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.
Hi all,
today I simply post the call for paper of the ArcheoFOSS 2014, which will be held in Verona. The text below has been written by +piergiovanna grossi, of the committee thatis organizing the event:
The logo of ArcheoFOSS workshops (done by +Paolo Cignoni)
IX Workshop Free/Libre and Open Source Software and Open Format in
the processes of archaeological research
From research to shared knowledge. Technologies, methodologies and
language of open archaeology
Verona, 19-20th June 2014
The IX Workshop ArcheoFOSS will be hosted by the Department Time, Space,
Image and Society and Department of Computer Science, University of
Verona. The workshop will focus on the use of free and open source
software and on the opening and sharing of data related to archeology
and cultural heritage. Key topics range from field research activities,
to analysis and lab studies, to sharing and dissemination via web,
including the presentation of excavation, research, study activities and
of projects aimed at data processing and dissemination.
The thematic lines are:
- FLOSS systems and tools in archaeological and cultural heritage research;
- FLOSS systems and tools in management, preservation and enhancement of
archaeological and cultural heritage;
- FLOSS systems of representation, analysis, sharing and web publishing
of archaeological and cultural heritage;
- Projects focused on opening and disseminating archaeological and
cultural heritage data.
Workshop sessions, in which the proposals may be included, are:
1 . talks
2 . seminars / workshops
3 . presentations of dissertations or small projects in progress
4 . barcamp
5 . install party or programming section
6 . other ( to be specified by the proposer )
Proposals will be included in the program based on contents, quality of
work and number of proposals received.
The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2014 , at 24.00.
In the last years we (Arc-Team) had to deal with an increasing number of missions or emergency interventions in high mountain environment, so that our team started to specialized in this new branch of archeology.
High mountain archeology is strictly connected with climate changes for mainly two reasons:
1) the actual global warming implicates the retreat of glaciers and the subsequent discovery of artifacts and ecofacts, which have been preserved by the ice until now
2) artifacts and ecofatcs released by the glacier melting phenomenon are a fundamental source of informations regarding climate change itself (epsecially from the point of view of paleoclimatology)
The emergency interventions are caused by the preservation problems connected with the organic material of many archaeological finds, which, once freed from ice, begin to deteriorate very quickly. Moreover many areas of discovery are threatenedby landslidesof the rocks, which in few days cover the new empty space let by the glacier retreat.
The main problems of an high mountain archaeological mission regard logistic difficulties. As an example, the video below shows the landing during the intervention we did to recover some ecofacts in the Oetztal (AT) in 2012.
In this particular mission we had to deal with the limited internal space of the helicopter, which threatened toaffect the numberof "airborne archaeologists" and the amount of different equipment, necessary for the field-work. In fact, for this project (a fast one-day operation), we planned a strategy based on the redundancy of the instruments (in a similar way to an underwater archeology mission), so that it would have been possible to change methodology in case of unforeseen problems. More specifically or first plan was to georeference all the archaeological finds documentations, based on different techniques (2D photomosaic, 3D SfM models, etc...), using our RTK GPS, while the B-plan was simply to set up a local coordinate system with our total station. Following the first axiom of Murphy's laws (Anything that can go wrong — will go wrong), we could not use directly the GPS, because the area of archaeological interest was completely shielded by mountains and the satellite signal, as well as the radio signal from the base station to the rover, was accessible only on the top of the surrounding picks. To avoid this problem we climbed on one of these picks and placed two fixed points with the rover on the ridge which was closets to the area of interest (without any optical occlusion). In this way, at a later time, we could use the total station to document the archaeological evidences, georeferencing the directly on the UTM system.
Alessandro Bezzi placing a fixpoint with the GPS rover
After this mission, we learned to not underestimate logistic problems in high mountain archaeological project and to study alternative solutions for emergency cases (mainly based on equipment redundancy). This long premise is intended to be an introduction to the main topic of this post: the exhibition "FROZEN STORIES - Discoveries in the Alpine glaciers", which will take place in the city of Bolzano/Bozen/Bulsan, hosted in the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology (where is preserved the mummy of Similaun, Oetzy) form 22 /02/2014 till 22/02/2015.
The poster of the exhibition
If you plan to pay a visit to the exhibition, among other (more) interesting things, you could see some of our high mountain archaeological expeditions :)
PS The Arc-Team contribution to the exhibition is mainly based on the Langrub Joch project, in which I did not participate directly, but that was lead by +Alessandro Bezzi, +Rupert Gietland +Giuseppe Naponiello, under the scientific direction of Dr. Subert Steiner of the Archaeological Office of the Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano / Autonome Provinz Suedtirol. Maybe one of my colleagues will write a post about this project in the feature.
