ROS and professional archaeology

It is a long time since we wrote something in this blog, but (like every year) the excavation season leaves us few time for research. For this reason, today I want to break our silence and show some results of our latest studies regarding archeorobotics (the use and development of robotic devices in archaeology).

If you are a regular reader of ATOR, you probably know that since 2012 we are working on optical sensor to achieve a real-time 3D documentation of archaeological evidences (or any kind of data we need to acquire during our projects). Since we started to work on different kind of drones (UAV, ROV, etc...), we discover the nice universe of ROS (Robot Operating System) and SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) algorithms. In this post we summarized our research on this topic, focusing on the use of Kinect. Currently we already used this techniques on professional projects (like large scale surveys or excavations), adapting the system to work with RGB-D devices (in underground environment or during cloudy days) or stereocameras (with direct sun light conditions). For instance we helped our friend Cristian Boscaro of IUAV to test this technology in order to document the tunnels which connect the domes of the Abbay of S. Giustina in Padua. This evening I will post a video which shows a particular use of ROS and Kinect to solve a technical problem we had on the field today. We were working to assist the excavator in doing a trench for a pipeline near the Sanctuary of S. Romedio, in difficult logistic condition. Despite the absence of archaeological evidences, the Superintendence asked us to document the track of the trench, since often what is realize during the execution of this kind of work is different from what is planned in the map. Due to the fact that too few hours were left to accomplish a documentation with GPS and total station and that this strategy would have been pretty tricky (inside the gorge of the river S. Romedio) and not so accurate (for the scattering effect of the wood), we decided to use SLAM to get a real time 3D documentation of the track and later to georeference the result on the LIDAR data which the Autonomous Province of Trento releases freely. The video below shows the final result, which completely satisfies the (high) archaeological tolerance of this project.

That's all for today! Have a nice evening!

Soil triangle integration in a PostgreSQL based system for archaeological recording sheets

This is the second presentation we gave at ArcheoFOSS 2016. This time the topic is more related with geoarchaeology and regards geTTexture (the open source application we developed in order to speed up the sedimentation est).

Here below is the link to the original presentation, for the reader who wants to see it directly online:

www.museidironzone.it/openLibrary/html/gettexture/gettexture.html

For those who prefer to see it on youtube, I just uploaded it on our channel:

Like for last post, I report here below a short abstract, describing shortly each slide of the presentation:

SLIDE 1

Title and overview

SLIDE 2

Compiling the archaeological recording sheet is one of the most time-expensive operation during an archaeological project both doing it manually...

SLIDE 3

... or using a database.

SLIDE 4

Considering the Italian standards (ICCD, "Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione"), often new archaeologists have difficulties in describing the composition of the archaeological layer.

SLIDE 5 and 6

SLIDE 7 and 8

No particular difficulties are detected in describing the artificial elements.

SLIDE 9 and 10

A little bit more complicated is considered to describe the organic and oranogenic elements.

SLIDE 11 and 12

The most difficult field is considered the geological one.

SLIDE 13

Geological materials are splitted into two categories: skeleton and fine earth

SLIDE 14 and 15

The skeleton is normally simpler to identify (both in the field and in the lab).

SLIDE 16 and 17

The fine earth is maybe the most complicated archaeological element to identify on the field, while specialist (geoarchaeologists) need to use specific equipement in the lab.

SLIDE 18

Fine earth definition on the field is foten carried on with anametric and sobjective methodology.

SLIDE 19

Like feel, ball and ribbon test

SLIDE 20

The sedimentation test gives more objective results with a minimum metric value.

SLIDE 21

Arc-Team used validated the use of sedimentation test also in emergency excavation (which have a stricter time-table respect other archaeological projects)

SLIDE 22

Thank to +Mattia Segata  (Arc-Team's geoarchaeologist at ATLAB), the basic methodology has been improved considering the Strokes' Law.

SLIDE 23

+Giuseppe Naponiello  (Arc-Team DataBase and WebGIS expert) improved a PostreSQL dabatase, developed on the Italian archaeological recording sheet. The Database is able to integrate the data coming from the sedimentation test.

