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Books:
Publisher, TDP Sarajevo, 2023, ISBN 978-9958-553-65-3 The book presents digital cultural heritage projects created by Sarajevo Graphics Group from 2017-2022
Publisher - 5DCaDD Sarajevo, 2010, ISBN 978-9958-629-38-9 The book covers Numeric Graphics and Animation Course lessons (Masters Studies, Computer Science Department, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Sarajevo) Short contents
Publisher - Ministarstvo za obrazovanje, nauku, kulturi u sport Federacije BiH, Sarajevo, 1998, ISBN 9958-11-063-6 The book covers Computer Graphics Course lessons (3rd year Computer Science Department, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Sarajevo) Short contents:
Journal publications:
This article examines the user experience and cognitive workload in digital storytelling through immersive virtual reality (VR). Specifically, it explores the relationship between various aspects of the user experience and their link to the cognitive workload. The investigation was conducted by means of a large-scale evaluation of an underwater archaeological VR experience that simulated diving into the reconstructions of a submerged ancient site combined with interactive 360° video storytelling. The evaluation included 125 participants from two different geographical locations. Results revealed a strong interdependence between all user experience scales, including presence, immersion, engagement, emotional response, state of flow, subjective judgment, and technological adoption of the VR equipment. Moreover, the sense of presence in VR was strongly related to the reported task performance. The article highlights the importance of understanding the user experience and cognitive workload when creating digital storytelling applications in immersive VR.
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) has a very picturesque past. Founded in 11th century, it has always been a crossroads of faiths and civilizations. Extended Reality (XR) technologies can finally take us to time travel into this history, enable us to experience past events and meet historical characters. In this paper, we overview the latest applications we developed that use Virtual Reality (VR) video, Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR) for interactive digital storytelling about BH history. “Nine dissidents” is the first BH VR documentary, tackling a still tricky subject of dissidents in the Socialist Yugoslavia, artists and writers falsely accused, persecuted and still forbidden. “Virtual Museum of Old Crafts” aims to present and preserve crafts intangible heritage through Virtual Reality. “Battle on Neretva VR” is recreating a famous WWII battle offering the users to experience it and meet comrade Tito, the commander of the Yugoslav Liberation Army. “Sarajevo 5D” shows the cultural monuments from Sarajevo that do not exist anymore in physical form using Augmented Reality. Through user experience studies, we measure the user immersion and edutainment of these applications and show the potential of XR for the presentation and preservation of cultural heritage.
This paper presents a combined subjective and objective evaluation of an application mixing interactive virtual reality (VR) experience with 360° storytelling. The hypothesis that the modern immersive archaeological VR application presenting cultural heritage from a submerged site would sustain high levels of presence, immersion, and general engagement was leveraged in the investigation of the user experience with both the subjective (questionnaires) and the objective (neurophysiological recording of the brain signals using electroencephalography (EEG)) evaluation methods. Participants rated the VR experience positively in the questionnaire scales for presence, immersion, and subjective judgement. High positive rating concerned also the psychological states linked to the experience (engagement, emotions, and the state of flow), and the experience was mostly free from difficulties linked to the accustomization to the VR technology (technology adoption to the head-mounted display and controllers, VR sickness). EEG results are in line with past studies examining brain responses to virtual experiences, while new results in the beta band suggest that EEG is a viable tool for future studies of presence and immersion in VR.
Presentations of virtual cultural heritage artifacts are often communicated via the medium of interactive digital storytelling. The synergy of a storied narrative embedded within a 3D virtual reconstruction context has high consumer appeal and edutainment value. We investigate if 360° videos presented through virtual reality further contribute to user immersion for the application of preserving intangible cultural heritage. A case study then analyzes whether conventional desktop media is significantly different from virtual reality as a medium for immersion in intangible heritage contexts. The case study describes bridge diving at Stari Most, the old bridge in Mostar Bosnia. This application aims to present and preserve the bridge diving tradition at this site. The project describes the site and history along with cultural connections, and a series of quiz questions are presented after viewing all of the materials. Successful completion of the quiz allows a user to participate in a virtual bridge dive. The subjective evaluation provided evidence to suggest that our method is successful in preserving intangible heritage and communicating ideas in key areas of concern for this heritage that can be used to develop a preservation framework in the future. It was also possible to conclude that experience within the virtual reality framework did not affect effort expectancy for the web application, but the same experience significantly influenced the performance expectancy construct.
The paper presents the application of some Virtual Reality technologies developed in the Horizon 2020 i-MARECulture project to the case study of the sunken "Villa con ingresso a protiro", dated around the II century AD, and located in the Marine Protected Area - Underwater Park of Baiae (Naples). The i-MARECulture project (www.imareculture.eu), in fact, aims to improve the public awareness about the underwater cultural heritage by developing new tool and techniques that take advantage of the virtual reality technologies to allow the general public to explore the archaeological remains outside of the submerged environment. To this end, the paper details the techniques and methods adopted for the development of an immersive virtual tour that allow users to explore, through a storytelling experience, a virtual replica and a 3D hypothetical reconstruction of the complex of the "Villa con ingresso a protiro".
Interactive digital storytelling is becoming a popular choice for information presentation in many fields. Its application spans from the media industry and business information visualization, through digital cultural heritage, serious games, education, to contemporary theater and visual arts. The benefits of this form of multimedia presentation in education are generally recognized, and several studies which explore and support the opinion have been conducted. In addition to discussing the benefits, we wanted to address the challenges of introducing interactive digital storytelling and serious games in the classroom. The challenge of the inherent ambiguity of edutainment, due to opposing features of education and entertainment, is augmented with different viewpoints of multidisciplinary team members. We specifically address the opposing views on artistic liberty, at one side, and technical constraints and historical facts, on the other. In this paper, we present the first findings related to these questions and hope to initiate further discussions in this area.