This post aims to address the main aspects of the project Il Volto di
Sant'Antonio, which addresses the facial reconstruction of this
historical and religious figure. To illustrate this post we took the
wide publication of interviews and news related to the project, in both
printed field, online and television.
Subtitled inEnglish-Interviewabout the facialreconstructionofSt. Anthony-regional broadcast-Bom Dia MT (TVCA TV)
Background
In 2012 started the Taung project, a partnership between the research
group Arc-Team, the association of Italian anthropologists Antrocom
Onlus (Dr. Moreno Tiziani), Department of Anthropology and Museum
Studies at the University of Padua (UNIPD) represented by Dr. Nicola
Carrara. In this project we reconstruct the face of a human ancestor,
the Taung Child. It was an Australopithecus africanus fossil of 2.5
million years. The entire process was executed with free software and
this gave us the basis for further study of reconstructions aimed not
only human evolution, but also the historical figures. The studies
continued and became a series of faces of hominids.
Subtitled inEnglish-Live interviewabout the facialreconstructionofSt. Anthony-national broadcast-GloboNews TV
Between May and September of 2013 happened in Rosicrucian Egyptian
Museum in Curitiba-PR (Brazil) the exhibition Faces of Evolution, with
the facial reconstructions created during the studies related to Taung
project.
Luca Bezzi (Arc-Team), Moreno Tiziani (Antrocom Onlus) and Dr. Nicola Carrara (UNIPD) - Taung Project
The exhibition consisted of replicas of human ancestors (hominids)
scanned in 3D by archaeologist Dr. Moacir Elias Santos, from the
Archaeological Museum Flamarion Ciro Cardoso, in Ponta Grossa-PR. The
modeling of the muscles and skin ran on my own. I reconstruct digitally
the facial tissues of those hominids, following a number of references
involving both human anatomy, as gorillas, and chimpanzees.
In view of the good results scientific and artistic of the work, there
was an interest on the part of UNIPD to create an Italian version of the
Faces of Evolution. Originally the stipulated date was: November 2014.
To complement the exhibition, I was hired to rebuild a total of eight
faces, three of them related to human evolution and the other five for a
parallel exhibition on Italian historical personalities.
The face of St. Anthony
The identity of the five individuals would be informed as soon as the
basic reconstruction of each face was completed. When I finished the
basic model of the first study, the results was sent to Luca Bezzi, the
representant of Arc-Team Group from Italy, which was the bridge to the
museum in Padua and Centro Studi Antioniani, an organization that takes
care of matters related to the saint.
Thehiddenfaceof St. Anthony, the result will berevealed onJune 13, 2014
After
analyzing the results, the archaeologist Luca Bezzi asked me if I
wanted to know who the skull belonged. Before he finished the sentence I
replied affirmatively. He then sent a link to Wikipedia in Portuguese.
This link appeared the name St. Anthony of Lisbon. I was quite
impressed, but I confess I had not realized who it really was. I thanked
him for the honor and follow for other reconstruction.
Pagestoryin the newspaperCorreio Popular, an importantBraziliannewspaper-Thetrue faceof St. Anthonyhiddenfaceof St. Anthony
The fact is that I had not read the post completely, only the top of the
page.
Pagestoryin the newspaperJornal do Comércio, other importantBraziliannewspaper
When, out of curiosity I opened it again, I put in the Italian
version, it is a custom that I see content in multiple languages. The
name then changed to St. Anthony of Padua. However, he was not
Portuguese? I was quite intrigued by this characteristic. I then
returned to the Portuguese version, I was decided to read the entire
contents.
When I reached the part of the folklore and saw that he was the
matchmaker, so here I realized who I had rebuilt. Saint Anthony, the
patron saint of my town (Sinop-MT, Brazil) and the name of the hospital I
was born in Chapecó-SC (Brazil). It was also the name of my grandfather
and the creator of Blender, Ton (Anthony) Roosendaal, rightly named
after the saint. I realized that I knew nothing about this figure so
popular.
História Viva (Live History) Brazilian magazine - april 2014.
I began to ask some acquaintances about him and few knew its history,
almost all unaware the plus names, Lisbon or Padua. How was that
possible? Such a so venerated and yet so unknown person.
