Integration issues for tools to create interactive Cultural Heritage experiences

Recent years have seen substantial efforts to produce tools which address individual sub-areas of the process of building an interactive virtual experience of a Cultural Heritage (CH) site and its artefacts. Research in shape representation and modelling has developed techniques for image based modelling, multi-resolution modelling, level of detail manipulation, and optimisation of rendering techniques. All of these must fit together efficiently and seamlessly in order to allow non-IT professionals to focus on the content creation of the experience rather than on the technology. In this paper, we report on some real issues which arise with the integration of modelling, interactive graphics, knowledge representation and language technologies and discuss some alternative strategies for addressing the issues.