SLIDE 24

Future integration are planned for basic analytical chemistry analyses on the field.

SLIDE 25

And for more specific laboratory analyses (e.g. Energy Disperive X-ray Spectrometry).

SLIDE 26

The DataBase can be easily integrated into a WebGIS

SLIDE 27

The slides is just a demonstration of the software (the code is taken from a prototype).

SLIDE 28

The slide is just an example of one of the videotutorial Arc-Team is producing to explain the sedimentation test and the use of geTTexture.

SLIDE 29

geTTexture will be one of the open source application for archaeology which Arc-Team is developing and that will compose the suite Arc-Tool.

SLIDE 30

Another extension of geTTexture Arc-Team is working on is related with colorimetry. The idea is to integrate a tool to record anametric analyses

SLIDE 31

or metric data coming from Open Hardware devices (e.g. Public Lab spectrometer)

SLIDE 32

Thak you for your attention

Have a nice day!

geTTexture goes portable

Hi all,

as I wrote in this post, I am building a very simple Android app in order to use geTTexture (the automatic Soil Texture Tirangle +Giuseppe Naponiello  developed) from the mobile, directly on the field. 

Thanks to the work of +Giuseppe Naponiello  the website is now optimized also to be viewed from a mobile's monitor (due to the fact that now the Soil Triangle can be automatically scaled), so that if you have an internet connection on your excavation, you can use geTTexture to define the soil texture of your archaeological layers in a semi-automatic way.
Here below are two screenshots of the mobile app:

geTTexture mobile (upper screen)

geTTexture mobile (lower screen)

By now the mobile app is a simple link the geTTexture developed with MIT App Inventor. Nevertheless I uploaded also the source code of the project on Arc-Team's githup repository (released under General Public license), where you can find also the main software (released under Creative Commons Attribution). Here you can find the binary apk file, to install the app on your mobile. If you want to use geTTexture on your PC or laptop, than you can use this direct link.
Have a nice day!

Automatic Soil Texture Triangle

As the regular ATOR readers know, since some years we are trying to improve our laboratory's technologies in order to achieve a better metric classification of archaeological data and to expand our research interests in other archaeological sub-disciplines and mainly in archaeo-anthropology (as well as taphonomy and mummiology), archaeo-zoology, archaeo-bothany in general (and carpology and dendrochronology in particular), geoarchaeology and archaeometry. 

Soon we will start a series of post about our lab (aka ATLAB, Arc-Team LABoratory), which is evolving fast thanks to the effort of +Gianluca Fondriest  and +Mattia Segata.

Today I want to illustrate one of the tool we developed to speed up the geo-archaeological interpretation of the soil texture of the different layers during our excavations. This project (which is now in its early stage) starts from the need to use the Soil Texture Triangle to help archaeologists (especially the new diggers) in correctly interpreting the texture components using an objective method like the sedimentation test (because often new archaeologists are not comfortable with more subjective analysis like the Ribbon test or the squeeze-ball test). I leave the explanations of the operations to perform on the field for another post, while I want here to show the small software "geTexture", which +Giuseppe Naponiello developed to use automatically the Soil Texture Triangle from internet.
To illustrate how the application works, I recorded a short videotutorial:

The software is currently just in Italian, but we will translate it in English soon. The development is still active and this can be considered just a pre-release (it will be implemented also with a tutorial explaining how to perform the sedimentation test on the excavation). If you want to help us, on GitHub you can find the source code, while if you need already to use the software, here is the link where is is accessible. In the next days I will try to program also a small app for Android devices.

Stay tuned and have a nice day!

Notes

Some of the results of ATLAB can be seen in the article "Lo Scavo archeologico professionale, innovazioni e best practice mediante metodologie aperte e Open Research" (here in ResearchGate and here in Academia)

QGIS - Reshape Features

This short Videotutorial shows you the effect of QGIS "Reshape Features" tool on vector lines.
If you have time to clean and smooth vector-lines manually, you can try that possibility.

If you want to keep up always with our latest videos, 

just subscribe our 

You Tube-Chanel:

   

Arc-Team: Open your Mind and share your Knowledge

Arc-Team Archaeology was founded in 2004 as a way to open Archaeology to people through a free & open approach.