Throughout the history of the Mediterranean region, seafaring and trading played a significant role in the interaction between the cultures and people in the area. In order to engage the general public in learning about maritime cultural heritage we have designed and developed a serious game incorporating geospatially analyzed data from open GIS archaeological maritime sources, and archaeological data resulting from shipwreck excavations. We present a second prototype of the seafaring serious game, and discuss the results of an evaluation which involved a large multi-site user study with participants from three continents. More specifically, we present the evaluation of “The Seafarers” a strategy-based game which integrates knowledge from multiple disciplines in order to educate the user through playing. A first prototype was reported in Philbin-Briscoe et al. (2017) where an expert-user evaluation of the usability and the effectiveness of the game in terms of the learning objectives was performed. In this paper, we present how the outcomes of the evaluation of the first prototype “The Seafarers - 1” by expert-users were used in the redesign and development of the game mechanics for the second prototype “The Seafarers-2”. We then present our methodology for evaluating the game with respect to the game objective of engagement in learning about maritime cultural heritage, seafaring and trading in particular. Specifically, the evaluation was to test the hypothesis that game playing allows for more engaged learning thus improving longer-term knowledge retention. The evaluation was conducted in two phases and includes a pilot study, followed by a multi-site, multi-continent user-study involving a large number of participants. We analyze the results of the user evaluation and discuss the outcomes. This work is part of the EU-funded project iMareCulture and involves truly multi-continental, multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary cooperation - civil engineers and archaeologists from Cyprus, Human Computer Interaction (HCI) experts and Educationists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, and cultural sociologists and computer scientists from Canada.
Virtual 3D reconstructions of destroyed or disappeared cultural heritage enable viewers to effectively travel back through time and visualize monuments whose fragments they can see in museums or archaeological sites. A powerful way to convey information through three-dimensional geometry is to add interactive digital storytelling to virtual models. In this paper we present our work on interactive virtual cultural heritage applications with storytelling and show how users appreciate this presentation form, considering it as breathing life into 3D geometry. We describe the Tašlihan project, which consists of a documentary, interactive digital story and serious game about this valuable cultural monument from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, of which only one wall remains as a memento to its existence.
Los museos virtuales online parecen consolidarse como excelentes plataformas de difusión del patrimonio cultural, especialmente en países con pocos recursos o con dificultades para asumir la conservacion y difusión de su patrimonio. El museo virtual de los Stecci, desarrollado por la Universidad de Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina), es un claro ejemplo de cómo las nuevas tecnologías pueden contribuir a valorizar el patrimonio cultural. The online virtual museums seem to consolidate as excellent platforms for dissemination of cultural heritage, especially in countries with few resources and hard to take conservation and dissemination of their heritage. The Stecci virtual museum, developed by the University of Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) is a clear example of how new technologies can contribute to enhancing cultural heritage.
Virtual cultural heritage applications, particularly virtual museums, nowadays include various forms of storytelling. Every object, site or artifact is better perceived and understood through the adjoining story. Interactive applications naturally request the storytelling to become interactive as well. This paper describes the concepts of interactive digital storytelling in our virtual museums and cultural heritage presentations and discusses their advantages and drawbacks recognized through user evaluation. We used digital stories not only to introduce visitors with the context and information on the objects, but also to enhance their navigation through virtual environments with purpose of learning and perceiving maximum amount of offered information.
Isa bey Ishakovic built in 1462 a tekke, public kitchen and accommodation complex in Sarajevo. It was dedicated to travelers and Mevlevi dervishes. Today there is a road and gasoline station at this location. The goal of this paper is to bring these objects back to public memory using interactive storytelling. 3D models of objects are incorporated in a real-time virtual environment. The surrounding terrain is constructed using a fractal terrain generation method. The user is guided through the environment by interactive story. The story presents each object and its purpose. Dervish ritual that was performed inside the tekke is presented by interactive computer animation. User evaluation shows the levels of immersion and presence felt by the visitors through qualitative user experience methodology. The user study results will prove that the interactive storytelling is a better form of cultural heritage virtual presentation than the non-interactive form (movie).
Over the last few years we have witnessed a rapid development and popularisation of serious gaming. This eld is becoming approved in not only education, science, medicine, religion or engineering, but also in the area of cultural heritage through serious heritage games. This can be utilised for virtual reconstructions and virtual museums and possibly used for education in the form of edutainment, comprising various techniques, such as storytelling, visual expression of information, interactivity and entertainment [19]. This paper demonstrates a new concept of using story guided virtual environments for cultural heritage virtual reconstruction, with live virtual guides in an interactive Flash format. First we compare the implementations of the same environments in x3D and Flash and then we extend the project with digital storytelling, where a user is guided through the whole application using both narrative, non-interactive, movie-like elements and interactive exploration of the virtual environment. The introduced results can be easily adopted for serious games development.
Bosnia and Herzegovina always has been a place where the East meets the West. Over 1000 years, different cultures, religions and civilizations have left their remains in this small country inWestern Balkans. Despite all wars and tragic destructions, today in the heart of Sarajevo one can find mosques, Catholic and Orthodox churches and Jewish synagogues next to each other and people of different nations and religions living together in mutual respect and friendship. Multiethnic spirit of Bosnia and Herzegovina lives through its cultural heritage. Therefore our task is to ensure its presentation and preservation using Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). So far researchers have achieved significant results by creating several virtual museums. In this paper we will present the Museum of Bosnian Traditional Objects, Digital Catalogue of Stecaks and the Virtual Museum of Sarajevo Assassination, giving an overview of the process of creating virtual environments from multiple data sources based on various 3D digitization technologies: some based on traditional 3D modeling, other based on laser scanning or photogrametric techniques.
Isa-bey's Tekija is an oldest institution in the city of Sarajevo. It was built before 1462 and first mentioned in the endowment document of Isa bey Ishakovic, the founder of the city. Today it does not exist any more. The final destruction of this object was done in 1957. The project of the virtual reconstruction using computer graphics techniques and multimedia internet presentation has a goal of reviving this important symbol of the past at least in our memory. This paper is describing the first phase of the project, the remarkable response of the public and the plans for the second phase. This project confirms the importance of virtual cultural heritage applications.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is very rich with the cultural heritage sites. These historical sites nowadays look quite different from their original appearance, as a lot of time has passed from the moment of their construction. In addition, some of them were seriously damaged or completely destroyed during the recent war. This paper presents our experience in the digitalization of Bosnian cultural heritage, with the key purpose of preservation, reconstruction and virtual heritage applications. We describe virtual reconstructions and sun simulation of medieval Bosnian gravestone “stecak”, virtual reconstruction of destroyed Sarajevo City Hall Vijećnica and virtual heritage application “Virtual Sarajevo – Baščaršija”.
