Modeling Cultural Heritage Materials for Discovery and Analysis
Slavina Stoyanova, Øyvind Eide, Enes Türkoglu · 2025
This chapter describes and exemplifies some recent developments in practical methods used for modeling cultural heritage objects and processes, with suggestions for possible future development. The use of ontologies for information integration between memory institutions is explained through practical tools and methods. The potential for deeper understanding of the past through the detection of new connections is discussed based on the current state of the art. The potential of useful input from deep learning systems will be presented as a complementary method with a potential for enabling further integration given that the results are thoroughly evaluated. Also, trust in documentation systems for cultural heritage is discussed. Can trust-based systems aid us in the documentation of cultural heritage? We assume that digital representations of physical entities are ever-changing interpretations rather than something permanent and, based on that, explore long-term preservation of interpretations of digitized artifacts and their future scholarly use. Thus, the documentation of chronological sequences of knowledge accumulated as a basis for tracing the interpretation history of digital artifacts is discussed. In collections documenting performative art forms, the possibility for interactive use of collection objects is an important reason why they are collected in the first place. However, current preservation and documentation practices make such interaction hard or even impossible. The often fragile objects are kept in magazines or display cases with limited access, and active use of them is usually not possible for museum visitors due to their fragility. Furthermore, the documentation practice tends to focus on descriptive and static elements, including 2D photographs. The use of 3D modeling, virtual reality systems, and game engines is discussed as an alternative to physical reconstructions as a way forward to improve accessibility to the contextualized knowledge potential of such objects.