EPOCH The European Network of Excellence on ICT Applications to - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

EPOCH

The European Network of Excellence

• n ICT Applications to Cultural

Heritage

contract no. IST-2002-507382

EPOCH is funded by the European Commission under the Community´s Sixth Framework Programme, contract

• no. IST−2002−507382. However, the content of this presentation reflects only the authors´ (WP4) views and the

Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein

What is EPOCH

EPOCH is a Network of Excellence under FP6 dealing with ICT (Information & Communication

Technologies) Applications to Cultural Heritage

• Kick-Off: April 2004
• End of EC funding: March 2008
• Partners: more than 80, from most of the

European countries, but also from USA, South Africa, Australia, and the Far East

• Mission:

Foster Integration at a European Level

EPOCH goals

• Foster integration
• Stimulate cross-fertilization between humanities

and technology

• Integrate research teams at a European level
• Create an integrated toolkit
• Create a joint research infrastructure
• Define research and dissemination standards
• Create a holistic approach to CH dissemination
• Spread excellence
• Provide a training framework
• Raise citizen’s awareness towards CH

Why it matters

Cultural Heritage is an important factor:

• in determining tourists decisions on destination:
• Heritage is an important motivation factor
• Cultural tourism may be a pathway to economic

development of less favoured areas

• for education of the citizen and appreciation of

cultural diversity

• Education takes a large portion of national budgets
• Understanding each other’s culture will be one of the main

challenges of the next generation of EU citizens

• ICT (“Intelligent Heritage”) can significantly enhance

both sectors

Today, one of heritage's major roles is to strengthen cohesion and social ties in societies disrupted by all kinds of changes. The cultural and environmental spheres are becoming a preferred terrain for experimentation with citizenship, voluntary work and partnership." Technology has a part in delivering the potential benefits of increased understanding of the forces that have shaped our society, but the way the message is communicated is likely to determine whether the effects are positive or negative.

Council of Europe report Forward planning: the function of cultural heritage in a changing Europe

“…Tourism has become a complex phenomenon …UNESCO’s objective is to help Member States to devise strategies for the long-term preservation of the cultural heritage, for better promotion and knowledge of the cultural heritage … thereby contributing to economic, social and cultural development." This recognises a clear inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural motivation…heritage and cultural tourism has the potential to add to quality of life - a motivation well beyond a simplistic economic return of individual visitor centres. UNESCO report 2001

Challenges and tensions

• Access vs Preservation
• Physical access threatens preservation through wear and tear and

environmental exposure

• Access at some level is a prerequisite for interpretation and to realising

potential

• Facts vs Interpretation
• Our “knowledge” is almost always interpretation of fragile evidence, and

interpretation is normally ambiguous

• Events even more uncertain than artefacts
• Accuracy requires uncertainty to be shown, but too much uncertainty

and/or too many alternatives lead to confused messages

• Culture vs Culture
• Interpretation needs context for both original circumstance and viewed
• Much tangible heritage relates to e.g. religion or war – both emotive and

multi-faceted (one culture’s heroic victory may be another’s dictatorial

• ppression)

Technological challenges

• Cultural heritage presents very challenging

“real-user” requirements

• The challenge of mixing features which are

still difficult to achieve in isolation is substantial.

• Example: data acquisition systems
• very low cost
• rugged for effective work under harsh conditions

(the desert, the North, a dig)

• portable for use with pieces in museum
• suitable for fast deployment in emergency digs.

Obtaining recognition

Unless action is taken:

• Assessment of interdisciplinary research will be in charge of

professionals central to the individual disciplines.

• Proposals will often “fall between two stools”.
• Substantial evidence for this happening in national programs.
• Research teams likely to form around core values of the

independent disciplines and not their synthesis.

• Project teams that pass the assessments likely to become

less interdisciplinary and more focused on the independent criteria of the disciplines.

• Cultural Heritage as a sector likely to suffer more than most

in this respect since it shares less of its traditional values and skill sets with IST than many other important usage bases (e.g. medicine, chemistry, biology).

Grand Challenges

• 1. To use technology to enhance preservation and

scholarship in cultural heritage

• Accuracy and preservation v data volume
• Ontologies and searches (organising and representing

knowledge)

• Digital preservation of CH
• 2. To bring history to life for the citizen
• Digital reconstruction
• Story telling
• Visitor experiences
• Internet applications
• Education and Tourism benefit

Epoch Domains of Activity

• Field recording and data capture
• Data organization and standards
• Reconstruction and visualization
• Heritage education and communication
• Sustainability of heritage projects

in order to produce

• A joint research infrastructure
• A complete toolkit to create ICT applications

for CH

• A training framework

The pipeline

The key concept is the pipeline:

• An integrated system of CH research and

dissemination using ICT

• Produce valuable cultural communication by

processing data with ICT

Acquisition Documentation Processing Archiving Management Curatorship Preservation Image proc. Enhancing Reconstruct. Story-telling Communication

INFORMATION

Activities WP1=Management

• WP1 = coordination is

provided by the University of Brighton

• Four core partners
• Task forces working on

activities

• Stakeholders input and

feedback

• Review college formed by

experts

• Open, cross-culture

community with permeable borders

Executive Committee Brighton PIN, Ename, KU-Leuven Board of Directors 18 members representing expertise, constituencies, etc. General Assembly 85 partners + affiliates

