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By John Cosmas - October 2001
Dr. John Cosmas reports on the 3D-Murale project [1] that is developing a set of Recording, Reconstruction, Database and Visualisation tools for use by archaeologists at the excavation site and at their laboratories.
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An international team of multimedia content creators, led by Brunel University and with support from the European Union, is developing and using 3D Multimedia tools to measure, reconstruct and visualise archaeological ruins in virtual reality, using as a test case the ancient city of Sagalassos in Turkey.
The archaeological site at Sagalassos is one of the largest archaeological projects in the Mediterranean dealing with a Greco-Roman site over a period of more than a thousand years (4th century BC-7th century AD). One of the three greatest cities of ancient Pisidia, Sagalassos lies 7 km north of the village Aglasun in the province of Burdur, Turkey. The ruins of the city lie on the southern flank of the Aglasun mountain ridge (a part of the Taurus-mountains) at a height between 1400 and 1650 metres. A team of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven under the direction of Professor Marc Waelkens has been excavating the whole area since 1990 and has dug up some wonderful treasures. A consortium of universities and companies, led by Brunel University in West London, are collaborating in the European Union-supported 3D MURALE project [1] to develop 3D measurement, reconstruction and visualisation tools for use by Prof. Waelkens’ archaeological team.
New multimedia technologies will produce rich new ways of recording, cataloguing, conserving, restoring and presenting archaeological artefacts, monuments and sites. They will be used to model the Sagalassos site and show how they can be used for preserving and presenting the cultural heritage of Europe in two important ways. Firstly, by putting such new technologies in the hands of the archaeologists themselves rather than creating multimedia content after the excavations. As an important consequence, a more complete record of the finds can be created and presented to the public. Secondly, by presenting the site not as a static entity from a long-gone past, but as a vibrant place that underwent many changes throughout its existence. This includes the visualisation of the site in different eras and of the excavation as it progressed through different time layers.
The 3D-Murale system consists of Recording, Reconstruction, Database and Visualisation components.
Recording tools will be developed for measuring terrain, stratigraphy, buildings, building blocks, pottery, pottery sherds and statues on the archaeological site. The results of these measurements will be stored in the 3D-Murale database system. Reconstruction systems will use a 3D graphics tool to combine the individual measured components and reconstruct building elements and whole buildings from building blocks, pottery from pottery sherds, statues from statue elements and stratigraphy from all finds within the excavation. Any missing elements will be added later through archaeological hypothesis using 3D graphics tools and custom-built software. An integrated model will be built of the landscape, buildings, and artefacts for different eras, showing reconstructions of these periods or the current state. The model will be processed to prepare it for high quality stereoscopic visualisation and for lower quality Internet visualisation. The visual experience will also include the display of the stratigraphy. Any individual artefact (building element, building, pottery sherd, complete pottery, stones or statues) may be queried on the database and the outcome of the query visualised individually. Queries may be formed and remotely visualised over the Internet.
The archaeological team have been carrying out one of the largest and most interdisciplinary archaeological projects in the Mediterranean ever. It aims to reconstruct throughout time, that is to say. since the beginning of the Holocene period, palaeoecological and palaeo-economic events. It aims to reconstruct the evolution of regional patterns and the development of Sagalassos into an urban centre (which eventually incorporated all the others into its territory), the emergence, urban transformation, decline and final abandonment of this centre, as well as the post-occupation history of the site and its territory. The archaeologists continue to catalogue, conserve, restore or protect, and present hundred thousands of artefacts and the site as a whole.
The archaeologists will define from both a scientific and archaeological point of view a set of requirements for the MURALE technology that are necessary to produce visualisations from two eras of the archaeological site. To reproduce accurate and rapid visualisation, a set of goals and work-tasks will be derived from these requirements. Through regular testing they will also update the archaeological and general user requirements to ensure the precision and speed that can be achieved when used in situ. Regular visits will be scheduled to the site for the testing of recording equipment in field circumstances and for the provision of continuously - updated information. A set of representative test objects will be provided for testing the recording equipment. The archaeologists will closely collaborate with the technologists to continuously evaluate their progress under field conditions.
User-friendly and portable 3-D recording techniques will be required. These systems will measure a range of objects of different dimensions. They will be easy to transport, easy to use, and produce accurate and visually convincing results both for guiding ongoing conservation and anastylosis efforts and for presenting archaeological materials and sites to a wider audience of non-specialists.
