Page 146 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

146the most widely used means of learning about cultural heritage. The global dissemination o ered by web portals and the no less important versatility of the digital world, which enables an endless amount of data to be stored in a broad diversity of formats, meets cultural institutions’ and sector professionals’ need to present heri- tage resources.Argentina VirtualA website within the Argentine portal Educar.ar was designed to o er virtual visits of several of the country’s landmark heritage buildings and museums. This project, called Argentina Virtual,94 consists of a list of heritage sites which are accessed individually through a virtual 360-degree visit accompanied by an audio track that explains each of the elements that the user nds while browsing. In addition, each place presents a total of ten representative objects, digitised in 3D, which can be viewed from home using an augmented reality application with markers. The convent and church of San Fran- cisco in Santa Fe,95 the Manzana Jesuítica (Jesuit Block) in Córdoba,96 the Museo Casa Histórica de la Independencia97 and the Congreso de la Nación Argentina98 are some of the tours that allow visitors to explore virtually some of the country’s most important historic ensembles.Portal Virtual del Patrimonio de las Universidades AndaluzasA pilot project recently run in Spain was the creation of the Portal Virtual del Patrimonio de las Universidades Andaluzas.99 This portal, which was started up with the intention of promoting the dissemination of cultural heritage, is part of the Andalusian regional government’s Atalaya Project on which the region’s ten public universi- ties are collaborating.The idea is to make use of the new digital technologies to disseminate the rich heritage housed in these institutions, which is currently largely unknown.The portal is designed to provide access toa large number of digital resources including multimedia content, 3D reproductions and inter- active virtual tours showing both immovable and movable heritage elements from an interactive, close-up perspective via the screen.The portal o ers other services, such as planning a cultural agenda with the activities, events and projects that take place in the various universi- ties, and it is therefore also used to disseminate studies and research in the context of the heritage of Andalusia’s universities.Figure 07 - Panoramic 360-degree view of the convent of San Francisco (Santa Fe). Portal Argentina Virtual. Screenshot. Source: http://www.argentinavirtual.educ.ar/%5DFigure 08 - Portal Virtual del Patrimonio de las Universidades Andaluzas. Screenshot. Source: http://patrimonio3d.ugr.es/2. DISSEMINATION, ENHANCEMENT AND EDUCATION