Review of the National Center for Digitization

Publisher: Faculty of Mathematics, University of Belgrade

ISSN: 1820-0109

Issue: 27

Year: 2015

NCD Review

The Eternitas Web Application – Implementation Step of the Museum Information System of Serbia

Goran Gavrilović

Keywords: museum; museum information systems; databases; web applications; museum software; MISS; Eternitas; Serbia; western Balkans

Abstract
Complex and multi-functional museum web application Eternitas was presented in the paper. Highly user-oriented to museum professionals, primarily to curators, documentarians, and managers, this software presents an integral part of broader information system MISS, developed at the National Museum in Belgrade, Serbia. In last two decades that museum information system has successfully gathered data on nearly 250,000 objects from entire Serbian museums' fund. In the beginning of attentive state ministry supported project in 1996, strategic development study of the Museum Information System of Serbia (MISS) had identified 11 subsystems, e.g. implementation modules. Subsequently, the very first module, Central Register of Movable Cultural Goods of Serbia (CR), had been introduced into almost 50 Serbian museums' practice. In the second stage, starting from 2007, a contemporary relational database has been created, in the scope of basic processes of two MISS subsystems - Museum Fund Acquisitions, and Scientific and Expert Processing. Furthermore, new developped applicaton Eternitas enables not only complex professional data managing, but their public web presenations, as well. Through a museum professional practice case study its functionality and distinctiveness are breifly illustrated.

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Electronic Editions of Serbian Astronomical Institutions and Societies 2012-2013

Milan S. Dimitrijević and Jovan Aleksić

Keywords: astronomy; electronic publishing

Abstract
Electronic publishing of astronomical institutions and societies from Serbia in 2012 and 2013 is described and analysed.

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The Digitization of the Documentary Sources and New Technologies in the Gallery of Matica Srpska

Tijana Palkovljević, Daniela Korolija Crkvenjakov, Snežana Mišić, Aljoša Petojević and Božana Grbić

Keywords: the Gallery of Matica srpska; digitization; artworks; documentation; exhibition; conservation; archives

Abstract
The Gallery of Matica srpska is one of the oldest museums in Serbia and an institution of national importance, with a collection of nearly 9.000 works of national fine art, dated from the 16th to the 21st century, as well as a rich history of exhibitions, research and conservation activities. Decades of professional work on study, protection and presentation of Serbian national art resulted in vast amount of documentation, not only of the art objects from the Gallery’s collection, but also on many other works of art that have been studied, preserved and exhibited in numerous joint projects in cooperation with other museums, churches and private owners. This documentary material is an invaluable resource for the national history of art and culture, consisting of several units: inventory books; photo-archive; different documents about Gallery’s exhibitions; conservation archive; archive of documents related to important artists and projects created in years of art- historical research, as well as specialized library with bibliographical sources. The material formats in which these documents exist are different: paper and electronic documents, manuscripts, machine-typed documents, photocopies, photo negatives and positives of different size and type, digital photographs of different quality, Word documents and in smaller amount Excel documents and printed material. The work on the creation of the database in the Gallery of Matica srpska, initiated by the development of a unique Museum Information System of Serbia (MISS), started in 2010. In the next two and a half years, the idea for the documentation system of the Gallery was developed, the basic hardware and software were acquired, and the checking and preparation of documents and filling of the base with data were organized. This paper presents the concept, the methodology and the results achieved so far: database of artworks which is in everyday use, as well as database segments in preparation.

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A Virtual Tour of the Mediana Archeological Park Using Unity 3D Engine

Đorđe Manoilov, Nikola Gajić, Miloš Stošić and Dušan Tatić

Keywords: virtual tour; Unity; game engines; software implementation

Abstract
This paper describes a virtual tour through the archeological park Mediana developed by using the Unity3D Game Engine. The main goal of the application is to achieve better promotion of the archeological park through the use of modern information technologies. The solution is implemented as a multi-platform application for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, as well as a Web application. The paper presents an analysis of basic concepts of Unity3D game engine and discusses the proposed architecture of the application. Special attention is paid to the interaction between the user and the application.

