3 Days in the Tuscan Sun
Dodging the volcano ash, 
I have just given a the first public presentation on the new harvesting schema - LIDO - at the EVA Florence conference in Italy. EVA Florence is Europe’a foremost electronic imaging event in the visual arts.
It is also a major venue for the dissemination of the Italian led ATHENA project.
The main aim of the annual event is to:
“Provide a forum for the user, supplier and scientific research communities to meet and exchange experiences, ideas and plans in the wide area of culture and technology. “
The attendees get up to date news on EC and international arts computing initiatives. Projects in the visual arts field, archaeology and history are showcased. Technical demonstrations are given.
This year’s subjects included:
- 2D - 3D image acquisition;
- Leading edge applications in galleries, libraries, education, archaeological sites, and museums;
- Mediterranean initiatives in technology for cultural heritage;
- Integrated digital archives for cultural heritage and contemporary art;
- Management of museums by using ICT;
- Impact of new mobile communications;
- Human computer interaction for cultural heritage;
- Copyright Protection;
- Culture and e-government;
- E-learning;
- Application of digital terrestrial television;
- 3D developments and applications;
- Cultural tourism and travel applications;
- Art and medicine.
Even running over three days and with a technical exhibition running over the period to cover all this in any depth was an herculean tasks. Luckily there are a set proceedings for the papers presented and they will make interesting reading.
The ATHENA project was presented in a joint session with STACHEM project.
STACHEM stands for ‘Science and Technology for Archaeology and Cultural Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean’. Its goal is to:
“.. contribute to a regional strategic plan for research infrastructures devoted to archaeological sciences and digital heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean, and simultaneously to support and complement the design and planning process….”
Presentations were on:
- GIS 2D/3D in the knowledge process of cultural heritage;
- Integrating archaeological excavation diaries with GIS and 2D/3D data in the CIDOC CRM framework;
- A novel approach to GIS 3D documentation and description of of archaeological features.
ATHENA gave presentations on:
- GIS Guidelines for Digital Cultural Content;
- SIGECWEB: the Italian national informative system for cataloguing cultural heritage;
- LIDO - Lightweight Information Describing Objects.
As you can see there is some overlap in the area of GIS, but this is not a large part of the ATHENA.
On LIDO I answwered the questions:
- Why LIDO?
- What is LIDO?
For those who cannot wait for a full publication of LIDO, which will take place later in the year, here is the:
The EVA conference also served another pupose. Because the event gave the opertunity to have many people from many countries at the same time it allowed us to discuss the next EC-funded project proposal the ATHENA network want to put in. More later….