Fortress Old Town in Travnik represents one of the most beautiful and most preserved facilities of medieval Bosnia, on which later historical periods left their specific marks. Combining modern methods of 3D reconstruction with different methods of visualization such as making photorealistic, high-resolution renderings, video-compositing of animated sequences from 3D environment with video sequences that illustrate life in the fortress in the past, building interactive virtual environment integrated into user-friendly, multimedia interface, it was aimed to provide comprehensive user experience and raise awareness about cultural and historical importance of the reconstructed object. International conferences:
War or Dark Heritage is challenging for digital presentation as it involves tragic events and the loss of human lives. Due to the same considerations, the importance of commemorating such a heritage is paramount. Virtual Reality offers tremendous possibilities for immersive experiences of war heritage. In the use case of the Battle on Kozara VR application, we will show how a combination of Interactive Digital Storytelling and gameplays can result in an educational and attractive immersive presentation of a battle from WWII, very important for the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina. User experience evaluation of museum visitors will show if we have obtained the right balance between heavy and tragic historical facts and challenging tasks for users to introduce them to the lives of Battle participants and enable them to relive the Battle themselves.
Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) is a way of communicating information in the metaverse [BH22]. Gameplay elements added to these applications turn them into serious games that can offer unique immersive experiences of historical objects and events to museum visitors and online. In this paper, we describe this "Advanced IDS" methodology on a use case of the Trebinje Fortresses VR project. Austrian Hungarian Fortresses around Trebinje, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, are in decay, hardly accessible, and completely neglected. They can be explored in Virtual Reality through an application that combines Interactive Digital Storytelling narrated by officers who used to inhabit them with gameplays where the user becomes a carrier pigeon and carries the messages from one fortress to another while avoiding eagle attacks. After the first mission is successfully completed the user gets a task to accomplish in a fortress underground, and, if successful, gets the opportunity to explore digitized museum exhibits found in the fortress. The application is installed in the Trebinje Museum. The quality of user experience will be proven through an evaluation study.
Archaeological sites from prehistory are very important for understanding humanity. However, they are very difficult to understand for common visitors. We see traces of excavations and fragments of archaeological findings, but we do not grasp their meaning. Interactive digital storytelling has potential to present the significance of these sites and make them attractive and educational at the same time. We will show this through the case study of Crvena stijena in Montenegro, presented in a Virtual Reality application. Through interactive stories, gameplay and digital replicas of archaeological findings the users obtain better perception of the physical site and are attracted to visit the museum.
Virtual Reality is a technology of choice for time traveling. VR applications enhance museum collections and cultural heritage sites with exciting opportunity to experience the life in the past. Da Vinci Effect (DVE) is a multiplayer VR game for teenagers aiming to introduce them with works of Leonardo da Vinci and his paramount role in history of mankind. In this paper we present the process of application design and development, as well as the users' impressions showing how powerful Virtual Reality is in edutainment of young generations. We describe the novel approach which utilizes the ''inside-out'' tracking capabilities of the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 mobile VR headsets.
A rapid increase in development and use of Extended Reality applications for all areas of life is expected in metaverse age. Many museums are in the last decade introducing digital content in their exhibitions. They hired digital curators to establish connection with developers and IT industry. Extended Reality technologies enable museum visitors to experience the topics of exhibitions, see original appearances of exhibits and travel to the past through Virtual Reality headsets or Augmented Reality applications on mobile devices. In this paper we show an example of good practice, describing the application Battle on Neretva VR installed in the Museum in Jablanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. We present the application design and development workflow and show the impressions of museum management and visitors after introducing it in the exhibition. This workflow can be replicated to any museum topic or collection.
Virtual Reality (VR) storytelling enhances the immersion of users into virtual environments (VE). Its use in virtual cultural heritage presentations helps the revival of the genius loci (the spirit of the place) of cultural monuments. This paper aims to show that the use of actors in VR storytelling adds to the quality of user experience and improves the edutainment value of virtual cultural heritage applications. We will describe the Baiae dry visit application which takes us to a time travel in the city considered by the Roman elite as “Little Rome (Pusilla Roma)” and presently is only partially preserved under the sea.
Interactive digital storytelling has become a popular method for virtual cultural heritage presentations. Combinations of stories and 3D virtual reconstructions are attractive for the audience and have high edutainment values. In this paper we investigate if 360 degrees VR videos further contribute to user immersion in the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. It describes a case study of the Mostar bridge diving project, aimed to present and preserve the bridge diving tradition from the Old Bridge in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a virtual reality application which enables the user to virtually jump off the bridge after watching 360 degrees video stories about its history and the bridge diving tradition and upon successfully completing the quiz evaluation of the knowledge gained from the stories. The user experience evaluation study shows that our method was successful in preserving a form of intangible heritage and posits suggestions that can be used in developing an intangible heritage preservation framework.
In our research we address the common and important problem of measuring users’ experience in multimedia cultural heritage applications. Our objective is to develop a simple and efficient instrument capable to highlight both main qualities and major difficulties in using such applications for different types of users. We address specific objectives of usability for multimedia cultural heritage applications: immersion and edutainment. In addition to identifying best features and flaws, the results of measurement provide a tool for a comparison of different applications.
A team of multidisciplinary experts from computer science, visual arts, literature, film directing, psychology, communicology and human computer interaction developed a new interactive digital storytelling method - hyper storytelling. Hyper storytelling offers a solution for narrative paradox in introducing motivation factor into interactive digital story. In this paper we present Kyrenia - the first hyper storytelling application. Its purpose is to introduce the Internet users with the oldest sunken ship from 280 B.C., found in 1975 near Kyrenia, Cyprus.