So I decided, as a good nerd, reading what appeared in front and watch
all the movies that were directly or indirectly on the subject.
Cover story ofJornal CapitalNewspapers (Sinop-MT) - The true face of saint
I found out he was born Fernando Martins in 1195, he was originally an
Augustinian and later he became a Franciscan friar. He was a university
professor. He used his intellect in favor of faith, although initially
it was not viewed favorably by St. Francis of Assisi, but after San
Francisco officially allowed him to use the knowledge of books to
convert people and soften hearts. I also learned that he died on the way
to Padua in 1231, he was buried there and four times did the
recognition of his body, the last in 2010. The first time, thirty-odd
years after his death, they found the intact tongue, which was
interpreted as a divine sign and even today they bring preserved in a
reliquary.
The documentary
Faced with an opportunity that was perhaps unique in my life and the
lives of my research partners, I had the idea of turning this work
into a documentary. In this documentary, we explanaremos entire
reconstruction process based on free and open software.
TV story about the facial reconstruction of St. Antony - Gente TV (Rede TV)
The documentary will put two seemingly opposing subjects into harmony:
faith and science. People who nourish faith will enjoy seeing the face
of the saint revealed and certainly identify with her appearance,
because it is a more robust and more human individual that the artistic
different idealizations suffered over the years. People who enjoy
science, will be presented to the demonstration of the technical
implementation of a scientific methodology that will reveal to the world
the face of a historical figure, based on statistical, artistic and
archaeological data.
Notícia do Estado de Mato Grosso magazine - Ed. 120 - Year XX, March/ 2014
To put into practice the project, it was necessary to contact a number
of partners, both commercial, as of research. To the press, got the
support of BW Communications, a company based in Sinop-MT, which has in
its portfolio, important personalities and events of the city and the
region. To work filming and authoring media, we have the support of
producer L8 Movies and agency Nova Mídia Advertisements, businesses with
large awards in state and regional competitions for advertising.
(Porguese) TV story for a national channel SBT
In
science, we have a partnership of the Laboratory of Anthropology and
Forensic Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, USP (OFLAB) by Dr. Rodolfo
Francisco Haltenhoff Melani and Dr. Paulo Eduardo Dias Miamoto. Thanks
to this partnership, we could introduce the techniques of facial
reconstruction with open software to academic and enhance them with the
participation of researchers within a university respected throughout
the national territory. With Dr. Miamoto, we developed a lot of
research, ranging from the field of dentistry, passes through archeology
and comes to medicine and veterinary dentistry in a profusion of
interdisciplinary knowledge, including that we had already been awarded
at an event at USP.
Interview for a local TV program - Se Liga Sinop
The Technology Center Renato Archer (CTI) is a reference in developing
technology in Brazil. The InVesalius, an editor of CT scans and IMG2DCM a
simple image converter in CT scans, are examples of two powerful free
software at the Division of dimensional Technologies (DT3D) CTI. Thanks
to this partnership, the bust of St. Anthony will be printed in 3D in
color and real scale. This bust will be taken to Italy, where it will be
delivered by me to the Museum of Padua during the days of the official
festivities of the saint. Will be a gift not only from Brazil to Italy,
but from Brazil to the world.
All this will not be limited to bust donated, however it materialize all
the knowledge displayed during the documentary. The big challenge we
have in these next few months is to raise the cash required to terminate
it. Although we have achieved significant portion of total trading
volume needed to run it, we need yet a third of the final value. We hope
to achieve it with the help of entrepreneurs initially Sinop and
thereafter anyone interested in financing the project.
(Portuguese) - Interview for a local program - Cidade Urgente
Objectives
If all goes well, the material will be ready in November 2014 and will
be presented in a Premiere will occur simultaneously in Italy and
Brazil. The documentary will have no profit, what we want is to create
an example of use of free software in practice. I understand that St.
Anthony is a historical and religious figure who influenced crowds, and
even if this job does not have religious biased, what you see is the
miracle of the multiplication of knowledge, through work done by many
hands, at various points in world, with the main goal of share with all
the most information possible.
Bibliography
L. Bezzi (Arc-Team), C. Moraes (Arc-Team), N. Carrara (Museo Antropologico dell'Università di Padova), Il volto del Santo. La ricostruzione Facciale Forense di Sant'Antonio di Padova (document in Academia; document in ResearchGate)
today I post an old presentation which I had no time to publish before. Its title is "
Aerial archeology with FLOS Hardware and Software" and it is related with a lesson I gave during the Italian Virtual Heritage School 2013, held in Pisa atthe headquarters ofCNR.