Activities WP2=Integration

• Co-ordinate partners’

work

• Collect stakeholders

needs and feedback

• Watch the technology

market and assess the potential impact of forthcoming ones

• Undertake the

implementation of showcases ENAME

Images from EPOCH’s showcases 1 and 2

Activities WP3=Joint research

• Define and create the

common infrastructure

• Lead research activity
• n “missing rings” in

the production chain

• Integrate existing

components with new, targeted tools KU-Leuven

Images from EPOCH showcases 3 and 4

Activities WP4=Spreading excellence

• Manage a one-stop

portal for ICT applications to CH

• Foster standardization
• Publish authoritative

reports

• Ensure mobility and

training framework

• Organize events &

dissemination PIN

Images from EPOCH showcases 7 and 8

Activities in 2004

• Establish the network, setup the

infrastructure and provide services

• Create a website offering various services
• Produce showcases using existing

technology

• Start dissemination
• Produce reports
• Brokerage
• Stakeholder needs
• Training needs and offer
• VAST2004 conference

www.epoch-net.org

• 1. On Site Reconstruction Experience
• 2. Multimodal Interface Safe Presentation of Valuable

Objects

• 3. Tools for Stratigraphic Data Recording
• 4. Multilingual Avatars
• 5. E-tourism through Cultural Routes
• 6. Avatar-based Interactive Storytelling
• 7. Archaeological Documentation for the Semantic Web
• 8. Image-based Modeling

Showcases list

Dissemination report

see next slide…

• Int. Conference
• n Museology

• rganization

• Est. contacts

Training and Mobility

• Bursaries & mobility
• Training (interim):
• Assign money to prepare new courses
• Fund preparation – not teaching
• Support less-favoured areas
• Perform surveys and produce reports
• Training needs and offer in Europe
• State of the Union: policies, practices & research
• Organize/support/attend events
• Publications

Epoch Publications

See next slides…

…

• Identify training needs
• Evaluate statistics
• Perform a survey
• Interview stakeholders
• Identify training offer
• Perform a survey
• Detail relevant courses
• Promote good practices
• Propose strategies & actions

 CHIRON

• EST MARIE-CURIE Project
• Training project on Cultural Heritage Informatics

Training needs & offer

EPOCH’s Activity (beyond project deliverables…)

• Europe-wide integration of teams

Europe-wide integration of teams

• Implementation of results (showcases)

Implementation of results (showcases)

• Incubator of new projects

Incubator of new projects

• Stakeholders awareness and needs

Stakeholders awareness and needs

• Common standards

Common standards

• Economic sustainability & management

Economic sustainability & management and decision tools and decision tools

• Training framework

Training framework

Success stories 1

An UK team is collaborating with the University of Cape Town on a 3D scanning campaign on endangered rock carvings in South

• Africa. An Israeli researcher

realized that problems are similar to those he is facing in the Negev desert and is going to apply similar methods.

Integration of teams and brokerage

Success stories 2

Implementation of results/showcases

EPOCH showcases are quickly becoming a “marketing” tool for additional implementations. We have been spontaneously contacted by cultural institutions (towns, museums) to verify the feasibility of similar applications in their

• case. This witnesses the need
• f such work and the fair

correspondence of our proposal to user needs.

The nymphaeum at Sagalassos – EPOCH’s showcase 1

Success stories 3

Incubator for new projects

To develop specific issues, EPOCH is nursing spin-

• ff targeted projects, involving institutions from

inside and outside the Network:

• CHIRON, a successful Marie-Curie EST project

CHIRON is due to start on next 1 December, joining 7 universities and research centres to provide a joint training framework for Early Stage Researchers on Cultural Heritage Informatics

• ITER, an INTERREG 3C project

ITER, to be submitted in short, joins three EPOCH partners as technology providers; six cities (Verona and Firenze, IT; Piran, SI; Valletta, MT; Pécs, HU; Chester, UK) as content providers, and two European institutions (Marco Polo System EEIG and Institut Européen des Itinéraires Culturels). ITER aims at developing IT applications to military architecture and its exploitation for cultural tourism, together with guidelines for implementation/sustainability

• CHIMERA, a Marie-Curie RTN proposal

The CHIRON logo

Success stories 4

• Creating an interdisciplinary

training framework

• Four courses with 100+ participants
• Busteni, RO
• Szazsalombatta, HU
• York, UK (2)
• 12 scholarships granted (7 women) in

Eastern Europe

• Over 3000 person/h of training
• Manuals will be available in English and

national languages (Hungarian, Romanian)

The logo of the Busteni course

Interdisciplinarity or “The Best of Both Worlds”: The Grand Challenge for Cultural Heritage Informatics in the 21st Century The 5th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage.

• December 6, 2004 -

Tutorials and EPOCH meetings

• December 7-10, 2004 -

The 5th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Incorporating: Second Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage (www.eg.org) EPOCH General Assembly EPOCH SME meeting Location Conscience-auditorium, Brussels and Ename Center, Oudenaarde - Belgium

VAST 2004

VAST 2004 VAST 2004

Acknowledgement EPOCH is funded by the European Commission under the Community’s Sixth Framework Programme, contract no. 507382. However, this presentation reflects only the authors’ views and the European Community is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein. For further informations please contact us at the EPOCH’s info mail address: info@epoch-net.org