Interactive digital storytelling becomes a form of information presentation in many fields. Its application spans from media industry through digital cultural heritage, serious games, information visualization to contemporary theater and visual arts. In order to develop a new digital storytelling methodology hyper-storytelling, we engaged a team of multidisciplinary experts from computer science, visual arts, literature, film directing, psychology, communicology and human computer interaction. In this paper we present the first findings of this team in form of guidelines for interactive digital storytelling presentations of cultural heritage.
Commercial sea routes joining Europe with other cultures are vivid examples of cultural interaction. In this work, we present a serious game which aims to provide better insight and understanding of seaborne trade mechanisms and seafaring practices in the eastern Mediterranean during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. The game incorporates probabilistic geospatial analysis of possible ship routes through the re-use and spatial analysis from open GIS maritime, ocean, and weather data. These routes, along with naval engineering and sailing techniques from the period, are used as underlying information for the seafaring game. This work is part of the EU-funded project iMareCulture whose purpose is in raising the European identity awareness using maritime and underwater cultural interaction and exchange in the Mediterranean sea.
Implementation of natural interactive online 3D visualization is difficult process. To keep people interested in virtual heritage the new ways of immersive interaction must be developed. This paper presents a solution for natural interaction with 3D objects in virtual environments using Android device over WiFi. It describes the principles and concepts of functioning of individual components as well as the principles of operation after the integration of all components into a single software solution.
Digital technologies are an efficient tool for visualization and presentation of the virtual objects. Interaction with the virtual objects for their presentation can be very important, especially in a domain of the presentation of cultural heritage. Implementation of natural interactive online 3D visualization is difficult process. This paper describes the interaction techniques for manipulating 3D objects. The paper gives one solution for natural interaction with virtual objects using Leap Motion as a sensor and WebGL for presenting virtual hand and 3D objects.
Digital technologies prove to be a very efficient tool in enhancing museum exhibitions. In this paper we describe the Interactive Sarajevo City Model project. It is an application which shows a digital version of Sarajevo old town physical model which represents the appearance of the city during the Ottoman period. Instead of pointing out particular cultural heritage objects in the physical model, the curators and museum visitors can click on the corresponding info points in the application and obtain the information about those objects and their history. The paper presents the application development workflow together with some issues within the standalone implementation and user perception of such enhanced museum exhibition.
Once upon a time in a small city of Sjenica, Serbia, there was a fortress. The Ottoman Sultan Murat IV has built it to protect and control this important region. Today at that location there is an elementary school. There is no trace of the fortress neither at the place nor in the memory of people. But, an old man still remembers it from his childhood. In this paper we describe how we recreated the cultural heritage object of Sultan Murat’s fortress in Sjenica from storytelling. We present the created interactive multimedia application and the impressions of Sjenica citizens after a part of their history was returned to their collective memory.
During the Ottoman period, Taslihan was the largest accommodation complex in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today, only one wall remains as a memento of its existence. In this paper, we compare user appreciation of an interactive digital story about this building and of a serious game about Taslihan to see which application offers more knowledge and immersion while bringing this monument to life in the collective memory of the people.
Virtual 3D reconstructions of destroyed or disappeared cultural heritage enable the users to travel back through time and visualize monuments whose fragments they can see in museums or archaeological sites. A powerful way to convey information through 3D geometry is to add interactive digital storytelling to the virtual models. In this paper we present our work in interactive virtual cultural heritage applications with storytelling and show how the users appreciate this presentation form considering it as breathing life into 3D geometry. We describe the Taslihan project which consists of a documentary, interactive digital story and serious game about this valuable cultural monument from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, with only one wall remained as memento to its existence.
Understanding the past is one of the key factors of human culture. Cultural heritage contributes to the preservation of collective memory. It is difficult to imagine the original appearance of monuments while observing their archeological remains. Digital technologies are an efficient tool for visualization and multimedia presentation of cultural heritage. This paper describes the use of these technologies through the workflow of the White bastion 4D visualization project, from collecting information, through 3D modeling and texturing to interactive web implementation using the most advanced web 3D technologies. We discuss the advantages and drawbacks of each technology for this particular purpose.
For centuries Bosnia and Herzegovina has been a country where East meets the West. Therefore it is very rich with remains of various cultures, nations and religions. Some of these remains are in very bad condition, some have completely disappeared. Digital technologies offer a great potential in preservation and presentation of cultural heritage, enabling better understanding of the common past. This paper provides an overview of 10 years long work of researchers gathered around the Sarajevo Graphics Group and through their projects offers an insight into various applications of Internet and IC technology as a new media for cultural heritage presentation.
Virtual presentation of cultural heritage has shown a great potential in preservation of collective memory. The level of immersion that the visitor feels in a virtual environment is one of the key factors for the quality of his experience. Terrains are the most authentic elements of cultural heritage sites, as they rarely have been significantly changed through time. In this paper we explore the use of LiDAR based terrains in interactive virtual cultural heritage applications, considering the advantages and drawbacks of this approach. Our case study is the virtual presentation of the Early Christian Basilica in Cim near Mostar, created for the interactive exhibition “Keys to Rome”.
We present a method how to create locally and globally interesting stories for virtual museums in a relatively short time. The local interestingness is understood in a Koestlerian way (AH, AHA, HAHA bisociation effects). Global interestingness is achieved by discovering, within the given unique material, options for relating unrelated contexts, internal poetry and/or change of the narration mode. The craft of storytelling resulted in five short movies, completed during the South-East European Virtual Heritage School: Digital Storytelling for Virtual Museums. These „intereStories“ are intentionally aimed at overcoming multiple limitations of backtelling, frequent in virtual museums. The five themes include Bosnian blues Sevdah, fate of Sephardic Jews, existing and nonexisting urban area, and traditional Bosnian coffee. The stories were coauthored by 15 starting storytellers in groups (2-4 authors) in 5 days alongside with the 12 lectures on theory and narrative case studies from V-must network good practice. Besides the brainstormings, speed-up focused brainwritting feedback was provided twice: once for preexistent stories, second for betaversions. The final creations were produced in Adobe Premiere Pro and published at YouTube.
