Preserving cultural treasures and making them available to the public and to research is a goal worthy of pursuit. The Austrian research organizations Fraunhofer Austria and JOANNEUM RESEARCH are therefore starting a cooperation. At CeBIT, they will present their first results.
Austria is a country full of cultural goods. The archives, libraries and museums have extensive collections of invaluable cultural assets. Digitalization is a necessary step to preserve these cultural treasures for generations to come. The Visual Computing business unit of Fraunhofer Austria and the DIGITAL institute of JOANNEUM RESEARCH has now started a cooperation. Pooling the special competences of both research groups holds the promise of results which can soon be put to use.
"We have a lot of stock in our archives, but only a fraction is accessible to the public", explains Werner Haas, Director of the DIGITAL institute. "At the Albertina in Vienna, only a few hundred of around one million works of art are exhibited." There is also the risk, however, to lose cultural goods in a catastrophic way forever. "The Cologne city archive and the water damage at the Albertina are definite warnings", adds Professor Dieter W. Fellner, Managing Director of Fraunhofer Austria.
A first result of the cooperation is the "Multi-Touch Museum Planner". In cooperation with the Vienna Technical Museum, a software for virtual exhibitions named eXhibition:editor3D was developed at the DIGITAL institute. It provides museums with the option to realize exhibitions in a three-dimensional form. In addition, the program can also be used to plan real exhibitions. Fraunhofer Austria added the multi-touch technology to this editor, known from the iPhone. Multi-touch gestures provide for ease of use. The application can thus also be operated by several users at the same time. For the presentation of the virtual exhibition, the 3D internet technology X3DOM is used, which was decisively developed by Fraunhofer IGD, the sister institute of the Visual Computing business unit.
The Multi-Touch Museum Planner will be presented at this year's CeBIT in Hanover. It can be tested on the Multi-Touch Table of Fraunhofer Austria in Hall 9 Booth B36.
Austria is a country full of cultural goods. The archives, libraries and museums have extensive collections of invaluable cultural assets. Digitalization is a necessary step to preserve these cultural treasures for generations to come. The Visual Computing business unit of Fraunhofer Austria and the DIGITAL institute of JOANNEUM RESEARCH has now started a cooperation. Pooling the special competences of both research groups holds the promise of results which can soon be put to use.
"We have a lot of stock in our archives, but only a fraction is accessible to the public", explains Werner Haas, Director of the DIGITAL institute. "At the Albertina in Vienna, only a few hundred of around one million works of art are exhibited." There is also the risk, however, to lose cultural goods in a catastrophic way forever. "The Cologne city archive and the water damage at the Albertina are definite warnings", adds Professor Dieter W. Fellner, Managing Director of Fraunhofer Austria.
A first result of the cooperation is the "Multi-Touch Museum Planner". In cooperation with the Vienna Technical Museum, a software for virtual exhibitions named eXhibition:editor3D was developed at the DIGITAL institute. It provides museums with the option to realize exhibitions in a three-dimensional form. In addition, the program can also be used to plan real exhibitions. Fraunhofer Austria added the multi-touch technology to this editor, known from the iPhone. Multi-touch gestures provide for ease of use. The application can thus also be operated by several users at the same time. For the presentation of the virtual exhibition, the 3D internet technology X3DOM is used, which was decisively developed by Fraunhofer IGD, the sister institute of the Visual Computing business unit.
The Multi-Touch Museum Planner will be presented at this year's CeBIT in Hanover. It can be tested on the Multi-Touch Table of Fraunhofer Austria in Hall 9 Booth B36.
