ATOR (Arc-Team Open Research).
The blog spreads tests, problems and results of Arc-Team research in archaeology, following the guidelines of the OpArc (Open Archaeology) project.
If you are using QGIS in archeology, almost probably you want also to produce georeferenced photomosaics, like we do with the "Metodo Aramus" technique (read the related post 1 and 2) and its further evolutions (check this post), which up to day involves just Kate, QGIS and GIMP). This post is just to warn you that is currently present a bug in QGIS 2.14, so that the georeferencer tool does not work properly. In the screenshot below you can read the details of this bug (and check it at this link).
Screenshot form the official QGIS link (name and images removed for privacy reason)
My advice is to do not update QGIS to the version 2.14 until the bug will be fixed (which I guess will happen very soon).
Have a nice day!
PS
This post reminds e that I should record a new videotutorial with the updated and simplified version of the "Metodo Aramus" (Kate-QGIS-GIMP). I will do it ASAP!
Bibliography
The "Metodo Aramus" in described in English in this publication:
Aramus Excavations and Field School. Experiences in Using, Developing, Teaching and Sharing Free/Libre and Open Source Software (here in ResearchGate and here in Academia)
Proposta per un metodo informatizzato di disegno archeologico (here in ReasearchGate, here in Academia)
The "Metodo Aramus" is part of the methodology we teach during our lessons in master and courses, as you can read in the report of one of this experience:
Corso base di Free Software e Open Source in archeologia: bilancio di un'esperienza di divulgazione pratica (here in ReasearchGate, here in Academia)
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.
Since some years crowdfunding has become a new resource in archeology, providing support to those projects which have difficulties in financing the many research activities connected with historical investigations in general.
Despite our team has not yet tested the true potential of this system, today I would like to help some colleagues and friends who decided to experiment this way of funding for their expedition in the Kotayk region (Armenia).
If you want to support their effort in recording and analyzing archaeological evidences in the Kotayk region, you can find more details in their official Indiegoo page.
The visit to the city of Vardzia, during the mission in Khovle Gora (2011)
There I could appreciate their commitment and professionalism. For this reason I wish a very successful 2015 mission for the Kotayk Survey Project, hoping to get soon some feedbacks from this interesting project also here in ATOR!
A moment of relax during the mission in Khovle Gora (2011)
This post will present a new videotutorial for ArcheOS 5 (codename Theodoric), regarding the software OpenJUMP.
Like for this other article, also in this case I chose to use a real project, to show the potentialities of ArcheOS in different archaeological missions. The main objective of the work was the inspection of an high mountain area (more than 3000 meters above the sea level), in order to verify the possible presence of historical remains connected with the World War I. One of my specific needs to prepare the mission was the setting of a GIS system, updating a geological vector map of the whole province in which I was operating. Luckily this province (Trentino) is at the forefront (in Italy) for the distribution and use of geographical open data, so I had no problems in finding the base map I mentioned before; the main work has been the updating of the database, connected with the vector layer, in which I had to insert some additional informations that were stored in an external spreadsheet.
In short, what I did in OpenJUMP is:
1. Query the Area Of Interest (AOI) of my project in the vector base map, in order to visualize a numerical code that was connected with the additional data in the spreadsheet
2. Edit the database schema of the vector map to add two new fields for the additional informations
3. Check the spreadsheet to read the values connected to the numerical code of the vector map
4. Query the vector map to select all the regions with the numerical code of my AOI (which would share with it all the same additional informations)
5. Use the Auto Assign Attributes Tool to fill (for all the selected regions) the new empty database fields with the right values
6. Repeat the operations till all the vector map has been updated with the additional informations
This videotutorial shows the main operations. I hope it will be usefull for you. As usual I uploaded it also in the DADP wiki.
this post is just a small celebration for a first milestone reached by ATOR: 300000 visits since its activation (you can check the counter on the right side of the website).
300000 visits reached
The image belows show an overview of the visitors contacts from all over the world.
Contacts overview
This are the 10 countries where most of the ATOR's readers live:
10 main visitors countries
Once again thank you all for your feedbacks, your interest and your support in helping us with our experiment of open research in archeology.
Again a short videotutorial about FLOSS in archeology. In the last one we saw how to turn raw data (from the total station) into the WKT code of a point; this time we will see how to create a line.
Like before, the system I am using is a preview version of ArcheOS Theodoric, done building the iso image just following the instruction of the readme file on the github page.
Now, thanks to +Fabrizio Furnari we also have the project for an ArcheOS manual (still work in progress). If you want to help us, you will find the code on the github page (yes, we like github very much...).
A great help it would be to translate these videotutorials into text :). If you want to participate to the documentation, you can contact us in many ways (also commenting this post), like the official IRC channel #archeos, or the developer mailing list (for more info, read the text here)
In the last weeks we started again with the development of ArcheOS 5 (codename Theodoric) and I have to say that the first results are really promising, especially thanks to the work of Fabrizio Furnari and Romain Janvier.
The reorganization of the whole system, planned by Fabrizio, is leading to a better management of the entire project. Moreover the division of the internal software in thematic metapackages (CAD, GIS, etc...) will help final users in customizing their own version of ArcheOS (in accordance with their specific needs).
On the other hand, Romain is working really hard to build source packages of the different applications, so that ArcheOS 5 will be architecture independent.
Last but not least, the 3D artist Cicero Moraes is preparing a brand new artwork for the upcoming release. If you are curious, just take a look on the preview for the splashscreen below.
New artwork from Cicero Moraes
So, what's missing now? Just you!
We need your help to improve ArcheOS 5!
We want you, and GNU ;)
Any kind of help is welcome! Some examples? You can give us suggestions for a better software selection, or write tutorial (as well as record videotutorial). If you have some computer skills, you can package the missing applications, or develop new ones...
In any case, you can find us as usual on the developer mailing list or, even better, in our brand new IRC chanel (thanks to Fabrizio). The server is FreeNode and the channel #archeos.
I prepared a short videotutorial to illustrate how to join our channel in a fast way.
I always liked this Linux commercial, it makes you believe that anything is possible... and, in a way, sometimes it is.
When I think how the workshop ArcheoFOSS started, I find it incredible that it will reach its eighth edition.
It was 2005 and we were sitting on a table of Cafe Einstein in Vienna:
"The decision to start this workshop was taken one evening in November 2005 at Cafe Einstein (a few steps from Vienna town hall), during the conference “Archäologie und Computer 2005:
Workshop 10” (Böener W., 2006), together with Alessandro Bezzi, Luca Bezzi and Denis Francisci of Arc-Team. The idea behind the proposal to realize the workshop was mainly to take stock of the situation regarding the application of Free/Libre and Open Source Software philosophy to archeology." [Introduction to the first workshop proceedings, Grosseto 2006 - edited by G. Macchi Janica and R. Bagnara]
Nevertheless, here we are! The eighth edition of ArcheoFOSS will be held in Catania on 18 and 19 June 2013, organized by Giovanni Gallo and Filippo Stanco of the Image Processing Lab (Catania University).
The elephant, symbol of Catania (and PostgreSQL)
To celebrate the event, I made a short video showing the path of the workshop from Vienna to Catania. It is a kind of "Fligth of the penguin" in archeology, through eight years and more than 3742 Km.
For FLOSS nerds, I made the video with OpenShot Video Editor, simply using the animate title option called "World Map" (thanks to Luca Delucchi for the tip!)
See you in Catania!
