"Sant'Agnese in Agone Virtual Ambient" is an innovative software tool for the study and appreciation of the Church of "Sant'Agnese in Agone" in Piazza Navona, Rome. Through this instrument is intended to pay particular attention to the last phase of the twenty-year campaign of restoration of the monumental building, which was launched in 1993 by the Ministry of Culture. In this interactive virtual environment the observer can move inside and outside of the monument, where the light, expression of the sound, interacts in the material space-time of the church. It can therefore study the lighting throughout the year and appreciate the work of restoration carried out on the main south arch of the monument, completed in December 2008.
Sant'Agnese in Agone Virtual Ambient è un innovativo strumento informatico per lo studio e la valorizzazione della chiesa di S.Agnese in Agone a piazza Navona a Roma. Attraverso tale strumento si è inteso porre particolare attenzione all'ultima fase della ventennale campagna di restauri dell'edificio monumentale, avviata a partire dal 1993 dal MiBAC attraverso le soprintendenze architettonica e storico-artistica di competenza. Nell'ambiente virtuale interattivo l’osservatore può muoversi all’interno e all’esterno del monumento, dove la luce, espressione del suono, interagisce nella materia spazio temporale della chiesa. Si può pertanto studiare l’illuminazione nei vari periodi dell’anno e apprezzare il lavoro di restauro eseguito
sull’arcone sud del monumento, completato nel dicembre 2008.
sull’arcone sud del monumento, completato nel dicembre 2008.
The software was developed by Luca Palmili, wich was responsible to perform the following tasks:
The following video shows a brief summary on the development of the software:
- Study of plans of Sant'Agnese in Agone church (Rome, Navona Square)
- 3D modelling of the church (3D Studio) (main arch, dome)
- Interactive environment programming for church exploration
- GUI design
- Texturing
- GPU programming for real-time rendering optimization
- Brochures design, video editing, DVD authoring for promotional activity.
The following video shows a brief summary on the development of the software:
- The 3D model of the church was reconstructed from sections and floor plans, imported into 3D Studio.
- After building the 3D model, it was imported within a virtual environment developed in C + + using the graphics engine OGRE.
- Each object of the monument has been associated with the correct texture and shader material.
SHADER PROGRAMMING
To ensure quality rendering while maintaining the constraints of real-time to provide an interactive product, particular emphasis has been given to the programming of the graphics card through implementation of shaders written in Cg. Here there are some of the major implemented real-time effects:
REAL-TIME graphic effects applied to cultural heritage photos
During the experiments on realtime graphic involving bump mapping/offset mapping/cone step-mapping techniques for Sant'Agnese in Agone Virtual Ambient, I studied how to apply these techniques to cultural heritage photos, which gave rise to a scientific publication, in collaboration with the computer science department of University of Rome La Sapienza (Laura Gigli, Stefano Levialdi, Anna Labella) on 2010.
This applied research project is based on the dialectics existing between thecoming to light of a newborn artistic creation and its returning to light throughits restoration. The main idea is to build a bridge between the metaphysics ofthe creative thought of the artist and today’s vision of the architect/historian ofart who performs the restoration. It seems therefore natural to look at the lightas the key to enable the interpretation of the work of art and use such light tounderstand and restore it.
This applied research project is based on the dialectics existing between thecoming to light of a newborn artistic creation and its returning to light throughits restoration. The main idea is to build a bridge between the metaphysics ofthe creative thought of the artist and today’s vision of the architect/historian ofart who performs the restoration. It seems therefore natural to look at the lightas the key to enable the interpretation of the work of art and use such light tounderstand and restore it.
Bump Mapping Techniques from inimart on Vimeo.
MORE INFOS
The develop of Sant'Agnese in Agone lasted a year, during which a dedicated blog was born and filled with the updates of the project:
http://santagneseinagone.blogspot.com
It is mainly an italian site. If you are interested in some real-time techniques explained in that blog please let me know.
http://santagneseinagone.blogspot.com
It is mainly an italian site. If you are interested in some real-time techniques explained in that blog please let me know.