Since the first day we have shared our experiences with this type of research with our friends and colleagues.

We are still searching for new horizons and there is no better way than being able to open our mind and share our knowledge.

Let's go on collaborating and sharing our results, our techniques and our experiences!

St. Anthony's day

June, in Padua, is the "mese antoniano" (The month dedicated to St. Anthony) and the day 13 June is the day in which the Saint was born and that the Catholic Church chosed to celebrate him.

Exactly around this period, a couple of years ago (10 June 2014), we presented in Padua the Forensic Facial Reconstruction of the Saint [1], which was performed during the preparation of the open source exhibition "Facce. I molti volti della storia umana" ("Faces. The many aspects of human history") [2].

Today, with a big delay (sorry, too few time...) I'll go on sharing, with open source licenses, the material we produced for the exhibition and, considering the recurrence (13 June), I'll upload some media regarding the Forensic Facial Reconstruction (FFR) of St. Anthony.

First of all, here is the image of the final model, which is already available on Wikimedia Commons. 

FFR of St. Anthony (final model)

The credit for this image are (in order of work-flow): Luca Bezzi (Arc-Team) and Nicola Carrara (Museum of Anthropology of the University of Padua) for the 3D scanning of the cranial cast of the Saint; Cicero Moraes (Arc-Team) for the main work of digital Forensic Facial Reconstruction; Padre Luciano Bertazzo (Center for St. Anthoni Studies) for the historical validation of the final model. Moreover the project relies on on the previous work of the artist Roberto Cremesini, who produced in 1985 the bronze cast of the skull and the jaw of St. Anthony, used for the digital reconstruction (2014) and on the research directed by Prof. Vito Teribile Wiel Marin, who directed the anthropological study of the skeletal remains in 1981 (with particular attention to the work of Prof. Gino Fornaciari, Francesco Mallegni and Giorgio Ragagnini).

Then I report here the complete presentation we did during the "Giugno Antoniano", as until now in ATOR we just published the second half of the slides (by Cicero Moraes) and never the first one (regarding the digital scanning of the bronze cast done by Roberto Cremesini).

Here below is the presentation, which can be view interactively directly online:

 

Since for some people (due to the default browser) there could be some minor visualization erros, I also recorded a vdeo and uploaded it on our YouTube channel:

Have a nice day!

PS

Since the overall presentation is pretty long, I upload separately here the 3 videos embedded in the slides:

1) The FFR of Alberto da Trento

2) The Forensic Facial Reconstruction process

3) The Forensic Facial Reconstruction of St. Anthony

[1]

ATOR: 1, 2, 3

[2]

AOTR: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Bibliography

[1] 

Il Volto del Santo. La ricostruzione facciale forense di Sant'Antonio di Padova (ResearchGate, Academia)

[2] 

“FACCE. I molti volti della storia umana”: progettare una mostra Open Source basata sulla Computer Vision (ResearchGate, Academia); 

"Facce. I molti volti della storia umana" Una mostra Open Source (ResearchGate, Academia);

"Facce. I molti volti della storia umana". Una mostra che racconta (ResearchGate, Academia)

OpenJUMP GIS: from a local (cartesyan) system to a projeced coordinate system

Sometimes we are asked why (after 11 years) we still keep OpenJUMP in ArcheOS, since QGIS became such a functional GIS  and could cover all the feature of the other similar software. The main reason for such a choice are two:

1. QGIS developed very fast and can happen that some tools are still buggy when released (like for the newest georeferencer version)

2. the software (Polygontool) our friend +Szabolcs Köllö (aka Keulemaster) developed for us, in order to handle big data in archaeological surveys, is strictly connected with OpenJUMP

The GIS OpenJUMP

Today I just finished to package for (ArcheOS Hypatia) the last version of this GIS (OpenJUMP 1.9.1) and to upload it in our experimental repository (soon we share it), so I prepared a new videotutorial to illustrate one of the operation in which OpenJUMP is still useful, since the similar tool of QGIS are sometimes buggy: the recovering of old excavation data from a local (cartesian) coordinate system to a projected coordinate system (e.g. in the videotutorial, ETRS89 / UTM zone 32 N).

