Saving temporary exhibitions in virtual environments: the Digital Renaissance of Ulisse Aldrovandi -- acquisition and digitisation of cultural heritage objects

TL;DR

This paper discusses the process of creating a digital twin of a temporary art exhibition using hybrid acquisition techniques and open technologies to enhance accessibility and preservation of cultural heritage objects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining multiple acquisition methods and open standards for digital twin creation of cultural heritage exhibitions.

Findings

Successful integration of hybrid acquisition techniques

Enhanced accessibility through open technology formats

Ongoing digital twin development process

Abstract

As per the objectives of Project CHANGES, particularly its thematic sub-project on the use of virtual technologies for museums and art collections, our goal was to obtain a digital twin of the temporary exhibition on Ulisse Aldrovandi called "The Other Renaissance", and make it accessible to users online. After a preliminary study of the exhibition, focussing on acquisition constraints and related solutions, we proceeded with the digital twin creation by acquiring, processing, modelling, optimising, exporting, and metadating the exhibition. We made hybrid use of two acquisition techniques to create new digital cultural heritage objects and environments, and we used open technologies, formats, and protocols to make available the final digital product. Here, we describe the process of collecting and curating bibliographical exhibition (meta)data and the beginning of the digital twin creation to foster its findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. The creation of the digital twin is currently ongoing.