Medieval Dublin

Three days in Sevilla

We attended Arqueologica 2.0 in Seville last month. Here, Niall blogs about the experience:

Notes from Arqeologica 2.0

I never knew virtual archaeology would involve so much beer, but we persevered and represented. The conference was an interesting mix of in-the-field archaeologists using various 3D recording devices to VR researchers creating exciting experiential techniques. Some highlights included:

Bernard Frischer’s opening paper on the convergence of humanities and traditional sciences. Bernard raced through the entire history of science and art in a brilliant and fascinating lecture. It was held in the beautiful site of Italica, in incredible heat. (We didn’t dare move during the opening ceremony for fear that we would break into an uncontrollable sweat. Even the Spaniards were hot.)

  Alan Chalmers’ wonderful paper on multi-sensory VR or ‘real VR’. Alan’s projects involve pinpointing which particular sense is most active at any given time and driving the computational power to create the most realistic experience. Everything is physically correct in the simulation, from real-time global illumination and dust particle simulation to true surround audio. As part of his presentation, Alan revealed a magical looking multi-sensory device that would enable sight, sound, taste, smell and touch to be all part of a virtual experience. We look forward to having a go of this when it’s ready Alan!

  Didier Strickerfrom the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence gave a fascinating paper on the cutting edge work he’s doing in virtual heritage projects and mobile-based augmented realities. Not only do they deal with complex real-time 3D computation and tracking, but he and his team have great ideas for presenting original source material in a respectful and wonderfully exciting way.

Graeme Earl from the University of Southampton let us see some of the work he is doing on Portus (the Port of Rome) and Eva Pietroni gave a presentation on some of the VR environments she’s working on in Italy.

We met some wonderful people with interesting projects such as Daniel Pletinckx from Belgium who had pioneered a timeline model of his local town in Belgium. We also met Valentina and Tiziano from a great Italian company called Inklink who create awesome illustrations. These are truly beautiful pieces, carefully designed for maximum understanding of the historical scenes taking place. They seemed to like our work too. smile

Our own talk covered the development of the first Medieval Dublin DVD. We also showed some new renders and prototypes in development for the latest edition. We also presented our approval process and how we work with experts in the field. The presentation went down well, it may have been too swashbuckling for some, but a most people liked and praised it.

Overall, anyone we met loved the Medieval project and we’re dying to finish the new edition to show it off to the world. We made some great contacts that will hopefully benefit the Medieval Dublin project in whatever synergies, information and collaborations come out of it.

Now, back to work….......adios

Niall

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