I hope this can be useful. Have a nice day!

ArcheOS Hypatia, a new tool for 3D documentation: opnMVG-GUI

In these days we are working very hard to package new software for ArcheOS v. 6 (codename Hypatia). This time we just finished to work on the new GUI +Martin Greca developed for +Pierre Moulon software, openMVG, setting up all the requested dependencies. The result is a new tool for 3D photogrammetry in +ArcheOS: openMVG-GUI. This software can be considered as the evolution of the old Python Photogrammetry ToolBox, but we are currently working to fix some bugs of this application to keep providing it in ArcheOS, since it gave the best results in underground environment documentation.

Here below you an see a fast videotutorial I did for our brand new YouTube channel:

To speed up ArcheOS Hypatia development, we set up an unofficial new repository, which we will use (by now) just internally our society, to be sure that everything works fine before to release it publicly to all the users. Anyway we will share this repository also during the university courses in which we should teach this years, like the one in Evora (Portugal) or the one in Venice, since in this conditions it is possible to work under strict control, avoiding problems in unresolved package dependencies. As soon as the new repository will be hardly tested, we will open it, adding the coordinates to the ArcheOS main branch.

The new GUI (by +Martin Greca) for openMVG (by +Pierre Moulon)

 

PS

If you are interested, there are still available places for the course in Evora (regarding open source technologies and cultural heritage). Here more infos.

Have a nice day!

New course at Evora University: Open Source Digital Technologies applied to Cultural Heritage

Between 2011 and 2015 we gave lessons at Lund University (Sweden), during the course regarding "Digital Archeology" (held by Nicolò Dell'Unto). Our primary task was to introduce the students to the Free and Open Source Software (FLOSS) to be used during their professional life (while the proprietary and closed software were presented by other teachers). These lessons were following the practical approach we developed since 2006, during our experience in training students for Innsbruck University (Austria) in the archaeological field-schools of Aramus (Armenia) and Khovle Gora (Georgia), directed by Walter Kuntner and Sandra Heinsch. These courses, taught during missions abroad, were possible thanks to the use of ArcheOS, the Free Archaeological Operating System we are developing since 2005. In 2009 our didactic experience was enriched by some lessons we gave during our participation at the TOPI Excellence Cluster of Berlin (Germany), where we further refine our techniques in 3D documenting Cultural Heritage with FLOSS, using Structure from Motion and Multi-View Stereo Reconstruction and starting a collaboration with +Pierre Moulon for the development of a GUI (Graphical User Interface) of its photogrammetric software Python Photogrammetry Toolbox (PPT: related post in ATOR: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). PPT was also one of the topic of the UNESCO master "Open Techne", in which could teach between 2013 and 2014, for the University of Siena and the Centro di Geotecnologie.
Despite some of these experiences are now over, we have a new opportunity to work with students during the courses regarding  Open Source Digital Technologies applied to Cultural Heritage, which will be held in July at the University of Evora in Portugal and it is organized by +Carlo Bottaini and Rui Bordalo.
The fist lessons will be focused on 2D documentation Methodologies with Management through GIS, while a second module will regard the Methodologies of 3D Documentation. For further informations, here is the main page regarding the courses (in English and in Portuguese).
If you are in the nearby of Evora and you want to work professionally in the field of Cultural Heritage with Free and Open Source applications, this would be a good starting point.
I hope to see you there! Have a nice day!

Monuments of Evora (by Lumastan)

PS
We will not teach in Lund this year, but some lessons about Open Source in archeology will be given by our friend +giacomo landeschi, who knows the topic very well as well as most of our methodology (having worked with us for several years).

2016-04-08 Update

For people interested in the course, here is possible to download a pdf leaflet with all the necessary informations.
 

ArcheoFOSS I, proceedings of the workshop now available as Open Access

Hi all,

this fast post is to notify that are finally available as Open Access the proceedings of the first workshop "Open Source, Free Software e Open Format nei processi di ricerca archeologici" (en: "Open Source, Free Software and Open Format in archaeological reasearch precesses"), which in the later editions will be known as ArcheoFOSS. The event took place in Grosseto in May 2006.

