Search Results (357)

Handwoven textiles constitute a form of intangible craft heritage whose cultural value resides not only in finished artifacts but also in the embodied skills, motif knowledge, practitioner narratives, and community-based meanings through which they are produced and transmitted. However, many digital heritage platforms remain oriented toward visual presentation, product cataloguing, and archival access, offering limited support for communicating the interpretive, practice-based, and relational dimensions of craft knowledge. Addressing this gap, this study designed, developed, and evaluated a four-room digital showroom for Nakhon Si Thammarat Brocade, a traditional brocade textile of southern Thailand. Guided by Design Science Research methodology and heritage interpretation theory, the digital showroom was conceptualized as a cultural communication interface rather than as an online product display. Knowledge elicitation with master weavers and a user-needs survey informed the development of four connected spaces: the Historical Room, Aesthetic Room, Livelihood and Craft Value Room, and Learning-by-Doing Room. Together, these rooms organize user engagement through a progressive interpretive pathway, moving from cultural orientation and motif understanding to artisan-value recognition and guided creative participation. An end-user evaluation with 100 participants showed positive perceptions across functionality and usability (M = 4.13, SD = 0.72), content structure and organization (M = 4.06, SD = 0.79), cultural content quality (M = 4.34, SD = 0.73), and interactive learning-by-doing experience (M = 4.17, SD = 0.81). Users particularly valued the culturally grounded content, practitioner-centered narratives, and opportunities to apply cultural knowledge through virtual design activities. The findings suggest that a practitioner-informed and theoretically grounded digital showroom can extend digital heritage practice beyond passive product representation by supporting contextualized, interpretive, and participatory engagement with intangible craft heritage. Full article

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), also referred to as terrestrial LiDAR, has become an essential close-range remote sensing technique for high-precision engineering surveying, deformation monitoring, industrial inspection, and cultural heritage documentation. The geometric reliability of TLS point clouds strongly depends on the effective compensation of instrumental systematic errors through in situ self-calibration. However, conventional target-based self-calibration often suffers from strong coupling between calibration parameters and exterior orientation parameters, whereas recently developed coplanarity-constrained formulations generally require highly redundant target networks, limiting their field efficiency. To address this limitation, this study proposes a variance inflation factor (VIF)-driven minimal network design strategy for efficient in situ geometric self-calibration of TLS systems. Unlike the commonly used geometric dilution of precision, VIF provides a dimensionless statistical alternative that effectively resolves the dimensional inconsistency inherent in traditional GDOP when handling mixed angular and distance parameters. A differential evolution algorithm is employed to search for hybrid calibration networks that minimize parameter coupling while preserving the physical interpretability of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 10-parameter instrumental error model. Five digital twin simulation experiments and a physical validation experiment using a Faro Focus 350 scanner were conducted to evaluate the proposed method. The results show that the optimized network substantially reduces the number of required targets while maintaining high calibration accuracy. The final configuration, which combines VIF-optimized target placement with a dual-station height-difference constraint, reduces the condition number of the normal equations to below 60 and yields a mean system VIF close to 10. The maximum parameter correlation coefficient among the key calibration parameters is constrained to approximately 0.75, indicating near-optimal parameter decoupling under the limited field-of-view geometry of the instrument. These findings demonstrate that the proposed VIF-driven network design provides a highly effective strategy for field-efficient TLS self-calibration and improves the geometric reliability of terrestrial LiDAR point clouds in high-precision remote sensing applications. Full article

Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT) and service-dominant logic (SDL), this study examines how stress-relief-oriented escape, self-fulfillment, and digital information environments are associated with emotion value co-creation among Generation Z cultural heritage tourists. Survey data from 457 adult Generation Z tourists who had visited cultural heritage destinations in Shanxi Province, China, were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Stress-relief-oriented escape was negatively associated with both self-fulfillment and emotion value co-creation, while self-fulfillment was positively associated with emotion value co-creation and carried a significant indirect association between escape and emotion value co-creation. The moderation results revealed contrasting digital boundary conditions: higher media promotion progressively attenuated the negative escape relationships to statistical non-significance, whereas stronger GenAI personalization was associated with increasingly negative relationships. These findings extend tourism motivation research by positioning stress-relief-oriented escape as a recovery-oriented motivational starting condition whose implications depend on the experiential outcome considered. By integrating SDT and SDL, the study identifies self-fulfillment as a measured psychological pathway connecting motivational orientation with emotion value co-creation and shows that this relationship is conditioned differently by interpretive media and preference-adaptive GenAI environments. The findings offer implications for heritage communication and GenAI-enabled tourism design. Full article

As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies advance, traditional craftsmen face new challenges: innovating using digital tools while preserving cultural authenticity and heritage knowledge. The “hybrid artisan,” who strategically integrates AI-based design tools with traditional craft, emerges as a response to this tension. This article addresses research questions regarding how integrating generative AI technologies into design processes influences: (1) artisans’ productivity and product quality; (2) cultural authenticity and heritage preservation; (3) sustainable business models in creative entrepreneurship. The research methodology employs a convergent design with mixed methods, combining: (a) a systematic literature review (SLR) guided by the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA 2020, n = 33 articles, 2022–2025); and (b) a qualitative survey (n = 13 artisans, Romania; semi-structured questionnaire, 34 items). The literature review identifies three dominant human–AI collaboration models: task-level cooperation, process-level coordination, and system-level co-creation. Diffusion models fine-tuned with low-rank adaptation (LoRA) and generative adversarial networks (GANs) achieve cultural authenticity scores of 73–95% while reducing design time by 30–70%. Empirical data reveal paradoxes: artisans value authentic creativity and sustainability (4 of 13 respondents (31%) rate sustainability as “extremely important”) but adopt AI cautiously (6 of 13 respondents (46%) report that they were not familiar with AI tools). Those using AI report 15–40% productivity gains without a proportional increase in sales, suggesting that market recognition of AI-assisted crafts remains uneven and that sustainability benefits are not yet clearly linked to AI use in practice. The successful “hybrid artisan” model relies on collaborative rather than autonomous AI positioning, explicit cultural safeguards in system design, and transparent communication with consumers about AI involvement. This research provides a conceptual heuristic, points to new research directions, and outlines policy implications for understanding when and how AI-assisted craft practices may support cultural integrity while also accepting that such benefits are context-dependent and not universally validated. Full article

This paper presents a summary of the activities carried out in relation to the shared objectives of the SCORPiò-NIDI project, an interdisciplinary research initiative aimed at investigating ballistic traces preserved along the northern fortification of Pompeii, produced by Roman siege engines during the siege of 89 BC. The study integrates digital surveying, computational modeling, experimental archaeology, and visualization techniques to document, analyze, and interpret specific types of anthropic damage caused by large stone projectiles and metal-tipped darts. High-resolution 3D acquisitions and reverse engineering processes guided the formulation of reconstructive hypotheses concerning projectile trajectories, impact velocities, and energy transfer mechanisms, supporting the determination of dimensional modules on the basis of which ancient treatises describe the proportional design of dart-throwing and stone-throwing machines in siege conditions. Mechanical simulations and comparative analysis provided quantitative validation of the virtual demonstrators prototyped and/or reconstructed using techniques and materials compatible with the pre-Christian period. The project further developed interactive digital models, animations, and visualization tools to support knowledge dissemination and public engagement. By combining archaeological data, engineering analysis, and human–computer interaction strategies, this research demonstrates the potential of digital technologies to enhance the study, interpretation, and communication of cultural heritage. Full article

