INFO-I 487 INTRODUCTION TO VIRTUAL HERITAGE (3 CR.)
This course focuses on how digital technology can represent, restore, disseminate, and help with analysis of artifacts such as vases, furniture, sculpture, monuments, and buildings. Other topics covered include the history and methodologies of Virtual Heritage. Each semester a different case study will provide the focus for the course.
1 classes found
Fall 2025
| Component | Credits | Class | Status | Time | Day | Facility | Instructor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LEC | 3 | 9770 | Open | 11:10 a.m.–12:30 p.m. | TR | IF 1019 | Guidi G |
Thirteen Week / In Person
LEC 9770: Total Seats: 21 / Available: 10 / Waitlisted: 0
Lecture (LEC)
- Above class meets for the thirteen week session
- Above class meets with INFO-I 587
This course introduces the field of Virtual Heritage, involving 3D technologies to document, digitally restore, recontextualize, and analyze cultural heritage artifacts on all scales, from the very small (e.g., a vase) to the very large (a house, settlement, or entire landscape). We will show the best practice standards in the field, learn about the history of the field, and gain knowledge of some of the basic tools we typically use, especially for 3D documentation and restoration. In 2025, the course will use the ¿Medici Venus¿ sculpture as its case study. Casts of that sculpture¿s torso and right hand are preserved at the Virtual Heritage Lab of IU and will be used for the student¿s training. You will learn how to use photogrammetry to capture 3D data of a three-dimensional work of art such as a sculpture or fragments of it. The course will show how to take the raw photographic data and use photogrammetric software to make a reality-based polygonal model. Next, you will be taught how to use a general-purpose 3D modeling software to model the missing part of the sculpture and transform it into a rigged model for handling the figure pose. Then you will see how to integrate a reality-based model with a hand-modeled shape to implement a digital repair of the artifact by supplementing missing elements such as limbs, head, etc. Such restoration will include painting the artifact in its original colors. Finally, you will learn how to publish the resulting 3D digital models on the Internet with appropriate metadata and paradata.