Since Open Access in archeology has always been one of the main topics of this workshop, some days ago we started a discussion on the official mailing list to try to free some of the proceedings which are actually available just as printed publications. The first result has been the release of the articles collected in the first edition, thanks to the kindness of Giancarlo Macchi Janica. Currently we are working on the other two workshops which are not yet available: ArcheoFOSS V (held in Foggia in 2010) and ArcheoFOSS VI (held in Neaples in 2011). 

The image below shows the front cover of the digital publication of the proceedings of the first edition, while here you can read the official announcement about the Open Access publication (pdf here).

Front cover of proceedings of the first workshop "Open Source, Free Software e Open Format nei processi di ricerca archeologici"

A special thanks also to +Stefano Costa for uploading everything on ArcheoFOSS website.

PS

In the proceedings you can also find some articles written by Arc-Team members, regarding:
1. One of the first release of ArcheOS (v.1.6): here in Academia and here in ResearchGate (by +Alessandro Bezzi, +Luca Bezzi, +Denis Francisci, +Rupert Gietl)
2.  The use of +GRASS GIS in archaeology: Academia / ResearchGate (by Michael Burton, +Alessandro Bezzi, +Luca Bezzi, +Denis Francisci, +Rupert Gietl, +Markus Neteler)
3. The use of FLOSS in a case of study in archaeology: Academia / ResearchGate (by +Luca Bezzi, Stefano Boaro, Giovanni Leonardi, +damiano lotto)

Homo floresiensis

"Homo floresiensis ("Flores Man"; nicknamed "hobbit" and "Flo") is widely believed to be an extinct species in the genus Homo. The remains of an individual that would have stood about 3.5 feet (1.1 m) in height were discovered in 2003 on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Partial skeletons of nine individuals have been recovered, including one complete skull, referred to as LB1"

This is the incipit of the Wikipedia page dedicate to the Homo floresiensis. I started the post with this sentence because today I will share the result of our research about Archaeological Foresic Facial Reconstruction (AFFR) of the individual LB1 of this species, performed for the open source exhibition "Facce. I molti volti della storia umana". If you are a regular reader of tis blog, you will know that we attempted already a facial reconstruction of the "hobbit", as he was one oh the Hominini we worked on for the Brazilian exposition "Faces de Evolução" (curated by Prof. Dr. Moacir Elias Santos of the Archaeological Museum of Ponta Grossa and Prof. Esp. Vivian Tedardi of Rosicrucian and Egyptian Museum in Brazil). Like it happened for the Taung Child (Australopithecus africanus), also in this case we developed a new model (v 2.0), after a first reconstruction, simply based on a an anatomical study and on basic paleo-artistic techniques.
Here below you can see the image of the first reconstructive model (H. floresiensis v. 1.0), while here you can read the old ATOR post about this first attempt.

Homo floresiensis version 1.0

After the first model, we changed completely our approach to paleo-art, as we developed the new technique based on the anatomical deformation of Pan troglodytes or Homo sapiens ct x-ray scan (depending of the kind of hominid to be reconstructed). The result of this new approach is the H. floresiensis new model (v. 2.0) we release today and that you can see in the image below.

Homo floresiensis version 2.0

Also in this case, the model is the result of a team work. Here below are the credits:

1. 3D scan of the cast: Moacir Elias Santos (Archaeological Museum of Ponta Grossa)

2. 3D modeling (skull restoration, anatomical study, CT deformation): +Cícero Moraes (Arc-Team) with the precious contribute of Prof. Peter Brown (New England University in Armidale, Australia)

3. scientific validation: Prof. Telmo Pievani (University of Padua, Department of Biology), Dott. Nicola Carrara(Anthropological Museum of the University of Padua), Prof. Peter Brown (New England University in Armidale, Australia)

The image of the new model of Homo floresiensis has just been added on Wikimedia Commons and it is avalible for any use under the CC-BY license (which we use normally for the material we share through ATOR).

Have a nice day!