Over several decades, digital cultural heritage has been increasingly reused across research, education, creative practice and through public community engagement. However, these activities remain undescribed or inconsistently documented and difficult to compare. Organisations typically rely on ‘proxy metrics’ such as downloads, page views or reverse searches to assess use/reuse. However, these metrics reveal little about how materials were transformed, interpreted, or how they generated value and impact. GLAMs often rely on unstructured anecdotes to capture/trace reuse, as it is difficult to retrospectively document reuse when GLAMs publish cultural heritage data openly without the expectation of users to tell the organisation what they did with the digital cultural heritage they accessed and used. Documenting reuse approaches often focuses on single dimensions or factors such as sector, content type, audience or impact. This has resulted in fragmented knowledge about digital cultural heritage reuse, which has created limitations in carrying out evaluations across examples, learning from good practice and planning digital cultural heritage initiatives. This article introduces and empirically grounds a flexible, multi-dimensional schema for documenting and planning digital cultural heritage reuse. Using an abductive methodology that combines literature analysis and synthesis, practitioner interviews, user-journey examinations and iterative prototyping, we developed a six-category framework capturing (1) organisation and context, (2) heritage assets and technologies, (3) purpose and process, (4) users and engagement modes, (5) nature of use and availability, and (6) impact and sustainability. Applied across real-world examples, this framework can reveal forms of value, dependency and risk, often absent from conventional reporting in the reuse of digital cultural heritage. We argue that reuse documentation functions as a form of socio-technical infrastructure, enabling a shared vocabulary and understanding for cross-case comparison, cumulative learning and strategic design of digital heritage initiatives. By shifting categorisation from retrospective description to include prospective planning, the framework supports a more meaningful impact assessment and sustainable reuse of digital cultural heritage as a societal resource. Full article

By integrating cultural genes with extensible semantic concepts, this study explores the application forms and design methodologies of the material manifestations and underlying essence of Lu embroidery’s intangible cultural heritage within contemporary social contexts, thereby promoting outstanding national culture by selecting Lu embroidery, a representative ICH of the Qi–Lu region, and employing the dual-drill model to conduct genetic extraction and classification of its elemental characteristics. It provides a foundation for constructing a scalable element set. Using the Kegel semantic analysis method, we extract the fundamental model of Lu embroidery’s cultural genes and construct a set of Kegel-based visual design elements representing explicit cultural genes. Through graphical semantic analysis, we further develop a set of Kegel-based imagery elements corresponding to implicit genes, thereby facilitating the expression and design innovation of these cultural genes. Taking lamp design as an example, this study reconstructs and visualizes both explicit and implicit cultural elements to validate the feasibility and rationality of the research methodology. The semantic design-based translation that integrates the tangible manifestations and value essence of Shandong embroidery culture represents an innovative approach to digital preservation of this traditional craft, while also serving as a model reference for the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage in other regions. Full article

In the current digital world, there is an incredible amount of information at our fingertips. In fact, there is so much information that the sheer amount of data can be overwhelming. As historians, archaeologists, and cultural heritage experts, a significant amount of research or the use of assistants can be necessary simply to shift through centuries of publications to compile relevant resources before cultural questions can be adequately explored. This challenge compounds when attempting cross-cultural analyses. The Database of Religious History (DRH) was initially created in 2012 by Dr. Edward Slingerland as a digital tool designed to help offset these challenges and provide a means for experts, students, and historical enthusiasts to begin to explore significant religious questions without wading through centuries of data. In this article, the authors discuss how information for the DRH is collected from experts, and how it can be organized and queried to explore religious questions. While the database covers the global history of religion, this discussion focuses in particular on its use for exploring the ancient Mediterranean world. The authors also discuss pedagogical resources for incorporating the DRH into classrooms to improve students’ digital literacy. Full article

Perceived authenticity may strengthen the credibility of virtual cultural heritage communication and foster sustained cultural engagement, yet authenticity theory remains insufficiently translated into actionable design guidance. This study employed an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design comprising ten qualitative interviews, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with two independent samples (n = 200 each), framework construction, and a between-group prototype evaluation (n = 61). The analyses indicated a context-specific two-factor structure: constructive authenticity, integrating evidence-based judgment, contextual interpretation, and narrative plausibility; and existential authenticity, encompassing participation, emotional engagement, personal meaning, and cultural connection. Objective authenticity converged with constructive authenticity rather than emerging independently, suggesting that users interpreted historical evidence through digitally mediated representations. These findings were translated into six coordinated design dimensions: historical environment design, historical information transparency, narrative plausibility, stylistic atmosphere, experiential immersion, and interactive engagement. In a single-theme comparison, the framework-guided prototype was associated with higher loyalty, satisfaction, cultural identity, and behavioral intention than the conventionally designed prototype (Hedges’ g = 1.265–1.636). Overall, the study offers a context-specific theoretical account and an actionable, evidence-informed framework that may support continued engagement and cultural transmission; long-term sustainability outcomes and cross-context transferability require further investigation. Full article

