New ways in digitization and visualization of cultural objects

Developments in 2D and 3D digitization and visualization technologies, as well as in measurement instrumentation, combined with the emerging multimedia databases and network technologies offer new possibilities for the integrated and complete description of cultural objects. Our Institute, with main interest in the preservation of cultural heritage, in an attempt to exploit these new technologies, is developing multimedia databases for cultural objects that include 3D geometric and physicochemical data and are able to be delivered through the Internet. The "Ark of Refugee Heirloom" (recording and documentation of unknown heirlooms in the five prefectures of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace that belong to refugees whose origins lay in regions of the Ottoman Empire, south Russia, Bulgaria and others surrounding the Black Sea), is a first generation 3D-database, where, selectively, we have included 3D objects in parallel with their 2D images. "3D-ArCAD" (database for archaeological ceramic and glass artifacts with 2D and 3D images, description, typological characteristics, historical information and point-wise surface data), is a second generation 3D-database, where in addition to 2D and 3D images, typological characteristics and historical information, we also include point-wise surface data.