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This paper deals with a virtual anastylosis of a Greek Archaic statue from ancient Sicily and the development of a public outreach protocol for those with visual impairment or cognitive disabilities through the application of three-dimensional (3-D) printing and haptic technology. The case study consists of the marble head from Leontinoi in southea...
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... Hard-of-hearing individuals can also benefit from AR application, which fosters a more direct and authentic interaction with the artwork, promoting independent exploration and enjoyment of cultural heritage [29]. For individuals with intellectual disabilities, museum AR applications provide assisted navigation [92] and a more interactive approach to cultural heritage, allowing for a more direct experience [283]. ...
Digital accessibility and assistive technologies have been employed to improve the experiences of individuals with intellectual disabilities in multiple settings. This work explores the application of these technologies in informal learning settings, with an emphasis on museums and creativity, to create engaging and knowledge-rich experiences. In this doctoral dissertation, participants with intellectual disabilities are engaged in all design steps, with the final goal of understanding their needs and preferences and developing and evaluating prototypes with them. When establishing procedures and activities to engage them in the co-design process, it is essential to consider their abilities, needs, and rights. The study is structured into four main parts: (1) Methodological Frameworks and Design, which underscores the use of improvisation and scaffolding techniques to adapt the design process to the participants' requirements; (2) Digital and Interactive Technologies, examining the role of Augmented Reality (AR) through AIMuseum, accessible applications through ACCESS+, and social robots in making museum content more understandable and engaging for the participants; (3) Creativity and Multisensory Integration, enabling users to interact with art content using multiple senses and leveraging their creative expression with Artificial Intelligence (AI), a Multisensory Diorama (MSD), and with a multisensory self-representation box, called Empowerbox, fostering self-expression and creativity; (4) Discussion and Conclusions, where research questions are addressed and reflections are offered. In these studies, we included important stakeholders: cultural mediators, who play an essential role in building narratives to engage visitors while describing the content of items on display; educators and support workers, who have close contact and provide help and the necessary scaffolding for participants; and a psychologist, who analyze emotional, cognitive and social processes and behavior. These stakeholders are also involved in the design team, and by examining their participation, interaction, and role, this project seeks to better understand the needs of final users and find more effective ways to listen to their voices and have them as active partners. This doctoral dissertation contributes to the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field by providing methodological insights and practical applications for inclusivity in technology design. Also, it advances the understanding of how digital and interactive technologies can be leveraged to make informal learning and cultural institutions more accessible and engaging for individuals with intellectual disabilities.
... Hard-of-hearing individuals can also benefit from AR application, which fosters a more direct and authentic interaction with the artwork, promoting independent exploration and enjoyment of cultural heritage [7]. For individuals with IDs, museum AR applications provide assisted navigation [21] and a more interactive approach to cultural heritage, allowing for a more direct experience [49]. ...
This paper assesses the perception of Augmented Reality (AR) by People with Intellectual Disabilities (IDs) when using assistive technologies in preparation for a museum visit. We designed and developed an application to test how AR can provide support and is perceived in this context. We organized a user study with 20 participants with IDs, all members of the same association. Three research visits, including focus groups, enabled us to assess the memorability of the contents before introducing AR technology and collect information about users' habits and preferences. Later, we assessed users' perception of AR individually during a test session and conducted a task-oriented hands-on session. Finally, we went to the museum with our users and gathered information about their preferences and choices when using AR in situ, constantly analyzing verbal and non-verbal feedback. We describe all our findings and discuss their implications in terms of guidelines for future design.
... Hard-of-hearing individuals can also benefit from AR application, which fosters a more direct and authentic interaction with the artwork, promoting independent exploration and enjoyment of cultural heritage [7]. For individuals with IDs, museum AR applications provide assisted navigation [21] and a more interactive approach to cultural heritage, allowing for a more direct experience [49]. ...