Facce: a digital poster for the exhibition

The opening of the exhibition "Facce. I molti volti della storia umana" will soon take place in Padua (14th February 2015), so I started to work also on dissemination tools, trying to focus on new media potentialities.

While the real communication experts will take care of the traditional promotion (posters, handbills, etc...), I would like to use the opportunity to test different methods.

Basically I am just developing a digital poster, which should be an reminder of the exhibition (with some essential informations) and, at the same time, an interactive showcase for the photos that the people sent us (and will send us) for our crowdsourcing campaign regarding the pareidolia phenomenon.
I think that the best way to realize this idea is to compile an app for Android, so that it will be accessible to many different smartphones. I designed the app to contain a WebViewer, linked to an address in our server, in which I uploaded an interactive gallery of images.
My first step has been a fast search in internet to find all the tools I was needing to develop my app, of course checking the licenses and choosing the open source software (an the simplest ones, being a newcomer in such field).
As first I focused on the gallery and I chose an MIT licensed  jQuery tool (jssor), with which I build this slideshow:

Than I looked for a software to develop my app and (thanks to +Michele Mazzurana) I came across another MIT licensed software, MIT App Inventor. This software has two main advances: it is based a GUI (very simple) and it does not require an emulator to test the work (if you have an Android device, you can directly connect it with your project).
Here is a screenshot of the direct link between the software and the mobile:

Direct link between MIT App Inventor and the mobile

If you want to test the app, you can download it here. Please notice that to visualize the gallery you will need an internet connection, so (depending on your contract) your provider could put additional costs (no problem if you have a flat rate or if you use free wifi access).
I hope this post was useful, have a nice day!

PS
If you have pictures regarding the pareidolia effect, you can upload them on the FaceBook page of the exhibiotn "Facce" (do not forget to write the author, the title and the license, for the credits). Day by day the pictures will be uploaded in the gallery of the app.

Digital bones. New technologies for anthropological disciplines

Hi all,

we are organizing an open lesson in Padua on 5 June. The title is "Digital bones. Nuove tecnologie al servizio delle discipline archeologiche" ("Digital bones. New technologies for anthropological disciplines") and the topic will be the application of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) to Tanatology in archeology and forensic sciences.

The lesson will be held at 10.00 in the Aula Emiciclo of the Orto Botanico, which is the world's oldest academic botanical garden that is still in its original location, as it was founded in 1545 by the Venetian Republic (so it can be also an occasion to visit to this monument).

The Aula Emiciclo (image in Public Domain form PHAIDRA system)

The speakers will be:

Nicola Carrara (Museum of Anthropology of Padua University), with a general introduction to tanatology

Luca Bezzi (Arc-Team), with a lesson/demonstration of 2D documentation through GIS of funerary contexts

Alessandro Bezzi (Arc-Team), with a lesson/demonstration of 3D documentation through SfM/IBM of funerary contexts

Cicero Moraes (Arc-Team), with a lesson/demonstration of digital forensic facial reconstruction

The attendance is free and during the lesson will be also given a preview of ArcheOS 5 (Theodoric), especially regarding its use for archeoanthropological aspects.

ArcheOS for anthopologists!

For more details and informations, here below is the poster of the lesson.

The poster regarding the lesson

You can also visit the FB event page (connected with the exhibition "FACCE. Imolti volti della storia umana"), where, if interested, you can register for the lesson.

Have a nice day!

ArcheoFOSS IX edition, deadline extended

Just a fast service communication,

for who is interested, the deadline of the 9th edition of the ArcheoFOSS has been extended till April 25. Here is the official report (from +piergiovanna grossi):

"IX Workshop Free / Libre and Open Source Software and Open Format in the archaeological research processes.

From survey to data sharing. Technologies , methodologies and languages ​​of open archeology. 

Verona , 19-20 June 2014 (IT)

To encourage the submission of proposals, the deadline has been extended till April 25. The organizing committee's aim is to support the broadest participation in the joint construction of a workshop of increasing quality, hoping that new proposals can be submitted by scholars, researchers, students, professionals, archaeological companies and associations, working in the field of Cultural Heritage and the FLOSS application.For proposal submission, please refer to the Call for proposals page.For more informations on the workshop, you can visit the page of ArcheoFOSS 2014."

