e-ROMA grew out of the wish of the
LIRIS GeoMod team in Lyon and IMAGINE (INRIA-LJK) in Grenoble to get
closer on the theme of cultural heritage, in a project crossing their
respective expertise in computer graphics, while promoting the
archaeological wealth of the Rhône-Alpes region. Restoration and
restitution of statues is particularly important for the Gallo-Roman
Museum of Lyon-Fourvière who is also a partner of the project. Indeed,
the museum has a large collection of fragmentary stone reliefs,
reflecting the high degree of Romanization that characterized Lugdunum.
The museum now wants to take advantage of the digital revolution, to
help in the reconstruction of a number of statues, and imagine the
ornamentation of its architectural elements with statues that have now
disappeared. The e-ROMA project also involves a historian of
Paris-Sorbonne, who is eager to share the progress achieved over
twenty-five years, in the knowledge of the art-works of the museum and
more generally of the statuary of imperial times. Finally, an important
point of the e-ROMA project will be the interactions with an
art-restorer specialized in statues, in order to influence and validate
the development of the virtual restoration model, without having to
comply with all the constraints inherent in handling real remains.
A first axis of e-ROMA is to revisit the pipeline of 3D scanning and
modeling of art-work, by focusing on accuracy, plausibility and
interactivity. This pipeline should also be associated with real
opportunities for restoration and virtual restitution, while respecting
the style of the era, with traceability and control on the changes.
First, the use of laser scans should be improved all over the tasks,
without restricting it to scanning and 3D reconstruction. A second
objective is to take full advantage of existing similar art-works, but
also to bring additional knowledge about human anatomy, behavior of
draped fabric, history of canons in the field of art, or gestures and
carving tools used at this period. This activity of virtual restoration
and restitution should finally be performed with simple gestures by
restorers of statues, while remaining consistent with their profession.
The second axis focuses on the generation of new statues corresponding
to new poses, new faces, and even other occupations or social
positions, so as to complement and give a meaning to various
architectural elements found in excavations. The concept of variety is
also important, and it must be combined with the ease of a curator or a
sculptor to obtain a new virtual model, while remaining within the
framework of plausible assumptions. e-ROMA finally addresses the
problem of generating expressive animated sequences of statues,
particularly interesting in the context of promotion and restitutions
for the general public.
Last news :
- 24th of november 2016 : Kick-off in
ANR of the projects accepted by committee 38, including e-ROMA.
- Internships possibilitites at GeoMod LIRIS and Imagine at LJK-INRIA. - Candidate for a PhD on that subject within the GeoMod team at LIRIS and Imagine team at
LJK-INRIA. - 11 July 2017 : Kick-off of e-ROMA at Musée Gallo-Romain Lyon Fourvière.
