This paper explores the use of digital techniques for rapid surveys in cultural heritage, focusing on the creation of virtual environments for educational purposes. It compares two prominent methods for 3D reconstruction: laser scanning and AI-enhanced photogrammetry, particularly Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF). The case study centers on the virtual reconstruction of the Eccel Kreuzer Museum in Bolzano, South Tyrol, which involved documenting its original layout before an exhibition change. The research evaluates the performance of the Leica BLK laser scanner against the NeRF-based 3D models generated from video footage captured with an Insta360 ONE camera. While laser scanning provides high-quality results, the NeRF method, leveraging AI-based algorithms, offers a faster, cost-effective solution, particularly in environments with reflective surfaces and confined spaces. Despite challenges in accuracy and computational demands, the AI approach proves suitable for rapid documentation, especially when precision is less critical. The study highlights the advantages and limitations of both techniques, contributing to the ongoing development of 3D digital heritage assets that balance speed, cost, and quality in various applications such as VR and AR educational environments.
Markerless AR Applications and 3D Printing for the Augmented Prototyping of the Franciscan Heritage of the XVIII Century
The Wooden Tabernacles research project, which began in September 2022 and is still ongoing, concerns the digitization of a series of wooden tabernacles produced between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as historical and artistic testimonies of the Capuchin order in Abruzzo.
The aim of the project is to obtain, through SfM photogrammetry, a series of geometrically accurate 3D models that can be used to create physical replicas of the surveyed objects through 3D printing technologies.
The research project also includes the implementation of an Augmented Reality (AR) application for the visualization of the mapped 3D models and other queryable information. As is well known, Augmented Reality allows digital elements to be superimposed onto a real scene; this feature generates an enhanced perception of reality by applying, through the use of specific devices, a digital information layer that modifies the real scene in order to deepen knowledge and understanding. By combining this technology with 3D printing, it becomes possible to associate a physical object with a series of informational contents that enrich its fruition and accessibility.
The Augmented Reality application will make it possible to expand the experience of using the replica by adding a series of digital information layers (photos, videos, and 3D models) that can be activated by framing the replica itself. This application has already been developed by implementing the Model Target functionalities available through the Vuforia libraries within the Unity software environment.
The 3D-printed prototype provides a physical reproduction of the object at a 1:5 scale, capable of accurately reproducing the richness of detail of the original artifact.
Media Convergence and Museum Education in the EMODEM Project
The interpretation of the museums heritage as an active social element is the basis of the most cur-rent cultural institutions projects that envisage forms of documentation, use and dissemination of the cultural heritage increasingly dialogic (the museum community) and dynamics (mixing conversational, experiential, and participative modes).This scenario is the broad framework of the project conceived to design the EMODEM app based on the convergence of face detection, eye tracking and AR to interface the virtual and the physical space and make the museum experience more visitor-centered, interactive and personalized.This article integrates the EMODEM research already underway and updates the scientific roadmap according to the progress recently achieved in phases 3 and 4 of the project, presenting the technolog-ical innovation that has intervened in the meantime in the project and the advancement of research, currently reached at third field usability testing.
The Emotion Detection Tools in the Museum Education EmoDeM Project
Facial recognition technologies, already used nowadays in many applications, i.e. to support security systems in sensitive buildings, could in a short time achieve widespread use also in others sectors including culture institutions like museums or art galleries. The state of the art in the field of facial recognition allows discriminating factors not only related to the essential somatic characteristics of a person to recognize, with an ever–greater degree of precision, the emotional reactions that may occur on person’s face.The article intends to describe the research’s EmoDeM experimentation in the museum environment in order to provide a tool capable of interpreting the reaction of a user in front of an artwork and propose a responsive information content coherent what is manifested through facial expressions.