This paper investigates exhibit design strategies for communicating siege scenarios through integrated digital resources, including polyfunctional models, reality-based 3D assets, and AI generated pre-visualizations. The study reorganizes heterogeneous materials into a coherent methodological workflow grounded in high resolution documentation acquired for archaeological research. Results derive from the case of the northern walls of Pompeii, where ballistic imprints attributed to the Sullan siege present challenges of accessibility and intelligibility. The evaluation demonstrates how digital models, physical replicas, and media code frameworks support inclusive dissemination for diverse audiences, including visitors with visual or mobility impairments. Full article

Xipi lacquer texture generation and interactive product design are important tasks for the digital preservation and creative use of lacquerware cultural heritage. However, existing methods still face limitations in reconstructing process-dependent Xipi lacquer textures and supporting interactive design. These limitations include the difficulty of parameterizing the traditional layering-polishing process, insufficient representation of nonlinear structural features in generated textures, and user fatigue in multidimensional interactive design. Inspired by geographic contour lines, this study proposes a design framework based on Vector Quantized Variational Autoencoder (VQ-VAE) and Interactive Genetic Algorithm (IGA). The framework uses pseudo-contour inputs to guide Xipi lacquer texture generation and integrates the generated textures into a user-guided 3D bracelet evolution process. Experiments on a self-compiled dataset show that the proposed model achieved PSNR $\left(25.2\right)$, SSIM $\left(0.855\right)$, LPIPS $\left(0.285\right)$, and FID $\left(38.2\right)$. User evaluation further showed the performance of the improved IGA in structural stability $\left(4.52\right)$, color exploration $\left(4.38\right)$, evolutionary rhythm $\left(4.65\right)$, innovation retention ($4.25)$, and interaction efficiency $\left(4.42\right)$. The generated assets are further integrated into augmented-reality and virtual fashion-rendering scenarios, indicating the potential applicability of the proposed framework to the digital preservation and interactive design of lacquerware cultural heritage. Full article

The European crafts ecosystem faces critical structural threats, declining practitioner numbers, weakening intergenerational transmission, limited digital literacy, and competition from industrial imitation. Existing online craft communities are narrowly material-specific and structurally ill-suited to the cross-disciplinary dialogue required for systemic sector transformation. This paper presents the design, iterative development, and pilot evaluation of the Craeft Community, a multi-stakeholder Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) developed within the Horizon Europe CRAEFT project. Three research questions guided the study: how a multi-stakeholder VCoP should be structured to overcome disciplinary fragmentation; to what extent a stewarded digital forum can operationalize Situated Learning and Communities of Practice theory; and what factors facilitate or inhibit engagement and post-funding sustainability. Using design-based research, the platform evolved through four iterative phases, culminating in restructuring from a material-based architecture into five transversal thematic pillars, driven by survey evidence from 151 European craft professionals and systematic stakeholder feedback. The pilot phase yielded 86 registered members, 31 posts, and 27 interactions, with Transmission & Training as the most engaged pillar. Qualitative analysis reveals substantive cross-disciplinary discourse alongside a structural Effort-Engagement Gap, a persistent tension between forum participation demands and the gravitational pull of mainstream social media. The study demonstrates that a thematically organized, stewarded VCoP can meaningfully operationalize apprenticeship-based learning in digital settings, advancing craft heritage preservation, economic resilience, and hybrid professional identity formation at the intersection of craft and technology. Full article

