3D Models on Triple Paths - New Pathways for Documenting and Visualizing Virtual Reconstructions

This paper presents the project “Virtual Reconstructions in Transnational Research Environments - the Portal: Palaces and Parks in Former East Prussia” in the light of the Semantic Web and Open Source technologies. The project examines the methodology of the computer-based 3D computer reconstruction of Cultural Heritage (CH) and the still unresolved questions of certification, classification, annotation, storage and visualization of 3D data sets. This multinational and interdisciplinary project is concerned with designing a Virtual Research Environment, based on interactive 3D objects being part of a semantic data model. Our approach effects the entire process of digital 3D reconstruction and requires the development of a data model, Cultural Heritage Markup Language (CHML) as groundwork for an application ontology for this kind of project. The preliminary results shed new light on areas such as effective data acquisition, documentation, semantic 3D modeling, data management, and 3D visualization. They may be useful for the creation of virtual museums and other forms of interactive presentation of CH that employ open source visualization platforms (e.g., WebGL technology).