A first goal is to register in situ all stratigraphical evidence, since archaeological fieldwork by its nature destroys this kind of information. Secondly, techniques need to be developed to record 3-D models of artefacts, mainly for cataloguing and visualisation, and of pottery sherds, sculptures and buildings, mainly for restoration and visualisation. Thirdly, the terrain of the site needs to be modelled in 3-D as such topographic data yield important information for the archaeologists and is vital for realistic visualisation.
Restoration involves taking the 3-D models from the recordings and completing them in a number of ways. Firstly the system must permit a virtual reconstruction of all excavation phases and their stratigraphy. Secondly this system will take 3-D models of objects or their components and allow a virtual, and possibly also the physical completion or anastylosis of pottery, statues, building elements and buildings. This will permit the virtual reconstruction of ceramic objects, either to replace a physical completion of the real object for presentation or publication purposes, or to make the selection of objects to be restored easier and to guide the conservators during this process. Finally, an integrated model must be built of the landscape, the buildings, and the artefacts for different eras, showing reconstructions for these periods or the current state.
Visualization of archaeological sites such as Sagalassos is particularly challenging due to:
Techniques need to be developed to swiftly visualise the site so that people can virtually navigate through it on a standalone high -quality site visualisation system and an Internet visualisation system. This will call for special measures, such as level-of-detail selection, prediction of next views, exploiting our reduced visual resolution when moving, etc. The visual experience will also include replays of the excavations, showing the different layers of the excavations being ‘peeled off’ one by one. This will help future archaeologists revisit the site in virtual reality in order that they make their own interpretation of the finds.
A database will be created in order to store and retrieve the artefacts, buildings and their reconstruction. The database will serve several purposes. Firstly, it will define where the pieces belong in the scene and in which period they were relevant. This will allow the user to set a time slider, after which a complete site model will be composed automatically, showing the buildings, the vegetation, and the artefacts typical for that period. Secondly, it will serve as a repository that can be used by the archaeologists to help them classify finds, to prepare restorations, and to keep track of statistics. Thirdly, the database will be a major gateway to the wider public and to other archaeologists, by making much of this information available over the Internet.
A conventional text based database will be developed for storage and retrieval of text, 2-D image and VRML image information on archaeological content such as buildings, artefacts, parts of artefacts, drawings, documents, and research papers. A query by 2-D image and 3-D object example-based database will be developed for storage and retrieval of text, video, 2-D image and 3-D voxel and VRML image information for archaeological content such as buildings, artefacts, parts of artefacts, drawings, documents, research papers etc. It will make this content available by remote Internet access for other archaeological researchers and members of the public.
Assessment, Evaluation, Dissemination, and Use
The whole MURALE technology and set of tools will be demonstrated both to specialised audiences and to non-specialised visitors. Service demonstrations will be set up to demonstrate the performance of these new tools. These results will be progressively collected and presented in demonstrations both on the site and elsewhere for larger European and other audiences. At the end of the project an overall tool performance will be delivered. It is intended that the experience and results of this project will be reproduced in trials at other European sites and in other European collections.
Dr. J.Cosmas - Brunel University (Project Co-ordinator)
john.cosmas@brunel.ac.uk
Prof. L. Van Gool - Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule,
Zurich.
Also, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
vangool@vision.ee.ethz.ch
D. Vanrintel - Eyetronics NV
desi.vanrintel@eyetronics.com
M. Grabner MSc - Graz University of Technology
grabner@icg.tu-graz.ac.at
Dr. M. Gervautz - Imagination Computer Services GesmbH
gervautz@imagination.at
Prof. M. Waelkens, Dr. M. Pollefeys - Katholieke Universiteit
Leuven
marc.waelkens@arts.kuleuven.ac.be
,
marc.pollefeys@esat.kuleuven.ac.be
Dr. R. Sablatnig - Vienna University of Technology
sab@prip.tuwien.ac.at
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Dr. John Cosmas
Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering
Brunel University
Uxbridge
Middlesex UB8 3PH
United Kingdom
John.cosmas@brunel.ac.uk
<http://www.brunel.ac.uk/~eestjpc/>
Phone: +44 (0)1895 203120
Fax: +44 (0)1895 258728
John Cosmas is a Reader of Multimedia Systems at Brunel University. He researches into the development of multimedia studio, television, visualisation and database systems.
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For citation purposes:
Cosmas, J. "3D Measurement & Virtual Reconstruction of Ancient Lost Worlds of Europe ", Cultivate Interactive, issue
5, 1 October 2001
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue5/3d/>
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