Long-term digital preservation: preserving authenticity and usability of 3-D data

Long-term digital preservation, the process of maintaining digital objects through time to ensure continued access, has become a crucial issue in recent years. Whilst the amount of digitised information is constantly increasing, so too is the pace of progress in information technology, resulting in obsolescence of the software and hardware required to access and view digital information. Despite many organisations recognising this threat and the resulting need for preservation action, more work is required to effectively address the issue. We present in this article a framework for the long-term digital preservation of 3-D data. This framework is based on two pertinent preservation practices, emulation and metadata which ensure that the authenticity and usability, respectively, of a preserved digital object remain intact through time. An evaluation of our framework is presented which illustrates the viability of our approach in retaining accessibility, authenticity and usability for future end users.