Călin Neamtu, Vitalie Barca, Zsolt Buna, Promoting and Capitalizing on the Vestiges from Sarmizegetusa Regia by Modern Multimedia Methods

Abstract

Sarmizegetusa Regia was included, together with the other five Dacian fortresses, on the List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1999. They are a unique synthesis of external cultural influences and local traditions in terms of building techniques and overall, in the ancient military architecture, representing the grand expression of the civilisation of the Dacian Kingdom. These fortresses are the accurate expression of the exceptional development level of the Dacian civilisation, Sarmizegetusa Regia lying at the forefront of this fortified complex, epitomizing the evolution phenomenon from fortified centres to proto-urban agglomerations. As such, promoting these monuments and the numerous artefacts discovered by modern methods and techniques should become a priority. This paper presents a series of last generation applications and equipment that may be successfully used in promoting cultural heritage. Case studies include scanned artefacts and 3D reconstructions of the monuments in the site of Sarmizegetusa Regia, a monument on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites together with the other five Dacian fortresses (Bănița, Costești-Blidaru, Costești-Cetățuie, Piatra Roșie and Căpâlna). We present here the results obtained following the use of several hardware tracking systems, augmented virtual reality applications and haptic devices. One of the important aspects, when attempting to make enhanced on-line use of heritage good is the extent to which it is accessible and reusable by various categories of users, either specialists or the general public. Digitalizing a good in the cultural heritage is the first step for ensuring the broad access via the on-line medium, the quality of this process ensuring the electronic format artefact legitimacy and credibility, which means that it should be an electronic duplicate truthful to the real artefact.