In my speech I tried to summarize Arc-Team's experience in aerial archeology from 2006 until July 2013. For this reason the slides are a little bit outdated, but the presentation still contains valuable informations for people who want to start with aerial related documentations with free and open source tools.
The first section of the slides is dedicated to an introduction about the two main component of our
Free and Open Source Remote Sensing Platform: ArcheOS (software) and an open source UAV (there are many option, like the UAVP, the ArduCopter, or the KK derivated copters).
The second part of the presentation shows the prototypes we built, both open source (UAV and KKcopter) and commercial (DJ Naza).
In the third branch I tried to summarize in a kind of "blueprint" animated infographic the main structure of a quadcopter. And later I simply repeated the post of ATOR in which Alessandro Bezzi described how to build an open source xcopter (KK board based).
In the fifth section are shown some possible quadcopters configurations, while in the sixth part is analyzed the evolution of the flight techniques (also considering different conditions that can influence the work).
Finally I presented some cases of study and, at the and, are just some tips based on our experience.
The presentation is embedded here below (just click on the window and press space to navigate). As usual in ATOR, it is released with CC BY, so if you need (also just some part of it), you can reuse the material in your work. I hope it can be useful.
One of the most interesting things in 3D computer graphics is the constant need to test different ways of doing the same work. Generally seeking a more practical and faster alternative without losing quality compared to traditional techniques.
In the field of forensic facial reconstruction for example, despite to have already a good range of methodologies linked to digital modeling, it never hurts to propose new approaches, especially if they offer faster and more accurately with respect to human anatomy.
As mentioned earlier, in order to make the process more convenient, intuitive and less tiring forensic facial reconstruction, we decided to change a bit the way of modeling the muscles and the base of the skin.
Originally, to model the facial muscles, I used a pre-modeled structure by editing their volumes and subsequently sculpting additional details.
Despite having a quick execution, this method is not very intuitive and much less elegant. I figured it would be much more practical now sculpt the structure of the major muscles on the skull. The big question was: How to do this using the structure of the skull?
1) I only had to involve the skull with another object, such as a sphere, using the Shrinkwrap modifier in Blender. This object needs to be slightly smaller than the skull, evidencing which areas should be filled with muscles.
2) This geometry created is difficult to edit, because the lack of uniformity in its structure. To resolve this impasse we use the Remesh modifier that creates a mesh with 4-sided faces, more or less the same size, ideal to be carved.
3) Once set the base, I just sculpt your core muscles, creating new subdivisions if necessary. When using the Blender sculpting tools, the appearance of the muscles is naturally fibrous, in order to take a more compatible with real tissue structure. If this is not the ideal result, at least this is much higher than that of the previous methodology.
4) Once muscles are ready, simply create a copy, simplify it with Remesh and sculpt the base of the skin that will be the benchmark of adequacy of face modeled before.
5) Using the Shrinkwrap, we suitable the mesh to match it with the muscles and the tissue depth markers.
The purpose of this methodology among other things is to harness the expertise of some professionals with classical modeling, making the process simpler and offering the possibility of division of labor, where a person sets up the skulls with markers, another person riding muscles and skin base and finally the artist creates the final rendered face. Last but not least, the modeling in Blender sculpt mode making a phase that would be boring in one of the nicest and most fun parts of forensic facial reconstruction, such is its convenience and intuitiveness.
The development of the methodology proceeds, any news will be posted here.
A big hug!
Acknowledgements
For The Field Museum in Chicago that shared a video with a CT-Scan that was reconstructed in this post.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a very interesting event: the School of Data held in Trento (to tell the truth, for working reason, I could see just the last part of the meeting, but it was very instructive).
There, among others, I met Maurizio Napolitano, one of the greatest expert of Open Data here in Italy, and he mentioned an important initiative which I did not know, that is a petition for Open Data in Italian Cultural Heritage.
This "minipost" is intended to help the petition to reach the objective (some legislative amendments to allow and encourage the use of Open Data in our work, which is also, of course, one of the aims of ATOR).
Here is the link to sign the petition. The goal is set for 200 signatures before December 31, but I think we can do something more :).
Here below you see the main page of the website beniculturaliaperti.it, where the petition is host.
Thanks for your time and for any help you will give to this cause.