This paper assesses the perception of Augmented Reality (AR) by People with Intellectual Disabilities (IDs) when using assistive technologies in preparation for a museum visit. We designed and developed an application to test how AR can provide support and is perceived in this context. We organized a user study with 20 participants with IDs, all members of the same association. Three research visits, including focus groups, enabled us to assess the memorability of the contents before introducing AR technology and collect information about users’ habits and preferences. Later, we assessed users’ perception of AR individually during a test session and conducted a task-oriented hands-on session. Finally, we went to the museum with our users and gathered information about their preferences and choices when using AR in situ, constantly analyzing verbal and non-verbal feedback. We describe all our findings and discuss their implications in terms of guidelines for future design.Keywordsaugmented realityaccessibilityperceptionuser studiespeople with intellectual disabilities
... The digital replicas easily lend themselves to 3D printing of the artifacts or sites that increases access to the cultural heritage. Printing artifacts in 3D is beneficial for disabled individuals to be able to interact with the materials when they might otherwise not (Jdaitawi and Kan'an 2022;Neumüller et al. 2014;Stanco et al. 2017). For the disabled public, the ability to touch artifacts can provide a level of access not previously possible. ...
With 10 million copies sold and 500 million dollars of revenue, the 11th installment of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018), showed how a videogame based on ancient Greek history and archaeology can make a splash in popular culture and that the distant past can become an extinguishable source of infinite engaging gaming narratives. As pedagogic and research counterparts to videogames of this kind, serious games and archaeogames focusing on Greek and Roman civilizations move from different premises, though aspiring to the same level of success. Serious games, created for a primary purpose other than sole entertainment, have found their way into classrooms and museums to educate students in a variety of disciplines mostly relying on digital storytelling strategies. Archaeogaming, on the other hand, encompasses, among other things, the creation of video games by archaeologists, who create 3D representations of the ancient material culture subject of their study, initially for the purpose of testing hypotheses in simulated environment and later to popularize archaeology and cultural heritage studies, finding a more ‘serious’ use in higher education.
This dissertation deals with defining best practices in archaeogaming design and production focusing on two practical examples of re-use of digital archaeological data for the generation of game assets for teaching and public outreach. Both case studies explore the context of Late Roman Sicily on which I conducted most of the experimental work in the preparatory years of this research. The first case study will be the narrative game prototype for the Villa del Casale (Piazza Armerina) in Enna, Sicily, entitled In Ersilia’s Footsteps, featuring Ersilia Caetani-Lovatelli (1840-1925), the first female archaeologist in Italian history. The game, developed in collaboration with the University of Arkansas’ Tesseract and directed by Dr. David Fredrick and Dr. Rhodora Vennarucci, narrative follows her in the exploration of the Late Roman Imperial countryside residence and UNESCO World Heritage site. The game revolves around the use of 3D digitized assets, created employing digital photogrammetry and 3D laser-scanning to capture the archaeological site, that significantly contributed to increase the realism of the game environment influencing the game creation process towards telling stories of real historic characters in real historic places. The second game, Building by the River, is an a building and experimental archaeogame, aimed at both contextualized elements from the archaeological site as well as the ability aid researchers in understanding the relationship between space and flow in the Late Roman villa of Caddeddi on the Tellaro river (Noto). More specifically, it seeks to explore how the Villa di Caddeddi may have looked and how the rooms functioned during its time as an operating rural villa in the late 4th Century CE. Giving players the ability to pick from a list of 3D digitized assets of actual archaeological materials found both on site and in similar Sicilian Roman villas, the game seeks to engage with playful building and experimentation as seen in other popular digital game titles, like Sims 4, Subnautica, and Minecraft. The on-going work at adding assets to use in the game as well as learn more about the nature and history of the Villa di Caddeddi is discussed in terms of the second-life of digital data, archaeological interpretation, and investigation of spatial use by ancient Romans in their elite rural homes. These assets, in both In Ersilia’s Footsteps and Building by the River, represent at the same time an example in best practices in reusing 3D data, since, once used to achieve research goals, they are repurposed and in combination with an original narrative and a user-friendly interface and mechanics they become the core of an engaging and exciting exploration game.
