The project aims to create a virtual museological prototype to illustrate to a specialist and non-specialist public the lifestyles of a medieval population, using the tools offered by the Reverse Engineering acquisition and modelling techniques and by mixed reality (interactable holographic objects). The virtual tool we propose must be integrated into the overall experience of university museums and must be read as a complementary extension of a direct experience that cannot be totally replaced, but whose limits can be overcome. An exhibition case can contain only a limited number of information, while in a virtual set it is possible to view many and interact with them. The museum object can be examined from all perspectives, it can be manipulated by the viewer, it can also be connected to other objects with which it can engage in a dialogue. Furthermore, we do not have to identify a specific type of user of the virtual tool, because it is open to different possibilities of in-depth study and to the creation of 'personalized' paths.
Starting from the case studies of an adult male and a female individual from Cencelle (Grande Scavo Sapienza), with particular characteristics of historico-medical, archaeological and paleopathological interest, we intend to create at the Museum of the History of Medicine a station where, within the path dedicated to medieval medicine, it will be possible to interact with the skeletal remains of the individuals, investigating aspects of daily life, eating habits, working conditions and health.
Informations about individuals will come from a study characterized by high levels of interdisciplinary interaction, involving medical historians, archaeologists, museum experts, engineers, anthropologists, and physicians.
Our Project intends to be the first step for the creation of a start-up Sapienza, widely usable in research and medical history and archaeology teaching experiences but also exportable to different areas and museums.
The proposed research is very ambitious due to the extremely interdisciplinary approach based on highly interconnected analyses related to medical humanities, archaeology, bioarchaeology, palaeopathology, archaeobotany/zoology, ancient genomics, who are joined by "information science specialists" and technicians capable of devising technical systems that do not depend on market rules and that are specifically designed to give value to Sapienza's 'invisible' biological and cultural objects. The modeling of complex biological, ambiental and socio-cultural traits in order to characterize the response to traumatic stress in medieval individuals represents a truly innovative approach, opening up new scenarios.
The participation of a diversity of cultural skills and practices, to which technology offers the chance of an interaction that makes a new interpretation of biological and cultural heritage possible, is aimed at offering powerful experiences through immersive storytelling, capable of reconstructing lost contexts and biomedical evidence for the visitors. While the rich heritage of 'real' objects in Sapienza museums is undeniable and, to a certain extent, underrepresented and still unknown to the public, this project aims at creating a prototype of virtual historical and medical reconstruction, to explore and test the potentialities of virtual and reconstructed objects and contents. The virtual models we wish to create, with the connected modalities of deepening thematic issues, allow the personalizations of the museum experience and its fruition also outside the physical context of the museum and guarantee their potential applicability to different university museums, which will be able to use the technology to illustrate works of art, biological finds, or to reconstruct lost contexts. Shaping the future with new technologies allows implementing new methods to solve everyday life problem in a quicker and simpler way. A useful technology is the Mixed Reality (MR) that to represent 3D object blended with the real world. The Head-Mounted-Device, HoloLens, through the transparent glasses make possible provides to display the holograms; meanwhile the user is still able to see the background. In addition, the MR includes a series of basic interactions with which the user can manipulate or interact directly with the hologram by using hands or voice inputs.
This is provided by:
· RE acquisitions of finds related to 2/3 selected skeletal individuals
· CAD applications to speed up the process of feature recognition, measure and reconstruction
· Input files for mixed reality and numerical data to support the storytelling
The RE acquisition of finds and their automatic post-processing through measures and CAD reconstructions such as assembly, provide advantages in the work organisation of researchers
Through the MR is conceivable to realize more inclusive and collaborative application that permit the possibility to generate collaborative spaces in which the users in different places or geographical area can work together in real-time. The user can be displayed from others through a personalized avatar or as a holographic representation of themselves (holoportation). Furthermore, to make more realistic the movements of the avatar, it can be synchronized with all the user¿s actions by means of sensors of the HoloLens that are able to track the eyes, the hands and the head. The potentiality of a collaborative space means to share with all the participants of the meeting one or more objects in real-time with which all the collaborators can work on it at the same time. Therefore, all the users are able to see and interact with the located objects by moving, rotating or scaling the holographic objects. Likewise, they can add some annotations that the entire group is able to see and read.
In addition to this, the virtual dimension will allow the creation of a new Bioarcheological Open Data platform that can serve both as a database open to free consultation by specialists from different disciplinary areas and as a useful distance learning tool for students. The virtual consultation of bioarchaeological materials is even more appropriate in this era of Covid-19, ensuring the fruition of materials that were hardly accessible even before the pandemic.
This focus also includes a view towards how to improve health conditions, due to the fact that Cluster 2 of the Horizon Europe Programme, considering the high level of integration between the human and biomedical sciences present in the project, will be connected to Cluster 1 "Health Global Challenges and Areas of intervention" specifically with the following objective "Unlocking the full potential of new tools, technologies and digital solutions for a healthy society" in order to develop activities aimed at implementing a spectrum of tools and technologies for biomedical research thanks to powerful digital solutions that use big data processing.