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Performance Analysis of Local and Distributed Rendering Methods for Preparing Video Contents

Nikola B. Gajić, Dušan B. Gajić and Radomir S. Stanković

Keywords: computer graphics and animation; distributed rendering; performance analysis.

Abstract
The process of digitalization of cultural and historical heritage often requires methods which involve construction of three-dimensional (3D) computer models and their rendering onto computer displays. Algorithms which are used for this purpose demand intense computations. This makes them time-consuming, even with the computing power available on contemporary computers. One of possible solutions for this problem is to distribute computations over multiple computer systems. For the purpose of distributed generation of video contents based on 3D scenes, we apply Autodesk Backburner and perform a comparative analysis of this method and traditional local rendering. We study characteristics of the local and distributed rendering processes in terms of computation times. We measure the influence of scene complexity, determined by the number of polygons, size of textures, and settings of the ray-tracing system, on the run-time of computations. Based on these experiments, we offer several conclusions in the form of recommendations. Besides the complexity of processed scenes, these recommendations are formulated by taking into account the characteristics of used distributed systems, such as network throughput. We believe that the presented information can be useful for practitioners dealing with 3D scenes of different complexity in diverse computing environments.

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Universal Mobile Cultural Heritage Guide Based on Android Technology

Dušan Tatić, Miloš Stošić, Đorđe Manoilov and Radomir Stanković

Keywords: handheld system; multimedia; augmented reality; tourist guide; cultural heritage

Abstract
This paper presents a universal mobile cultural heritage guide based on Android technology that can help visitors of various exhibitions to browse multimedia information content with mobile devices. The system consists of several independent programming modules that can be combined in different ways to create various mobile applications for presenting cultural heritage. In this way, we ensure universality of the guide and its applicability to different exhibition scenarios. A special module for augmented reality technology is implemented to provide a possibility for presentation of 3D computer generated reconstructions of objects at historical sites using either the location based or vision based techniques. The system is verified on the example of an application for the Archaeological park Mediana in Niš, Serbia.

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Linking Local Cultural Heritage Collections from the Slovenian - Italian Border Region With ICT

Špela Ledinek Lozej, Miha Peče and Barbara Ivančič Kutin

Keywords: cultural heritage; private collections; collecting; digital humanities; information and communications technology; digital repository; cross-border region; cross-border cooperation

Abstract
This article discusses the creation of an inventory of thirty-four local cultural heritage collections in the border region between the Alps and the Karst, and the establishment of a network of owners and guardians of the collections, as well as professionals from the fields of museology, ethnology, digital humanities, and informatics. In the project “ZBORZBIRK - Cultural Heritage between the Alps and the Karst”, thirty-four collections of cultural heritage, diverse in type and content, that had been inaccessible to the general public and experts, were catalogued, contextualised and presented to the general and expert public in different media, e.g. also virtually on the project website. A unified repository was established, aggregating metadata of material objects (items) from the collections, as well as digital photographs and scans of images and textual objects (digital objects). In total, there are 4965 items and 8620 digital objects1 in the repository, which is intended for researchers, experts and students from the fields of ethnology, cultural anthropology, history and linguistics as well as for the general public. The repository is generating greater visibility of the region and strengthening the cohesion of local communities. The scope of the research and results was restricted by the material objects from the collections as well as by different aspirations of collectors and specialised skills of all the people involved in archival processes. As the project addressed a wide scope of target groups, its implementation provoked opposing effects between the approaches of the virtual museum and the research archival repository. To clarify the priorities, more attention was given to archival and research norms rather than representational technologies. The ZBORZBIRK Project is one of the first projects in the Italian-Slovenian cross-border region to link non-institutional collections and their collectors with experts. A collaborative approach, the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) to enhance process phases, and a growing phenomenon of local collections and collecting make this project an example of good practice for comparable follow-up projects.

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Another Look on Digital Legacies

Nikolina Vukša Popović

Keywords: Omeka; digital legacies

Abstract
In order to preserve the works of our famous scientists we began our project Digital legacies. After creating presentations about Milutin Milanković, Bogdan Gavrilović and Anton Bilimović we decided to try another approach and use Omeka, a free of charge web-publishing tool, to present our work. In this paper we present software capabilities on the example of Anton Bilimović’s legacy.

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