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CIPA 2003 XIX th International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey 
1.3.1 When Napoleon Bonaparte embarked on his Egyptian 
Campaign in 1798 he took 167 scholars with him to document 
cultural heritage in the work which has come down to us as the 
“Description de l'Egypte”. Of these, 22 civil engineers, 4 
architects and 8 draughtsmen (to name but a few) were 
compelled to use the most primitive of documentation 
techniques “Most of my drawings were made on my knees. 
Soon, I had to make them standing up, then on horse-back; not 
one of them was finished as I would have desired...” 
1.3.2 Whereas 400 copper-engravers worked for some 20 
years to give us the 837 copper-engravings which form part of 
over 3,000 illustrations that make up the Description de 
T Egypte, within fifty years of its publication a new technology 
was to dramatically reduce costs, shorten time-frames and 
improve the quality of documentation available for 
archaeologists, researchers on antiquity and architects. 
Analogue photography and photogrammetry were both born in 
the 19 th Century and remained the main non-text tools used in 
documentation of cultural heritage throughout most of the 20 th 
Century. 
1.3.3 It is the way that digital has ousted analogue during 
the last 15 years of the 20 th Century that is changing 
documentation in a fundamental manner. The cultural heritage 
documentation specialist is now faced with an ever-growing 
array of tools made available by the information 
communications technologies (ICT) which are the hallmark of 
the information society. Some of these tools may be used in a 
stand-alone manner while others achieve their true potential 
when linked up to other ICT tools. The new digital tools 
include various forms of 2D imaging (photography, X-ray), 3D 
imaging (laser scanning, photogrammetry), relational databases, 
the Internet, web-based systems, The very nature of these tools 
helps define the objectives of e-heritage most specific to 
documentation. 
1.4 New standards lead to the birth of a new profession 
Documentation is perhaps that sector of conservation of cultural 
heritage which has been most affected by the advent of the 
information society. So much so that whereas the 20 th Century 
saw the birth of a new discipline, profession and area of 
academic study ie. that of the conservator-restorer, the 21 st 
Century has seen the birth of a new profession to complement 
that of the conservator-restorer. The extent of knowledge 
required from the cultural heritage documentationalist has 
recently even prompted the creation of specific university 
degrees* ** which will enable the documentation specialist to 
better fulfil his or her role as part of the multi-disciplinary team 
required to properly carry out a conservation project. 
* Vivant DENON, Head of the Egyptian Institute as quoted in 
Description de l’Egypte, Taschen, Koln, 1997, p. 13 
Vide for example the B.Doc. (Hons) degree introduced by 
MCR and the University of Malta at 
http://www.mcr.edu.mt/icrs/degrees/bdoc.html (accessed 
20th May 2003) 
1.5 Specific objectives for documentation within e-heritage 
1.5.1 1.5.1 The cultural heritage documentation specialist 
(CHDS) can, by inferring from ICT capabilities, expect e- 
heritage to meet a number of domain-specific objectives: 
1.5.1.1 Accuracy & volume - 2D imaging in cultural 
heritage is now increasingly producing single digital 
photographs with a resolution in excess of 16 megapixels and a 
file size of anything between 300Mb and 550Mb per frame***. 
Not only has digital photography now caught up with and in 
many cases overtaken analogue photography - with evident 
implications for photogrammetry - but 3D imaging has been 
substantially enhanced by the arrival of the laser scanner which 
produces clouds of points, each of which is an X,Y.Z co 
ordinate in a matter of minutes. The problems of space, storage 
and manipulation which the resultant huge data files are 
currently posing are only a short-term problem which will be 
overcome in the mid-term as corresponding data handling and 
storage technologies become more powerful and cheaper. The 
CHDS would expect e-heritage compliant systems to handle 
such large 2D and 3D files across platforms both mobile and 
static, preferably through a single user interface rather than 
having to master at least 6 different software packages as may 
currently be required in some cases. 
1.5.1.2 Affordability - The cost of acquiring fast, 
reliable and highly accurate 2D and 3D imaging is plummeting. 
The cost of the hardware required to store the huge volumes of 
data generated is also proportionally very low. A CHDS would 
expect that this affordability would extend to SMEs as well as 
large national conservation institutions and this expectation 
would have an impact on the delivery platforms chosen for such 
systems. 
1.5.1.3 Legally Mandatory QA - The ease with which 
one can document digitally, together with the speed and low 
cost of communicating data collected in cultural heritage 
conservation is influencing legislators to improve quality 
assurance in heritage projects by making a growing number of 
types of documentation mandatory. The next step is logically 
that of the timeliness of communicating conservation project 
data to a Trusted Third-Party repository enabling proper 
superintendence and on-line off-site data security to be 
achieved at one stroke. 
1.5.1.4 Speed, quality & nature of communications - In 
a world where 0.5 - 2Mbps data transfer rates for home ADSL 
have become the norm, where office networks permit 
communications at 10-100 Mbps and where laptop computers 
are now linked via GRPS, satellite or other mobile 
technologies, the conservator-restorer as well as the 
documentation specialist can today work in a totally different 
manner to the one of a few years back. It is already possible for 
a conservator-restorer working on site in a neolithic temple or 
medieval church to store digital images on his portable 
computer, integrate these into a structured account of the 
conservation intervention and transmit everything to his office 
base, client or central repository without much more than a 
These figures are typical of the tri-linear scanning back 
technologies employed by the 2D Imaging Department within 
MCR's Documentation Division 
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