The paper addresses the intersection between modern built heritage preservation and Climate-Aided Design (CADe) processes in fragile coastal Mediterranean contexts. The study focuses on the city of Beirut in Lebanon, part of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (EMME) region and considered a climate change hotspot facing extreme challenges. Rapid urbanization and socio-political instability, especially during the twentieth century, have undermined the city’s ability to mitigate and adapt to future climate change scenarios. Moreover, Beirut’s modern built heritage faces a constant threat of demolition due to the absence of protective legislation, compounded by aggressive real-estate development ambitions. The hypothesis is that the integration of climatic data and regenerative design with modern cultural heritage classification frameworks can aid the preservation process, drive a more adaptive and inclusive approach to urban regeneration, and inform legislative integration of climate adaptation in conservation frameworks. To test this hypothesis, a multi-scalar case-study-based methodology is adopted using a combination of digital tools to assess and analyze the current and future impacts of climate change on two main case studies. First, the St. George Hotel & Bay, one of the first reinforced concrete recreational buildings in the city, was built during the French Mandate (1920–1946) and is vulnerable to sea-level rise, flooding, and demolition. Second, the Beirut City Center “The Egg”, a Brutalist structure built during Beirut’s modernist “golden era”, which is prone to structural deterioration and demolition. The main objective is to highlight 20th-century built heritage as part of Beirut’s spatial narrative worthy of conservation and rehabilitation by analyzing their capability to adapt to, mitigate, or benefit from future environmental risk. Ultimately, the study explores their potential to catalyze climate-resilient urban regeneration practices in the city. Results show that the integration of current and future forecast environmental analyses informed early preservation and intervention decision-making stages to position 20th-century modern built heritage as an asset to climate action in addition to being a socio-cultural and economic asset. Full article

Cultural Heritage (CH) is becoming increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, aging, and environmental decay, necessitating advanced preventive conservation strategies. This study presents the results of the SPIDER project, focused on Marquis’s Palace in Botrugno, a small but representative case study in Southern Italy of a municipality overwhelmed with the management of valuable CH sites. The approach integrates multi-sensor surveys, subsurface diagnostics, HBIM modeling, and IoT microclimatic monitoring into a lightweight information model designed for operational flexibility. In addition to that, the possibility of producing new, eco-friendly filaments for Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) printing from industrial stone dust waste was explored through a preliminary morphological, structural, and chemical–physical investigation of the stone material historically used in construction, with the aim of identifying materials similar to the original using a simplified, low-cost process. The findings highlight that economic and social factors such as limited resources and the “digital divide” hinder effective technology transfer. Consequently, this study investigates whether a “lightweight” Asset Information Model (AIM) can provide a more sustainable alternative to complex Digital Twins for small municipalities and other public bodies. For this reason, this research proposes a scalable, wide but basic framework of information management tools and methods aimed at enhancing territorial capacity building, fostering technology integration and social inclusion, and valorizing multidisciplinary approaches to address the challenges affecting CH. Full article

Coptic represents the final stage of the Ancient Egyptian language and remains an important component of Christian and Mediterranean cultural heritage. Although several digital resources exist for Coptic textual corpora, Greek-oriented computational tools for the interpretation of Coptic inscriptions on artifacts remain limited. This study presents the design and early implementation of a semi-automated software tool for the computer-assisted translation of Coptic inscriptions into Greek, with optional English support. The tool combines a Coptic–Greek digital dictionary, an interactive character-selection interface, and two dictionary-search strategies: a length/alphabetically structured linear search and a weighted linear search based on expected word frequency. The application is intended to support scholars working with inscriptions on fragile or fragmented cultural heritage objects, where full automation is not realistic and human supervision remains essential. The paper describes the linguistic and material challenges of Coptic inscriptions, the structure of the lexical database, the interface design, and the planned use of Coptic corpora for improving retrieval efficiency. The proposed approach contributes to cultural heritage digitization by offering a practical, expandable, and user-oriented framework for supporting the study, interpretation, and preservation of Coptic inscriptions. Full article