Virtual recovery and exhibition of heritage

Abstract

Progress in computer technology has changed conventional archaeology and its exhibition. A project fuses art and culture with computer technology in an effort to bring a world heritage, the Museum of the Terra Cotta Warriers and Horses in China, into cyberspace. Three sites contain 8,000 terra cotta statues, most of them damaged in ancient times. Archaeologists have spent 20 years unearthing and recovering 3,000 of these statues. Using a laser range finder makes it possible to precisely document unearthed objects as 3D models. For damaged pieces, my colleagues and I can use an advanced interface to recover the original shapes and colors in cyberspace, avoiding new damage to relies. This virtual recovery framework lets us safely connect, move, and reconnect fragments many times in a virtual environment. The data examined in the virtual space can augment our imagined picture of the unearthed objects' original appearance and guide the physical restoration. We could even leave the original fragments in their unearthed state for future generations to study. Moreover, we can put recovered relies into a virtual museum to show their now-lost original appearance based on archaeological facts-hard to achieve in a real situation, where relies must be carefully preserved in controlled environments, untouched. We can even simulate the past in a realistic scenario before we have completed digging out all the sites. A variety of data reduction approaches help us display the virtual scenes.