Less mess more knowledge

Inception: semantic 3D modelling for cultural heritage

Nemoris is partner of the consortium developing Inception, a four-year project for European cultural heritage understanding and preservation. Inception is funded by the Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Development.

Within the Inception framework Nemoris expertise contributes to cultural heritage research, a new and peculiar application domain,  next to specific actions such as the survey of significant buildings and sites, and the creation of 3D models aimed to study these artefacts.

Inception innovation

The project aims to develop 3D models of buildings, sites and artefacts, providing a dynamic view of European architecture and culture throughout the centuries.

Plus, a wider objective is to provide a better understanding of European cultural heritage, as Inception does not only create 3D models but semantically enriches these digital artifacts (with Virtual and Augmented Reality) and allows everyone to give a contribution of contexts and interpretation with an interactive approach. The use of semantics integrated with 3D models is meant to allow users to explore contents according to multiple categories, e.g. study buildings or artefacts by author or style.

To effectively address the development the project starts with the involvement of different domain stakeholders interested in creating 3D models for cultural heritage sites.

The technical part, i.e. the creation of these models by graphics and IT professionals, is meant to be integrated with architecture and art history concepts brought by domain experts. Hence, the project aims to create a network of experts from various professional areas, both during its realization and fruition, with an open,  dynamic and inclusive approach. The result will be achieved with contributions from other technical experts (including Nemoris, that will provide its knowledge of software-applied semantics to intangible knowledge).

The aim is an ongoing cooperation and communication between scholars, architects and other professionals, plus the models’ users, in order to endorse information sharing and constant development and update.

A specific objective of the Horizon2020 Program is a strong cooperation between academic research and industrial applications. Nemoris, as an innovative startup, contributes to this goal of merging research and market ready products. All the project is driven by an active participation to the funded project of SMEs, and their action to mobilise business partners and clients to ensure the market implementation of the innovations and results.

Expected results

Three key objective of Inception can be summarized in:

  • Create a comprehensive understanding of European cultural identity and diversity, stimulating and easing the cooperation between different study fields, technologies and professional sectors.
  • Develop procedures for on-site 3D survey and reconstruction of buildings, artefacts and sites.
  • Develop an open-standard semantic platform enabling to access, manage and share digital models obtained through 3D survey and data capturing.

 

Partners

Inception consortium is composed from 14 partners from 10 European countries (Italy, Slovenia, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Netherlands, Croatia, Germany, Bulgaria and France).
These include 7 companies (DEMO Consultants; 3L Architects; Nemoris; RDF Software; 13 BIS Consulting; Z+F Laser; Vision Business Consultants), 2 research centres (Consorzio Futuro in Ricerca; Fundacion CARTIF) and 5 universities ( University of Ferrara together with TekneHub; University of Ljubljana; National Technical University of Athens; Cyprus University of Technology; University of Zagreb). The project coordinator is the Prof. Roberto di Giulio of the Ferrara University.

The involvement in the Inception project is due to the flexibility of Nemoris expertise in extracting data from free text and context. Digital heritage is a new challenge to apply intangible knowledge to a physical domain linked with textual information, and we are grateful and enthusiast for this fabulous opportunity.

Stay tuned, you can follow ongoing results on Inception web site and on our blog.