Analytical Visualization of Large-Scale Data of 3D Cultural Objects

For appreciating 3D cultural objects, e.g., artistic statues, traditional vehicles, and historical buildings or cities, visualization has mainly been used in the following styles: (1) realistic computer graphics, (2) artistic computer graphics, and (3) interactive virtual reality. However, for academic studying of 3D cultural objects, these styles are insufficient. Namely, we need more analytical styles that can extract invisible or veiled features of visualized targets. What makes such analytical visualization more important is recent rapid development of range-sensing technology to digitally archive real 3D objects. For example, modern laser scanning produces over 107 or 108 3D point data for one measurement. To extract useful information from such large-scale and complex data, we need (A) precise 3D transparent visualization, (B) superposition of visual assistants, and (C) time-series visualization.