Current advancements in handheld computers in terms of hardware, opened the development possibilities for a lot of applications that demand high system performance. The following work focuses on enhancing the integration of augmented reality objects, and proposes improvements over the previous platform, such as: exposing the render engine to developers, introducing user interactivity components and optimising 3D objects’ database. The major contribution of our work is introducing better object rendering with high frame rate comparing to other commercial and non-commercial AR platforms.
Virtual museums enable Internet users to explore museum collections online. The question is how to enhance the viewer’s experience and learning in such environments. In the Sarajevo Survival Tools virtual museum we introduced a new concept of interactive digital storytelling that will enable the visitors to explore the virtual exhibits - objects from the siege of Sarajevo - guided by a digital story. This way the virtual museum visitors will learn about the context of the displayed objects and be motivated to explore all of them. In this paper we present the virtual environment we developed and our experience with it. The results from three empirical studies we conducted, indicate the positive influence of digital storytelling and sound effects on visitors’ perceptual response, resulting in increased motivation and enjoyment, and more effective information conveyance.
Virtual cultural heritage research in Bosnia and Herzegovina results with a number of virtual reconstructions and virtual museums (VM). Virtual Museums are online multimedia applications using various digital content and implementation technologies. This paper presents an overview of these technologies used in our projects and their efficiency from the user’s point of view.
Serious games are becoming increasingly popular in education, science, medicine, religion, engineering, and some other fields. Additionally, serious heritage games, including virtual reconstructions and museums, provide a good environment for a synthesis of serious games and cultural heritage. This may be used for education in form of edutainment, comprising various techniques, such as storytelling, visual expression of information, interactivity and entertainment. This paper demonstrates a new concept of using live virtual guides in Flash environment for cultural heritage virtual reconstruction. A pilot user study compares another approach using X3D environment, giving the advantages and disadvantages of our concept.
Virtual Museum of Bosnian Traditional Objects is a museum possible to visit from any place in the world. This museum is a virtual environment with the multimedia content. It contains the information on the artifacts, galleries of their photos, movies about their purpose and their virtual models. With this kind of museum it is possible to view the objects from all sides, as if we have them in our hands. In this paper we will present the background of this project, its implementation and give an overview of the created content.
The Church of the Holy Trinity in Mostar was one of the most beautiful monuments of the Orthodox culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today, it does not exist any more. It was completely destroyed in June 1992, as many cultural heritage monuments that were lost during the war. Sarajevo School of Science and Technology revived this monument in the public’s memory by means of a high quality interactive virtual environment (VE). With purpose to increase immersion of the users in VE and enable them to learn more about the history of the object and its savage destruction, we introduced two forms of storytelling in this project. The first one represents implementation of virtual guides/storytellers, and the second one a digital story. This paper will present few details about those forms of storytelling and their implementation.
The goal of our work is to present the application of the modern technologies and computer graphics algorithms in the field of cultural heritage reconstruction and its protection. Here we describe a methodology for digital 3D acquisition of the “Stećak” (Stećak – plural Stećci – specific Bosnian Middle Ages tombstones),with purpose of its study and presentation. 3D laser scanning technology has been selected as the most accurate technology available for replicating a complete sampling of the very complex Stećak’s surface. Afterwards, three algorithms for surface reconstruction were used to reconstruct its surface from point cloud data. This paper presents the results of that reconstruction and overview of various applications of reconstructed models.
Digitization of cultural heritage has a great importance for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many monuments are neglected or completely destroyed in the tragic war events. Virtual reconstructions revive destroyed cultural heritage objects in the public memory. Reconstructed objects are presented on the web using interactive multimedia virtual environments. Virtual museum contains the information on the artifacts, galleries of their photos, movies about their purpose and their virtual models. In such a museum visitors can virtually turn objects around and learn stories about them. In this paper we present the most recent projects implemented by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Sarajevo and Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, such as virtual reconstructions of Isa-bey tekija in Sarajevo and the Church of the Holy Trinity in Mostar and virtual museum of Bosnian traditional objects.
Digital storytelling significantly improves the immersion of the users into virtual environments. The perception of the information contained in the digital story is better perceived if the story is told by a real avatar, rather than the animated character. The paper describes how we improved the approach of inserting the real avatar recorded against a green screen using a sequence of images with an alpha channel in an X3D real time virtual environment.
The MSc study programme "Computer Graphics for the Media Industry" (CGMI) has been designed in response to a growing demand in the media industry for professionals who possess both advanced technical computing abilities and strong creative skills, blending computer science disciplines such as programming and
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country rich with both tangible and intangible heritage. Virtual Sarajevo project is an attempt to present the heritage from Sarajevo region on the Internet through panoramic photographs, video walkthroughs, virtual models of cultural heritage objects and stories about the important events and buildings. In this paper we will describe digital storytelling techniques we used in presenting these stories as elements of Bos-nian intangible cultural heritage. Our goal was to enable the viewer to perceive and enjoy the story in the same and even better way, as if he/she has heard it from a real storyteller. We used the elements of film language gram-mar to create digital stories with a good rhythm that would be attractive for the viewers. At the end, we will give an overview of our future work in the digital representation of the different categories of Bosnian intangible heritage.
Virtual heritage applications often contain stories related to the presented objects and environments. Digital storytelling enables us to tell the story using a variety of new media production practices. In this paper we explore how the quality of the story told by an animated character influences a viewer’s visual perception and investigate whether it is distractive enough to make him/her fail to notice any decrease in rendering quality. We created combinations of high and low quality stories in a virtual environment and rendered the scene at different rendering qualities. A user study was performed to verify our assumptions. The results show that when engaged by a high quality story, viewers are indeed unable to notice that the scene was rendered at a lower quality.
