Page 188 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

188Lastly, this project sets out to stress that studies of this kind require a multidisciplinary research team with knowledge of both computer science and archaeology – something that is still rare, even though we are living in the digital society.Art-Risk ProjectFrom the Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Seville) comes another case of the application of arti - cial intelligence to the preventive conservation of cultural heritage in urban centres: the Art-Risk research project290 (Arti cial Intelligence applied to preventive conservation of heritage buildings), funded by the Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).The aim was to develop a new analytical method for identifying the degree of vulnerability and risks of monumental heritage – speci cally churches, city walls and bastions – using the predictive model based on fuzzy logic (Ortiz et al., 2016).291Both environmental and climate-related risks were taken into account, as well as structural and functional risks, together with the historical records of each building in order to establish di erent patterns for calculating the degreeof incidence of each variable. To prove the e ciency of the system, a diagnosis was carried out by a multidisciplinary team who tested the correspondence between the computer forecast and the decision of sector professionals.This new tool based on free software could have important implications for assessing regional policy decisions on heritage planning and management, where cross-cutting pa- rameters would be taken into account such as planning, architectural, heritage value, or the analysis of monuments’ environmental and socio-demographic backgrounds.3.3 Computer graphics and 3D environmentsOne of the most recurring objectives of cultural heritage research is to be able to visualise assets in interactive environments, in order to recreate historic sites that enable us to analyse and learn about them in greater depth.The power of such resources for interpreting heritage lies in their ability to show places that are not normally accessible and/or to allow users to explore environments showing an enhanced or totally new image of this heritage asset.Computer-generated graphics give rise to rst-person interactivity between the user and the cultural object, leading to a closer relation- ship. This is what makes virtual reconstruction of a heritage asset a valid tool for analysing the same reality from di erent perspectives, where users each reconstruct their own version ona common platform that interacts with other agents involved.It is not surprising that virtual technologies – referring both to 3D viewing and to virtual reality and augmented reality – have become the object of pilot experiments which, despite o ering a predominantly futuristic image, are heralding a hybrid trend for heritage and its virtual counter- part.1930s Albion StreetSome of the most original and interesting projects involving virtual recreations stem from local initiatives to explore the potential of new technologies applied to cultural heritage without involving highly complex and costly equipment. Such is the case of this project, 1930s Albion Street,292 which is based on a games engine – the programming routines for designing, creating and representing a video game (together with 3D digital software) – and recreates virtual environments inspired by the past architecture3. RESEARCHThe use of digital technologies in the conservation, analysis and dissemination of cultural heritage