The following is a summary of sections from a helpful guide book titled Virtual Heritage – A Guide, used to understand the importance of virtual heritage in the modern world. This book opened my eyes to what digital preservation means in the context of representing history in a respectful and meaningful way. Edited by Erik Malcolm Champion:
Foreward by Stuart Jeffrey
Virtual heritage is used very commonly today for its ability to accurately represent a historical subject, though oftentimes what archivists don’t consider are the inherent differences between the virtual and the non-virtual, and how such cases of virtual heritage could potentially not serve the communities behind said subjects in a way that accurately reflects them. The guidebook contains content that addresses the aspects of visual effects, animation, visualization, evaluation, and gaming, emphasizing many ways of remembering different details of human experience. Yet at the same time the idea remains on whether these efforts impact today’s communities. For those working on virtual preservation, it’s worth taking this idea into account, and making efforts to break boundaries between professional and academic, by allowing communities into the designing process. This allows communities to have input in the efforts of virtual heritage, by letting them implement their own history as accurately as possible, instead of allowing those who work in virtual heritage to come up with the representation themselves in a potentially inappropriate and incorrect manner.
Intro: Virtual Heritage: From Archives to Joysticks
Virtual heritage as a concept was considered a combination of virtual reality and cultural heritage, but this poses a lot of problems in regards to historical and cultural representation. These types of virtual technologies allow significant instances of preservation and recreations of various historical subjects, but it’s important to not only preserve the appearance of the subject, but its meaning as well. The greatest fear being felt about virtual heritage is whether the meaning of historical subjects would eventually be lost in favor of its design. This has already been observed in various research papers that provide much documentation on the visual detail and virtual representation, but little to no details on the historical/cultural context of the given subjects. The public deserves to know the full picture of these virtual artifacts, and actions need to be taken to reach this goal. In order to educate the public about this conflict, this book is available for free access online.
Topics discussed in the book include a wide variety of topics, including reasoning for the importance of being as precise as possible between the visual and cultural representations. Different methods of capturing are reviewed in detail across multiple chapters, including photogrammetry, animation techniques, and how this type of technology can make a difference in the ongoing efforts to map the world of the past. These chapters discuss the science behind the visualization, while the next few chapters go over the concept of virtual heritage in the greater world.
In the next few chapters, the ideas of hybrid interactions in museums between real and virtual worlds is explored, as well as how the concept of virtual heritage plays into other environments, such as video games, extended reality, and the ethics of digital archeology. However, the concept of virtual preservation is faced by some other problems worth discussing. For one, some researchers are afraid of there being issues with the design and technology that could get in the way of the ultimate goal of digital archeology. This includes user experience issues, total costs, and whether certain projects are even feasible with the technology we have today. Some projects have even been shut down due to a lack of funding and support, causing certain projects to be lost as a result. Following this, an additional chapter about solutions to this potential dilemma is shared with the viewer for both the short term and long term.
Chapter 1: Speculating the Past: 3D Reconstruction in Archaeology
3D approximations are used to create visual displays with a greater focus on realism and interactivity than traditional visuals. The past 35 years of technology have allowed great technological developments in this field, first starting as an experiment by archeologists and computer scientists back in the 1980s. The evolution of this digital technology has allowed for many methods of visualization, including the likes of photogrammetry and laser scanning. In practice, virtual reconstructions typically consist of virtual geometry consisting of points in a 3D space with their own connections, and archeological illustrations to represent historical artifacts before destruction or decay. Even still, survey-based restorations are more exact with reality than 3-D restoration projects are. However, these types of restorations can be used to make different aspects of history more accessible to the general public.
Lots of challenges can come from making 3D reconstructions authentic. For example, the data that archeologists use is finite. There’s only so much that modelers can have when designing the virtual model, and thus can suffer from similar problems that others run into during real-world preservation as well with few sources to go off of. Though when the job is done right, these virtual replicas can sometimes cause discoveries to be made about the source material that may have not otherwise been known.
What may be surprising is how video game engines are often used for a variety of 3D-graphics-based programs that are often used in these types of projects. In fact, not only are they used for modeling purposes, but even allow simulations to be designed, allowing users to virtually visit full-scale environments, and get a similar experience to seeing these historical subjects in-person. Even the nature of storytelling in game design with a set of characters on their own journey could potentially add another educational element to the experience. 3D reconstructions can provide an extra layer of experimentation with the way modelers can adjust the structure of subjects. This could teach people more about certain factors, including stability.
Despite the technology continuing to advance, much of the archeologist community has not accepted 3D reconstructions because of the resulting replicas not being truly authentic. While yes, these reconstructions certainly represent much of the originals, they don’t have all of the same qualities, and as such, could lead to misinterpretations of the source material. Others argue that it’s okay if a virtual version isn’t one-to-one with the original, but should still provide the same experience. Another present issue is the lack of standardized systems to store the abundance of data required for such models. Digital archeologists fear that data could be lost if handled improperly, emphasizing the need for a better data-storing system.
Chapter 10: Authenticity and Preservation
In the efforts and arguments advocating for more digital documentation with 3D restorations, there are plenty of questions about how the process should work. It’s no secret that digital hertiage is lost faster than real heritage. This is because of cases regarding the lack of proper data and memory management standards, and is considered one of the main reasons why the greater archeology community doesn’t accept digital preservation in quite the same way. With 140 different formats for this 3D data, the overall usability of these 3D formats is greatly complicated, to the point of being difficult to work with in different pieces of computer software. Additionally, there aren’t very many popular websites to share virtual heritage projects, with the most versatile in features being SketchFab.
UNESCO’s Guarding Against Loss of Heritage has taken initiative to create a set of suggestions for how to effectively preserve virtual heritage. Actions include proper capture of codes, images, and sounds, creating standards for training and research procedures in virtual heritage programs to ensure proper procedures are being followed, and giving proper credits wherever possible. Regardless, virtual heritage still has a long way to go before becoming a standard method of preserving, with most academic proceedings still not taking advantage of the technology. Scholars believe one thing putting off this usage could be the rapid innovations of technology causing older tech to become obsolete and lost to time.
Lastly, user experience is a huge factor that needs to be taken into consideration. Much of the refusal of virtual heritage likely comes from the experience being difficult to use or understand for the general public. The author suggests six different components for proper preservation. These include dataset, paradata, authorship, the author’s intentions, metadata, and evaluation data. Of course user experience is not completed without taking cultural heritage into account, providing further context for visualization projects. The biggest goal is to have an authentic experience, which can be achieved based on how the subject is made, who owns or connects with it, and who understands the cultural background of the subject. This can make the user experience more believable and create stronger connections with virtual heritage as a practice.
For further insight on virtual heritage, you can find the guide here: https://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/e/10.5334/bck/ (Licensed under Creative Commons)