Our research focuses on increasing the effectiveness of computer graphics in conveying better information perception in avatar based applications of virtual cultural heritage. In this paper we describe how compositing techniques can be used to bring a real avatar into the virtual world and compare the effectiveness of real avatars to virtual avatars. We present results from a user study performed to show subject's responses to different avatars representations in the context of a questionnaire study. We focus on the amount of information the user can perceive from the avatar in the virtual heritage storytelling application.
High-fidelity facial animation, and in particular synchronizing speech with lip movement, requires a substantial amount of time and effort by skilled animators. In this paper we show how this effort can be reduced by automatic keyframe generation and preprocessing the speech input using a neural network. Using this approach we are able to reduce the number of required visemes to just 4. Furthermore, we show that knowledge of the human visual system may be used to further reduce the overheads in creating perceptually high quality facial animations by taking advantage of attention distracters in a scene, including subtitles, exaggerated emotions and the presence of an unknown language. An eye-tracking study is used to confirm that the quality of a facial animation can be significantly reduced, with a resultant saving in an animator’s time and efficiency, without the viewer being aware of this quality reduction.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is very rich with cultural heritage sites. Perhaps the most famous of these are the stecaks; the monumental gravestones of Bosnian Heretic Christians. The orientation of the stećaks was important to the ancient Bosnians, Unfortunately, their orientation towards the sun has been changed when they were moved from their original locations to more secure sites at museums. This is particularly true of the stećak from Donje Zgosce, one of the most beautiful stećaks in B&H. Using high-fidelity graphics techniques we have created a detailed virtual reconstruction of this stećak and produced a sun simulation in Maya This enables archaeologists to be able to investigate the interaction of the light with the stećak’s carvings as it may have appeared in 14th century.
In terms of reducing efforts of an animator in creating facial animation keyframes we developed a system for automatic keyframe generation using MaxScript control script. Input parameter for the script is a parameter file containing phonemes of the prerecorded soundtrack and their durations. Recognition of phonemes is done by an LVQ neural network. After keyframes are created by the script, the animator is able to perform fine tuning and adding facial expressions of the emotions.
Accurate facial animation is rapidly becoming a key feature in computer animation, from movie production to software agents. A lot of practical work in computer animation presently is done by 3ds max software. An advantage of this system is that one of the hardest part of an animator’s work, creating key frames based on prerecorded soundtrack, can be automated using MaxScript control script. However, to achieve realistic results, any generated facial animations must be manually fine tuned by adding facial expressions and emotions. This paper analyses different methods for reducing the problem of phonemes in speech animation for virtual characters. Through examples created using a control parametrization approach, the paper discusses different levels of phoneme reduction, their look and application in several areas of computer animation production.
Paper describes computer graphics application in broadcast design, from basic concepts, through presentation forms to hardware and software for its implementation. There are some limitations appearing when digital signal is broadcasted on analog TV set. Final synthesis of television media and computer graphics is digital television. Transfer to digital television removes previous limitations.
In this paper we described Water quality measurement and monitoring system. System contains graphic representation of acquisition points on Bosnia and Herzegovina map linked with acquisition database records for the points. Through graphic user interface could be approached to acquisition points and get the data for particular time interval. (Precise data on paper publication date and place are lost in Bosnian war events)
Paper describes reasoning processes in DIPSY-E tool for expert systems development. Temporal and spatial reasoning is implemented using fuzzy data and neural networks. Local conferences:
Rad prikazuje primjenu tehnika uvećane realnosti (augmented reality – AR) u rekonstrukciji i prezentaciji urbanih cjelina putem aplikacija na mobilnim uređajima i konzervaciji njihovog izgleda tokom vremena.
Digitalizacijom objekata koji su od izuzetne važnosti za kulturnu baštinu, omogućeno je da se na osnovu virtuelnog 3D modela objekta, pomoću 3D printera izradi njegov fizički model. Na taj način objekti koji danas više ne postoje, ili koji su oštećeni, oživljavaju i ne padaju u zaborav. 3D modeli objekata kulturne baštine se mogu iskoristiti za izradu suvenira, maketa za edukacijske, prezentacijske, protokolarne, komercijalne svrhe. Cilj ovog rada je da se definišu i opišu osnovni koncepti, primjena, prednosti i nedostaci rapid prototyping tehnologija. Naglasak je na 3D print tehnologiji i njenoj primjeni na polju očuvanja kulturne baštine. U tu svrhu, urađena je i case studija sa detaljnim opisom svih faza procesa 3D printanja modela Isa-begove tekije, objekta izuzetnog značaja za kulturnu baštinu BiH, koji danas više ne postoji.
Nakon zatvaranja, muzejska izložba prestaje da živi, a vrijedni eksponati idu na depo. Virtuelna izložba omogućava da eksponati, putem Interneta, budu dostupni publici. Koristeći tehnologije računarske grafike, kao što su 3D modeliranje i kreiranje virtuelne realnosti kreira se virtuelno okruženje koje kod korisnika stvara utisak prisustva kao na stvarnoj izložbi. Cilj ovog rada jeste da se prikaže kako se, koristeći alat 3D Studio Max, kreira virtuelno okruženje, te na koji način kreirani model postaje interaktivan, što će biti prikazano kroz primjer kreiranja virtuelne izložbe Sarajevo birvaktile.
Rad se bavi mogućnostima programa za obradu poligonskih mreža MeshLab. Pod upoznavanjem sa mogućnostima se podrazumijeva opis samog programa, usporedba sa drugim programskim paketima za obradu poligonskih mreža, izrada case studije na primjeru laserski skenirane mangale, te analiza prednosti i mana ovog softvera.
Augmented reality (AR) je oblast kompjuterske grafike koja se bavi kombinacijom realnih i kompjuterski generisanih podataka (virtuelna realnost), gdje su kompjuterski generisani objekti stopljeni sa realnim svijetom u realnom vremenu. U ovom radu AR tehnike su primijenjene na 3D model rekonstrukcije rimske vile na Ilidži, te predstavljene prednosti i mane dobivenih rezultata. Cilj nam je da omogućimo korisniku sa mobilnim uređajem da na ekranu vidi objekat koji više ne postoji. Case studija je realizovana pomoću Layar aplikacije za Android mobilne telefone. Kao prva AR aplikacija u Bosni i Hercegovini, ovaj rad daje smjernice za buduće projekte i otvara ovu oblast za daljnja istraživanja.