Ultimately, the experimental work, the new data gathered and the production of two original media research tools have proven to be a strategic decision to advance the digital scholarship agenda on Roman archaeology of Sicily and to trace a path for incorporating archaeogaming as a methodological approach into a research framework. The ability to re-use scientific data for the purpose of public outreach, education, and research allows for archaeologists to address pseudoscience and dangerous representations of the field. As such, the need to provide assets for games can be served through the second life of 3D digital archaeological materials.
... Photogrammetry, 3D scanning, and other techniques of preparing digital spatial documentation make it possible to create, in a relatively short time, extremely accurate digital models of entire archaeological sites along with architectural monuments. As a result, virtual anastylosis can be fairly easily created (Agnello and Cannella 2013;Canciani et al. 2013;Kurdy et al. 2011;Stanco et al. 2017), which in turn makes it possible to test various solutions before an actual physical reassembly of a damaged monument is carried out. ...
In 1964 the Venice Charter described anastylosis as the only acceptable method of reassembly of architectural remains. Although the scientific community has agreed with the Charter’s decision, many questions pertaining to the technical and aesthetic aspects of anastylosis remain unanswered. Virtual anastylosis seems one of the most promising digital solutions to finding at least some answers, as it permits testing various solutions before carrying out the actual physical re-erection of a damaged monument. Studying such variants with eye-trackers allows the participation of non-professional viewers at the very beginning of the process, that is at the design stage. By understanding how ordinary people look at different reconstructions, professionals and scholars can determine which elements would assist and which would hinder the instinctive assessment of the object’s value and history. This study compares perceptions of three variants of the same column. A total of 232 people were divided into three groups and asked to examine different types of anastyloses: with an empty cavity, with a cavity filled with a brighter stone, and with a cavity filled with a stone of the same color and texture as the rest of the column. Their perception of the columns was then analyzed using several parameters, including the number of fixations, the time spent looking at individual elements, and the chronological order in which the parts of the stimuli was taken in. This paper explores the benefits and the potential of this new research tool as well as offers a more detailed look at what a viewer-friendly model of anastylosis may be like.
... Measurements should be kept as simple as possible at the target location. Some researchers believe that all input and output measures should not exceed 1/3 of the scoring sequence [18]. ...
In order to effectively solve the related problems in the process of public management, this research proposes an improved algorithm technology based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and classification algorithm. With the help of lever management, this paper further solves and overcomes the problem of DEA algorithm itself and the defect of “relative effectiveness.” At the same time, in order to avoid the impact on the input and output indicators, with the help of principal component analysis, taking the performance evaluation of public management departments as the research direction, this paper makes an empirical analysis on the performance evaluation of public management departments. The evaluation results of the index system show that the correlation coefficient between the efficiency value of the initial index system and the efficiency value of optimization 2 is 0.977759, and the correlation coefficient is less than 0.7. The evaluation results are more reasonable than those before the improvement.
... Feedback on enjoyment was also sought in Villanueva et al. (2013) using a specific question about enjoyment of using the software. Others mentioned enjoyment as an aspect of the AR museum experience but collecting data on enjoyment was not part of the methodology or discussed within the paper (Guttentag 2010;Partarakis et al. 2016;Stanco et al. 2017). ...
... A significant characteristic of AR technologies being developed for museums is their use of connectivity to extend or transform particular aspects of the user experience. AR is able to optimize navigation through museum spaces and present accessible personalized information in a time efficient fashion with the potential to facilitate a profound personal impact (Stanco et al. 2017). In this respect researchers are using the affordances of AR to go beyond access alone and to make possible new enjoyable multisensory exploratory experiences for disabled people. ...
... Such techniques have been continued to be developed to exploit advances in computer science and the availability of technology to automatize the painstaking work of creating typologies for ceramics [5,6] and classifying them [7]. Pattern recognition technologies also led to break-throughs in conservation, developing tools for restaurateurs to use on damaged objects [8], ceramics [9], frescoes [10], mosaics [11], sculptures [12], and buildings [13]. These technologies have even made in improvements in tackling some issues of subjective analysis when it comes to color determination [14]. ...
