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Title
New perspectives to save cultural heritage
Author
Altan, M. Orhan

82
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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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