Crkva Sv. Marije i toranj Sv. Luke su vrijedni objekti kulturnog naslijeđa u Jajcu. Virtuelna rekonstrukcija ovih objekata bice prikazana na Internetu korištenjem Shockvawe tehnologije. U ovom radu uspoređujemo ovaj metod sa standardnim web 3D tehnologijama kao što je VRML i diskutujemo o prednostima i nedostacima jednog i drugog pristupa.
Saborna crkva u Sarajevu izgrađena je 1874. godine i predstavlja jedan od najvažnijih spomenika pravoslavne kulture u BiH. Sarajevska škola za nauku i tehnologiju u okviru svojih aktivnosti na digitalizaciji i prezentaciji objekata kulturnog naslijedja u BiH pokrenula je i realizovala projekat Multimedijalne 3D prezentacije i 3D štampe Saborne crkve u Sarajevu. U okviru projekta kreirana je visokokvalitetna multimedijalna prezentacija objekta, enterijera i eksterijera, web prezentacija (website), DVD prezentacija, panoramske fotografije i fizički 3D model, prototip za kreiranje suvenira. Proces rada na projektu biće opisan u okviru ove prezentacije.
U okviru laboratorijskih vježbi iz predmeta Numerička grafika i animacija, koji se predaje na prvoj godini postdiplomskog studija na Elektrotehničkom fakultetu u Sarajevu, kreiran je projekat Digitalni katalog stećaka. Ovaj projekat predstavlja digitalizaciju stećaka i ostalih eksponata iz kolekcije Zemaljskog muzeja u Sarajevu metodom unaprijeđene fotogrametrije. U radu ćemo prezentirati urađeni projekat i mogućnosti njegove primjene u očuvanju kulturnog naslijeđa.
U procesu kreiranja Virtualnog muzeja sarajevskog atentata izvršena je digitalizacija pojedinih eksponata. Među tim eksponatima su i statue Franca Ferdinanda i njegove supruge Sofije. Ovaj rad opisuje proces modeliranja tih likova i njihove odjeće korištenjem Autodesk 3ds max i Autodesk Maya softverskih paketa, te korištenje web 3D tehnologija u prezentaciji dobijenog 3D sadržaja na Internetu, kao i moguće dodatne primjene ovih modela u procesu animirane rekonstrukcije čina atentata.
Spomenik prestolonasljedniku Francu Ferdinandu i njegovoj supruzi Sofiji Kotek podignut je 1916. godine, na lijevom uglu mosta Latinska ćuprija. Već 1919. uklonile su ga vlasti Kraljevine SHS. Temelji spomenika bili su vidljivi do rekonstrukcije mosta 2004. godine, kao i klupe na desnoj strani mosta koje su i danas vidljive. U okviru projekta „Virtualni muzej Sarajevskog atentata“ kreiran je interaktivni 3D model ovog objekta od laserskog skena sačuvanog dijela i dodatne 3D geometrije. Opis procesa izrade ovog modela i njegova primjena u okviru projekta biće opisani u ovom radu.
Bosna i Hercegovina je zemlja u kojoj različite nacije i religije vijekovima žive u međusobnom poštovanju i koegzistenciji. To je razlog postojanja riznice materijalnog i nematerijalnog kulturnog naslijeđa. Na žalost, materijalno kulturno naslijeđe propada pod zubom vremena, a mnogi objekti su uništeni u ratu. Nematerijalno kulturno naslijeđe živi u ljudskom sjećanju samo ako je na neki način zabilježeno. Sarajevo Graphics Group nudi efikasan način za zaštitu kulturnog naslijeđa – pretvaranje u digitalni oblik. U ovom radu pokazaćemo kako su naši projekti virtualne rekonstrukcije i multimedijalne prezentacije objekata kulturnog naslijeđa doprinijeli njihovoj popularizaciji i omogućili njihovo očuvanje u digitalnom obliku. Virtuelni muzej BH tradicionalnih predmeta pokazuje kako se naše kulturno naslijeđe prikazuje svjetskoj javnosti na Internetu.
U okviru naučno istraživačkog rada iz digitalizacije kulturnog naslijeđa u BiH, ostvareno je partnerstvo sa Pravoslavnom Crkvom kroz dva projekta: Virtuelnu rekonstrukcija Crkve Sv. Trojice u Mostaru i Multimedijalna prezentacija i maketa Saborne crkve u Sarajevu.
Isa-begova tekija na Bentbaši više na postoji. Virtuelna 3D rekonstrukcija korištenjem tehnika kompjuterske grafike omogucava vizualizaciju ovog objekta
Virtual reality is becoming an increasingly important part of research in sphere of computer graphics. New web technologies, optimized tools and affordable devices, are made to make the advent of 3D graphics a reality. In this paper we will present pros and cons of XVR, a new technology used for developing advanced multimedia content. XVR is developed to make it possible to deploy easily any kind of advanced 3D content on web pages.
Srušena tokom rata, Crkva Svete Trojice u Mostaru još uvijek nije rekonstruisana. Cilj našeg projekta jeste rekonstruisanje najveće pravoslavne crkve u BiH, i to njeno rekonstruisanje u virtuelnom, 3D obliku korištenjem tehnika kompjuterske grafike. Pristup realizaciji ovog projekta se ogleda u prikupljanju podataka o crkvi, modeliranju spoljašnjosti i unutrašnjosti crkve, vizualizaciji pomoću Radiance-a i Maxwella, komparaciji ovih tehnika, i na kraju web implementaciji u obliku web stranice sa dodatnim podacima o objektu. Ovim projektom omogućiti će se virtuelna posjeta Crkvi Svete Trojice u Mostaru, njen obilazak svana i iznutra, i informisanje o samoj crkvi. Najbitniji aspekt ovog projekta jeste nastojanje virtuelnog rekonstruisanja i očuvanja Crkve Svete Trojice u Mostaru kao bosansko-hercegovačkog vjerskog, ali i kulturno-historijskog naslijeđa. U radu je opisan dosadašnji tok projekta i naznake njegovog daljeg razvoja.
