3D-4CH

Online Competence Centre in 3D for Cultural Heritage

The Online Competence Centre in 3D for Cultural Heritage aims to be a vibrant hub, designed to transform how cultural heritage is preserved, digitized, and shared for educational and societal benefit. The online platform will bring together CHIs and researchers to unlock the potential of 3D technologies across four key pillars:

• Training and Capacity Building: Cultural professionals will be empowered with a suite of interactive online courses, in-person workshops, and immersive seasonal schools. 
• Services and Tools: A curated collection of cutting-edge resources, including guidelines, good practices, and state-of-the-art tools in 3D digitization, artificial intelligence (AI), and extended reality (XR) will be provided. 
• 3D Deployment: New 3D cultural assets will be created and existing ones will be enhanced, integrating standards for metadata and sustainable archiving. In this way, the Centre will contribute to a unified and accessible European cultural data space. In addition, we aim to develop new storytelling scenarios using 3D content in eXtended Reality (XR) to allow for immersive experiences for visitors.
• Research and Development: By collaborating with leading research initiatives in next-generation technologies, the Centre will ensure the seamless application of innovations to real-world cultural heritage challenges.

The value of 3D digitisation

Now that it is clear what will be done within the project, let’s take a step back and ask the main question: Why 3D digitisation? First of all, 3D technology offers valuable tools for preserving cultural heritage. They can be used to create highly detailed digital replicas of objects, which not only contribute to their preservation for future generations, but also offer protection against physical wear and tear and unexpected damage. 

Second, 3D digitizations open doors to make cultural heritage more accessible and visible. Digital contents can be viewed outside of the physical barriers of museums and archives, and can be taken into for instance classrooms and libraries. In addition, 3D objects can become part of a whole new world of heritage storytelling using XR to create virtual museums and heritage sites for immersive experiences. 

Large institutions often have the resources to work with advanced technologies to make use of the opportunities 3D content has to offer. Smaller heritage organizations, on the other hand, often lack the necessary expertise or financial resources to harness the potential of 3D for their collections. With 3D-4CH, we aim to make the technologies more accessible to all.

Role Sound & Vision

Sound & Vision manages one of the largest digitalized media archives in the world, packed with radio, television, YouTube videos, objects, written press, podcasts and games. We are always on the lookout for ways to make our collections more visible and accessible. In the past, Sound & Vision was involved in projects like 5Dculture and TRANSMIXR; both investigated how digitized archival materials can be experienced by visitors in immersive environments. 

With 3D-4CH, we want to take the outcomes of these projects to the next level. Sound & Vision will explore the opportunities of XR storytelling with archival materials. More specifically, we will investigate how digitized (3D) content can be showcased in new XR scenarios using digital tools like (social) VR and AR, to increase its accessibility.

In addition, we will look into the deployment of 3D content. Since Sound & Vision is also involved in the Common European data space for cultural heritage (DS4CH), the Cultural Heritage Cloud (ECHOES ,ECCCH) and the Trusted Media Data Space (TEMS), we aim to create synergies between these various platforms.