The Arena of Verona (CC-BY-SA 3.0, author: Lo Scaligero)

FACCE, a crowsourcing campaign to build a real open source exhibition

Hi all,

like I wrote in this post, we are working to organize an open source exhibition in Padua for October 2014. In our intentions the concept "open" will be applied to different aspects of the event:

1.  The scientific work will be performed using just Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) and, when possible, the exhibition will be staged with open hardware devices
2. All the produced material (3D models, images, software, hardware) will be released with open licenses (CC-BY)
3. When necessary, part of the budget will be collected with specific crowdfunding campaigns, connected with minor projects
4. We will try to obtian some material for the exhibition with crowdsourcing campaigns, asking people to release the material with open licenses

Today I'd like to explain the 4th point and start one of this crowd-sourcing campaign, which will be also a social experiment to see the potentiality of this medium for cultural aims.

One of the session of the exhibition will be dedicated to pareidolia, which is a "... psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant..." (quote Wikipedia). Obviously we are interested in this matter as it is also related with faces, being this figure one of the most common subject which people sees in different contexts. In this regard Leonardo da Vinci, thinking to pareidolia a device for painters, wrote: "if you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys, and various groups of hills. You will also be able to see divers combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces, and outlandish costumes, and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well conceived forms" (1). Of curse pareidolia in not only a matter for artists and also normal people are able to see "beyond the image" (from greek παρά είδωλον). Here below you can see one of the most famous picture in this sense, the "Face on Mars" which the NASA spacecraft Viking I took on the red planet surface.

Photo from the Viking I spacecraft (Public Domain)

As you see pareidolia is a phenomenon which involves different aspect of human life, form art, in which is often used intentionally like in the paints of Giuseppe Arcimboldo...

L'ortolano o Ortaggi in una ciotola G. Arcimboldo (Public Domain)

 ... to psychology, where some of the images of the Rorschach test are perceived by patients as human faces (2)

the seventh blot of the Rorschach inkblot test (Public Domain)

... to  religion, like in this XIX century picture, in which some people sees the face of Jesus...

Swedish anonymous XIX century (Public Domain)

... and here we are to the meaning of this post: we need your help to collect pictures of different subjects in which is possible to see faces. In other words, with this post we want to start a crowdsourcing campaign on this topic to set up a special session of the exhibition in which we plan to show your contributes with a digital installation. To help us you can upload your picture on the exhibition FaceBook page (soon we will open also other channels). Do not forget to give your work the credits (that will be presented with the picture):

TITLE OF THE PICTURE (optional)
YOUR NAME (necessary)
THE LICENSE (necessary)

We suggest you to use a Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC-BY 4.0), but also other form of open license are accepted. Here is the official CC website to choose a license.

As an example, below you can see my personal contribute: the dashboard of my car.

Dashboard (Luca Bezzi, CC-BY 4.0)

We count on your help! Have a nice day and thanks in advance!

Bibliography

(1) Da Vinci, Leonardo (1923). John, R; Don Read, J, eds. "Note-Books Arranged And Rendered Into English". Empire State Book Co.

(2) Alvin G. Burstein, Sandra Loucks (1989). Rorschach's test: scoring and interpretation. New York: Hemisphere Pub. Corp. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-89116-780-8.

OpenJUMP: adding a vector layer with a customized db

Hi all,

today I recorder a fast videotutorial regarding the GIS OpenJUMP (which is one of the Geographic software integrated in ArcheOS).

Normally, when you add a new vector layer in your project, you get a new empty level, without any database schema, so that you can start to draw your feature, but, if you want to add some info, you have to manually describe your db schema, like in the video below:

Of course, if you have to draw many different layers with a common database schema (like always happen in a normal archelogical GIS), this operation can be time-consuming (and boring). For this reason in the videotutorial below I try to show how to write a short script which automatically add in OpenJUMP a new vector layer with a customized database schema:

Since I fear the quality of the video is too poor in Youtube, I prepared an image in which you can see better the source code of the script:

The code of the script

To work correctly, the script has to be placed in your OpenJUMP folder, in /lib/ext/BeanTools/ and, as you see in the video, you have to refresh the menu in OpenJUMP (Customize --> BeanTools --> RefreshScriptMenu) to find it (in ArccheOS Caesar you will find the script already in the menu. Just modify the code according to your needs).

