums involving the wider public; and describe issues in evaluating virtual heritage projects not often addressed even in scholarly papers. The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in museum studies, digital archaeology, heritage studies, architectural history and modelling, virtual environments.

This volume comprises the proceedings of the Third International Euro-Mediterranean Conference (EuroMed 2010) on the historical island of Cyprus. The focal point of this conference was digital heritage, which all of us involved in the documentation of cultural heritage continually strive to implement. The excellent selection of papers published in the proceedings reflects in the best possible way the benefits of exploiting modern technological advances for the restoration, preservation and e-documentation of any kind of cultural heritage. Above all, we should always bear in mind that what we do now may be used by people in another century to repair, rebuild or conserve the buildings, monuments, artifacts and landscapes that seem important. Recent events like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, fires and insurrections show that we can never be too prepared for damage to, and loss of, the physical and, non-tangible elements of our past and, in general, our cultural heritage. To reach this ambitious goal, the topics covered included experiences in the use of innovative recording technologies and methods, and how to take best advantage of the results obtained to build up new instruments and improved methodologies for do- menting in multimedia formats, archiving in digital libraries and managing a cultural heritage. Technological advances are very often reported in detail in specialized fora. This volume of proceedings establishes bridges of communication and channels of co- eration between the various disciplines involved in cultural heritage preservation.

This collection presents a wide range of interdisciplinary methods to study, document, and conserve material cultural heritage. A wide variety of cultural heritage objects have been recorded, examined, and visualised. The objects range in date, scale, materials, and state of preservation and so pose different research questions and challenges for digitization, conservation, and ontological representation of knowledge. This book is an outcome of interdisciplinary research and debates conducted by the participants of the COST Action TD1201, Colour and Space in Cultural Heritage, 2012-16 and is an Open Access publication available under a CC BY-NC-ND licence.

Cultural heritage communities of interest have increasingly expanded from cultural heritage professionals to volunteers, special interest groups and independent citizen-led initiative groups. Digital technology has also increasingly impacted cultural heritage by affording novel experiences of it – it features in a number of activities for all the aforementioned groups, as well as acting as support for visitors to cultural heritage centres. With different degrees of formality and training, these communities are increasingly defining and taking ownership of what is of value to them, thus reconfiguring the care, communication, interpretation and validation of heritage. Digital technology has played a crucial role in this transformative process. In a fully international context, cultural heritage practitioners, community champions and academics from different fields of study have contributed to this book. Each chapter brings to the fore the multiple relationships between heritage, communities and technologies as a focus of study and reflection in an inclusive way. Contributions touch upon present and future opportunities for technology, as well as participatory design processes with different stakeholders. This book brings together ideas from different disciplines, cultures, methods and goals, to inspire scholars and practitioners involved in community heritage projects.