Ontological Entities for Planning and Describing Cultural Heritage 3D Models Creation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a methodology for documenting the planning and creation of 3D models in Cultural Heritage, using ontologies and standards to ensure transparency, reproducibility, and interoperability of digital assets.

Contribution

It proposes an application profile based on CIDOC CRM and international standards for formal documentation of 3D modelling processes in Cultural Heritage.

Findings

Enhanced documentation of 3D modelling processes

Improved interoperability of heritage digital assets

Framework supports scientific reproducibility

Abstract

In the last decades the rapid development of technologies and methodologies in the field of digitization and 3D modelling has led to an increasing proliferation of 3D technologies in the Cultural Heritage domain. Despite the great potential of 3D digital heritage, the "special effects" of 3D may often overwhelm its importance in research. Projects and consortia of scholars have tried to put order in the different fields of application of these technologies, providing guidelines and proposing workflows. The use of computer graphics as an effective methodology for CH research and communication highlighted the need of transparent provenance data to properly document digital assets and understand the degree of scientific quality and reliability of their outcomes. The building and release of provenance knowledge, consisting in the complete formal documentation of each phase of the process, is therefore of fundamental importance to ensure its repeatability and to guarantee the integration and interoperability of the generated metadata on the Semantic Web. This paper proposes a methodology for documenting the planning and creation of 3D models used in archaeology and Cultural Heritage, by means of an application profile based on the CIDOC CRM ecosystem and other international standards.