Like always I added the tutorial in our ArcheOS wiki (DADP project), in order to go on in composing a free documentation system for Digital Archaeology: 

• Tutorial 1
• Tutorial 2

I also uploaded the code of the script into a specific github repository, so that, if you want, you can contribute in its development. We can use the comment space of this post for the discussion about the schema and about its possible modifications (or you can simply download the script and modify it in order to fulfill your specific needs).

I hope it was useful, have a nice day!

ArcheoFOSS 2013, deadline extension

If I give a coin to you and you give me a coin, each of us will have a coin, but if I give an idea to you and you give me an idea, than each of us will have two ideas.

(Chinese proverb)

Hi all,

the deadline for ArcheoFOSS workshop 2013 (open source, free software and open format in archaeological research processes) has been extended (if you do not know this meeting, see this previous post).

It is possible to submit paper proposal until April 15th, while suggestions for special sessions will be accepted till the 5th of the same month.

The main topics for the workshop 2013 will be:

• Methods and experiences of collaboration between different organizations and institutions in the field of cultural heritage, involving the use and the development of open source, free software and open format.
• Methods and experience using open source, open data, free software and open format in archeology and ICT.
• Methods, experiences and development of technological tools during open collaborations between multidisciplinary research areas (humanities and science) in the field cultural heritage.
• Contributions on the state of the art and proposals for regulations and laws, relating to the management and sharing of cultural heritage in order to support free communication, accessibility and enjoyment.
• Teaching and sharing archaeological methodologies using FLOSS.

The workshop will take place in Catania (Sicily) on 18 and 19 June. As it happened with the previous event, it will be an excellent opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas, knowledge and technology in the field of open archeology.

It is Carnival!

Once we were young and stupid, now we are no more young

(quote attributed to Mick Jagger)

OK, I am stupid, but the Taung Child face was the only 3D data I had in my computer at this moment, so I gave a try to a software we would like to add in ArcheOS.

We are working on the implementation of some new functionalities for the next release (Theodoric), especially regarding a good 3d engine and some augmented reality applications. I think Alessandro, surfing on the net, found the right open source software (openspace3d) and, with the help of ORNis (aka Romain Janvier) we hope to port it in GNU/Linux as soon as possible.

So here is the result of the first test:

Do not worry for the slow reaction of the software, it is mainly caused by the on-line screen recorder I was using to register the video (it was based on Java and it slowed down a little bit the applications that were running on my computer...). As usual, if you want to help us (also for software evaluation), just join ArcheOS channel on IRC.

Stay tuned :).

Forensic Facial Reconstruction of Virtual Mummy (1997)

Indeed, according the Virtual Mummy's official site, the CT-Scan was made in 1991, so it have more than twenty years! 

I choosed the year of 1997 because it was the creation of Virtual Mummy, a project where some researchers of University of Hamburg-Eppendorf shared a couple of interactive .MOV files used to reconstruct this mummy.

The original project can be visited here: http://www.voxel-man.de/gallery/virtual_mummy/

The links of the interactive movies can be viewed here: http://www.voxel-man.de/gallery/virtual_mummy/scenes.html

I was not able to find a lot information about the mummy. Only that she was 30 years old when died, more than 2300 years ago.

I would like to register the power of Blender's video editor to select the area of interest and isolate it.

In this case, the little area of the CT-Scan.

Even with the little dimensions of the CT-Scan I was able to get a good quality of 3D reconstruction using IMG2DCM and InVesalius.

To put the model in the right proportions, I used the images inside this article: http://www.uke.de/institute/medizinische-informatik/downloads/institut-medizinische-informatik/pommert-mc1991.pdf

With the skull in my hands, the reconstruction was done.

I hope it can be useful and enjoyable for you, like was to me.

A big hug and I see you in the next article!