Virtual Encyclopaedia of the Bulgarian Iconography

East-Christian icon art is recognised as one of the most significant areas of the art of painting. Regrettably, it is still being neglected in the digital documentation and the registry of the art of painting. The accessibility to that large part of mankind's cultural and historical ancestry would be enhanced greatly if icons of all possible kinds and origins were digitised, classified, and „exhibited“ in the Internet. That would allow the preservation and even the future digital restoration of a large number of rare specimens of the East-Christian art of painting. This article aims to introduce how modern techniques from the area of digital libraries can be used for implementing the demonstrative multimedia library “Virtual encyclopaedia of the Bulgarian iconography ” 4, containing a large number of Bulgarian iconic art masterpieces and iconography of various authors, periods and schools.

Moving Boundary: A Virtual Museum of the Ethnic Groups

The virtual museum of ethnic groups “Moving boundary” is a proposition for dialogue on an important topic in today's world – ethnic coexistence. The project's goal is to make various resources (photos, documents, etc.) available for use by teachers, professors and students, thus forming and strengthening connections between educational institutions.

Knowledge-based Virtual Reconstruction of Museum Artifacts

Within the framework of heritage preservation, 3D scanning and modeling for heritage documentation has increased significantly in recent years, mainly due to the evolution of laser and image-based techniques, modeling software, powerful computers and virtual reality. 3D laser acquisition constitutes a real development opportunity for 3D modeling based previously on theoretical data. The representation of the object information rely on the knowledge of its historic and theoretical frame to reconstitute a posteriori its previous states. This project proposes an approach dealing with data extraction based on architectural knowledge and Laser statement informing measurements, the whole leading to 3D reconstruction. The experimented Khmer objects are exposed at Guimet museum in Paris. The purpose of this digital modeling meets the need of exploitable models for simulation projects, prototyping, exhibitions, promoting cultural tourism and particularly for archiving against any likely disaster and as an aided tool for the formulation of virtual museum concept.

Virtual Reconstruction of the Ancient Russian Fortress Koporye

One of the major strategic tasks in Russia’s northwest of the past centuries was the defense of the country’s territories from enemy incursions coming from the West. In order to solve this task, a robust shield in the form of a system of fortresses was created between the 13th and 15th centuries. The system included such fortresses as Koporye, Yam, Korela, Oreshek, and others. In our age, these monuments have become an essential part of Russia’s historic and cultural heritage and an important element of the tourism cluster “The Silver Ring of Russia.” The Centre of Design and Multimedia at St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, jointly with the Department of History and the Faculty of Arts at St. Petersburg State University, working under a three-year grant from the Russian Foundation for Humanities Research (#12-01-12041), is implementing a multimedia information system “Ancient Fortresses of Russia’s Northwest”. Historically accurate virtual reconstruction of several fortresses as they existed during certain historic periods, done in such a way as to allow the future creation of virtual tours of these sites, has become the focus of this project’s research. In the present paper, we describe the main phases and results of virtual reconstruction of the best-preserved fortress, Koporye.