October 2000
Jointly organized by Computer Science and Engineering
Tuesday, October 24, 4-5pm
Room 190, Barus & Holey (Engineering building, new extension)
Senior Scientist at the National Research Council (http://www.cnr.it),
Institute of Technologies Applied to the Cultural Heritage (Rome,
Italy)
and
Contract Professor in Archaeological Informative Systems
at the University of Siena (Italy)
Seminar Announcement in PDF.
In archaeological research, one analyses primarily contexts, that is physical setting, location, and cultural association of sites, artifacts and features within an environment/ecosystem. The knowledge of the connections of these micro and macro contexts is fundamental for reconstructing the archaeological information. As a result, in a post-process methodological phase, the concept of Virtual Archaeology was initiated; but what is effectively Virtual Archaeology (VA)? and what is virtual? We think of VA as a process of 3D modeling of information that becomes, in synthesis, visual information. This type of visual information permits us to remodel and amplify the visible field.
The need to catalog and archive increasing quantities of archaeological information introduces computer applications as a methodology that has been completely integrated in archaeological research, so much so that we speak commonly of computational archaeology. Therefore the possibility to virtually reproduce the entire exploration phase, or part of it and its relevant archaeological pattern-model, becomes the cognitive tool, ``par excellence'', which allows us to ask and respond to the question: how much and what do we reconstruct?
The value of a virtual model is represented by its cognitive interaction, a rule also valid for reconstructions of archaeological contexts. The epistemological aspect is key in the assessment of computational processes and accordingly, in archaeological activity.
In this talk many case studies and applications will be presented concerning processes and interfaces of acquisition data, interaction, interpretation and of visual communication in archaeology.
Key words: virtual archaeology, 3D, interaction, visual, archeological theory.
Contacts: David Laidlaw (dhl@cs.brown.edu) and Frederic Leymarie (leymarie@lems.brown.edu)
Dr. Maurizio Forte received his degree in Ancient History (Etruscology) and the Diploma of specialization in Archaeology from the University of Bologna and PhD in Archaeology from the University of Rome "La Sapienza". He is Senior Scientist at the National Research Council (http://www.cnr.it), Institute of Technologies Applied to the Cultural Heritage (Rome, Italy) and Contract Professor in Archaeological Informative Systems at the University of Siena (Italy). He was Director of the International School of Remote Sensing in Archaeology (Pontignano, Siena), researcher in computer applications in archaeology at the Visual Lab of CINECA (Interuniversity Supercomputing Consortium, http://www.cineca.it) and he is Director of the Master of GIS in Archaeology (Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa).
He carried out for over 18 years archeological digs, digital projects, and field research in Italy, China, Spain, Ethiopia, Iran. He participated, as speaker, to many international conferences and congresses concerning the computer applications in archaeology; in particular in the USA, he presented a paper at SIGGRAPH 1999 (on 3D facial Re-construction and Visualization of ancient Egyptian mummies using spiral CT data Soft tissues re-construction and textures application). He gave talks in many Italian Universities (Roma, Siena, Lecce, Milano, Firenze, Napoli, Torino, Ravenna, Bologna) and in the Universities of Beijing (China), Jaen, Bilbao, Barcelona (Spain), Aahrus (Denmark), Lubjiana (Slovenia), Paris X (France); he was also invited speaker at "Archeovirtua" (international festival and conference at l'Archeodrome de Bourgogne, Meursault, France) and at "Virtuality" (Torino, Italy).
His work focuses primarily on the visual and cognitive approaches of the archaeological information, analysing and studying contexts and interactions of virtual models in order to increase the level of knowledge. Specifically recent work is concentrated towards the virtual reconstruction of the archaeological landscape and the relationships between 2D data with 3D data: analysis and classification by GIS and remote sensing, interpretation and communication through virtual reality and visual information systems. His last publication is "Virtual Reality in Archaeology" (ed. M. Forte, J. Barcelo, D. Sanders), Archaeopress, Oxford, 2000.
Last Updated: October 19, 2000