The convergence of issues such as safety, lighting, and physical accessibility with problems of archaeological conservation make underground contexts particularly difficult to study, preserve, and make accessible to the public. The Hypogeum of Crispia Salvia at Marsala (Italy) is a particularly apt case study as the frescoed burial site, unique in all of Sicily, is now built over by an apartment complex that can only be accessed through scheduled tours. The authors, in partnership with the local archaeological authorities, harnessing the power of machine learning, created a digital model of this underground burial space using terrestrial laser scanning and digital photogrammetry. This is part of a larger ongoing effort to re-document important subterranean heritage sites of Sicily in order to make them accessible to both researchers and the public, increasingly important in a historic moment where even local mobility is limited due to a global pandemic.
... They have distinctive roles in helping users carry out certain tasks more efficiently. VR is often used for simulation and training when the actual content/scenario in the real world is expensive to design (e.g., visiting the inside of a volcano [6], practicing surgery and simulations [7], examining a new house design [8], engaging in disaster response training [9]) or impossible to recreate (e.g., ancient artifacts [10] or a military battle [11]). On the other hand, AR is more focused on providing contextual information (e.g., annotations [12]), presentations [13], mapping virtual objects with the physical world [14] (i.e., automatically situating an object on the targeted floor). ...
Traditional in-app virtual reality (VR)/augmented reality (AR) applications pose a challenge of reaching users due to their dependency on operating systems (Android, iOS). Besides, it is difficult for general users to create their own VR/AR applications and foster their creative ideas without advanced programming skills. This paper addresses these issues by proposing an interactive extended reality toolkit, named BlocklyXR. The objective of this research is to provide general users with a visual programming environment to build an extended reality application for digital storytelling. The contextual design was generated from real-world map data retrieved from Mapbox GL. ThreeJS was used for setting up, rendering 3D environments, and controlling animations. A block-based programming approach was adapted to let users design their own story. The capability of BlocklyXR was illustrated with a use case where users were able to replicate the existing PalmitoAR utilizing the block-based authoring toolkit with fewer efforts in programming. The technology acceptance model was used to evaluate the adoption and use of the interactive extended reality toolkit. The findings showed that visual design and task technology fit had significantly positive effects on user motivation factors (perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness). In turn, perceived usefulness had statistically significant and positive effects on intention to use, while there was no significant impact of perceived ease of use on intention to use. Study implications and future research directions are discussed.
... Such an approach could also facilitate autonomy within the exhibition gallery, enabling BPS visitors to enjoy the museum at their own leisure, rather than being limited to specific sessions whose timing lies outside their control, a key requirement for BPS visitors (Holloway et al., 2019). As a result, museums are currently utilizing the technology to a variety of ends within BPS museum practice, including in permanent and temporary exhibitions (Chick, 2017;Karnapke & Baker, 2018;Stanco et al., 2017), in handling sessions (Guarini, 2015;Koch et al., 2013), and for assisting BPS visitors in wayfinding (Rener, 2017;Urbas et al., 2016). However, there has been little robust exploration of guiding principles for the creation tangible 3-Dprinted replicas, especially for BPS visitors (Wilson et al., 2017(Wilson et al., , 2018. ...
Modern museum practice embraces equal access for all, but access for blind and partially-sighted (BPS) audience remains problematic given the ocularcentricity of museums. Many museum professionals and BPS visitors remain frustrated by the degree of accessibility on offer. The use of 3-D printed replicas as a handling surrogate represents a solution, allowing BPS visitors to engage tactually with museum content while minimizing risk. However, the design of such replicas is poorly researched. This exploratory examination of the design of 3-D printed replicas utilizes semi-structured interviews, sensory observations and content analysis to examine BPS perceptions of museum objects in the absence of interpretational support. Interpretation was dominantly multisensory, while participants found it easier to determine material traits than object traits, with textual, geometrical and optical properties being of use. Assistive approaches rather than major alterations were favored. Overall, museum professionals should consider how the process of 3-D printing influences BPS perception.
