Evocative virtual exploration of underwater sites: issues and approaches
Manuela Ritondale, Gaia Pavoni, Roberto Scopigno, Marco Callieri, Matteo Dellepiane
Abstract The preservation in-situ and the use of non-intrusive technologies are prior principles in the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage of 2001, thus introducing new challenges for the management of the underwater sites. The latter include the need to reach a high quality level in the documentation using remote sensing techniques and the need to protect the sites although ensuring their full accessibility. Digital technologies have provided several solutions for the documentation, the visualization, the monitoring and the predictive analysis of CH sites. Nonetheless, a real time effective visualization of an underwater scene is much more complex than the navigation on the ground, due to the presence of all the light effects introduced by water as a transmission medium (absorption, turbidity, caustics, scattering...). The aforementioned technical constraints might affect the perception of the public. This work aims to summarize the main issues and directions for an effective (not necessarily naturalistic) virtual exploration of underwater sites, and to propose further options for a successful storytelling. In order to reach the goal, a number of aspects must be redesigned, thus taking also into account two different pivotal concepts which imply rather different approaches and solutions: that of immateriality and that of intangibility. Which kind of intangible relations are hidden behind archaeological objects? How can we display them? Is it possible to enable a material experience through virtual technologies? We try to face these issues and to propose solutions on a case-study related to a deep-water site.
