DIGIMUSE: an interactive telerobotic system for remote viewing of three-dimensional art objects

As part of a joint project with the Fisher Art Gallery at USC, we have constructed a teleoperated robotic Web site that allows for remote positioning and binocular viewing of statues and other non-planar art objects. This system has been designed to provide interactive remote access to 3D art objects in real time, so that anyone with a Web connection and a head mounted display can view and study binocular images of art objects anywhere in the world, A pair of video cameras, carried by a robot arm, are aimed at the statue which rests on a rotary table. The combination of table rotation and robotic camera positioning make it possible to observe the work of art from any desired position and orientation. The opening exhibit of the USC Digital Museum features a life size marble statue called the 'Drinking Maiden', by the German sculptor Ernst Gustav Alexander Wenck. We use a 6 degree of freedom robot arm and a linked vergence head to position two CCD cameras. The statue is placed on a rotating platform that can be commanded to one of 12 positions. The robotic is controlled via a graphical, user friendly interface written in Java, which allows the user to position the cameras anywhere in the allowed workspace of the robot. Once the positions of the cameras are established, the system takes two pictures of the statue and returns them to the user, while simultaneously composing a stereo image suitable for viewing with an HMD. The paper describes the hardware and software architecture of the system and its major features.