Proces digitalizacije objekata kulturnog naslijeđa je jedan od najboljih načina da se objekti očuvaju i efikasno prezentiraju javnosti. Trodimenzionalna digitalizacija generalno predstavlja kreiranje 3D modela objekta. To je moguće učiniti uz upotrebu velikog broja tehnika i tehnologija, te raznovrsnih alatki i softverskih paketa. Međutim, ponekad su objekti suviše složeni za kvalitetno modeliranje, posebno kada na sebi imaju komplikovane ornamente. Tada se pribjegava upotrebi tehnika 3D laserskog skeniranja. Trodimenzionalno lasersko skeniranje je kreiranje 3D modela uz pomoć 3D skenera. Korištenjem laserske triangulacije, 3D skener formira površinu iz oblaka tačaka. Proces se sastoji iz više prolaza po različitim dijelovima objekta, koji se poslije spajaju u jedinstven 3D model. On se zatim može uvesti u softver za 3D modeliranje i dalje obraditi, tj pomoću tehnika virtualne realnosti prezentirati na Internetu. Replika objekta se može kreirati u procesu 3D štampe. Cilj prezentacije je predstavljanje svih koraka procesa laserskog skeniranja.
Digitalizacija materijalnog i nematerijalnog kulturnog naslijeđa postaje sve popularnija oblast u kompjuterskoj grafici. Digitalizovani materijal se prezentira na Internetu u obliku virtualnih gradova i virtualnih muzeja. Rad opisuje digitalizaciju kulturnog naslijeđa grada Sarajeva u okviru II faze projekta “Virtuelno Sarajevo”. Ovaj projekat na Internet stranici prezentira panoramske fotografije, video prolaze kroz ulice, priče i virtuelne modele objekata kulturnog naslijeđa. U radu su opisane tehnike koje su korištene u digitalizaciji i smještanju ovih podataka u bazu, te web implementacija cijelog projekta.
Bosna i Hercegovina je nastala u 11 stoljeću. Bogata i turbulentna historija ove zemlje, gdje se sreću Istok i Zapad, ostavila je mnogobrojne objekte kulturnog naslijeđa različitih kultura i religija. Danas je potrebno sačuvati to kulturno naslijeđe za buduće generacije. Cilj projekta Virtuelno Sarajevo – Baščaršija je da prezentira stari dio grada Sarajeva posjetiocima putem Interneta. Sadržaj kreiran za ovu prezentaciju je multimedijalan i sastoji se od panoramskih fotografija, video prolaza, priča o mjestima i događajima i interaktivnih 3D modela objekata kulturnog nasijeđa. Ovaj rad prezentira proces kreiranja interaktivnog modela objekta kulturnog naslijeđa. Proces počinje sa istraživanjem podataka o objektu, prikupljanjem materijala i pravljenjem detaljnih fotografija. Sljedeća faza je kreiranje visokokvalitetnog 3D modela. Da bismo prikazali taj model na Internetu, on se mora optimizirati. Konačno, model postaje interaktivan izvozom u VRML jezik i dodavanjem nodova sa informacijama. Sada se interaktivni model može istraživati i pregledati pomoću odgovarajućeg VRML browser softvera. Svi koraci u ovom procesu su ilustrirani u radu na primjerima kreiranja interaktivnih 3D modela.
Day by day, 3D and virtual models are becoming increasingly popular in the graphic industry and many other fields. Bosnia and Herzegovina and, in particular Sarajevo, have a lot of objects that are considered to be a part of world cultural heritage importance. Many of these object were destroyed during the war in the 1990s and are still waiting for reconstruction. One way to preserve these objects and their importance is to virtually reconstruct and present them on the internet. Internet presentation has as one of its key problems, model size which can be tackled by optimization. The goal of such techniques is to optimize a model but to avoid any perceivable quality loss. In this paper we explore the treshold of human visual perception and how this can be used in optimizing a detailed model of the Sarajevo City Hall.
Virtual cultural heritage is becoming a very important subject in computer graphics. In order to preserve and present the heritage sites and objects to the public, virtual cities and museums are created. The contents presented is multimedial. In our Virtual Sarajevo project we created panoramic photographs, video walkthroughs, audio-video clips and virtual 3D models of the objects in the old part of Sarajevo – Bascarsija. The paper describes the techniques used in the multimedial contents creation, the data structures for its storing and the web implementation of the project’s site.
Recent developments in computer visualisation are providing powerful tools for modelling multi-dimensional aspects of the data collected by archaeologists and historians. Computer graphics techniques are increasingly being used to reconstruct and visualise features of cultural heritage sites which may otherwise be difficult to appreciate. While this new perspective may enhance our understanding of the environments in which our ancestors lived, if we are to avoid misleading impressions of a site, then the computer generated images should not only look "real", but must simulate accurately all the physical evidence for the site being modelled. The aim of realistic image synthesis is the creation of such accurate, high quality imagery which faithfully represents a physical environment, the ultimate goal being to create images which are perceptually indistinguishable from an actual scene. Bosnia and Herzegovina is very rich with the cultural heritage sites. The paper describes a pipeline of high fidelity graphics techniques for virtual reconstruction of Bosnian Stećak from Donje Zgošće gravestone.
Human face modeling and speech animation is explored for a long time among computer graphics scientists. Widest application of speech animation is in advertising and film industry and computer games production. Speech animation of 3D model in 3ds max is done by using Morpher modifier. Model of the head is copied and modified to match particular phonemes and expressions. This copies are called visemes. Visemes are loaded as Morpher modifier targets. Morpher modifier transforms head model from one viseme to another. Animation could be projected upon soundtrack of prerecorded speech. This paper offers an answer to a question whether is possible to program a plug-in for automatic speech animation in MaxScript scripting language based on input text or sound file.
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