Augmenting painted architectures for communicating cultural heritage

Abstract

The paper presents a research under development at the University of Trieste to analyze a painted architecture by Paolo Veronese and to present the results using AR systems (Augmented Reality Systems). The canvas was painted in 1573 and it is now at the Gallerie dell’Accademia Museum in Venice. The aim of the research was to transform a two-dimensional work of art in a three dimensional one, allowing all the visitors of a museum to enter the space of the representation and perceive it in a more direct way. After the geometrical analysis of the picture, we started the digital restitution of the perspective references and proceed to model the virtual scene using Boolean primitives and applying all the textures to render the scene in a very realistic way. The further step was to convert the model into a dynamic form with AR algorithms and associate it with spatial references to allow users to do a virtual experience of it.