Overview

The "Virtual Sculpture Museum of Pietrasanta" is a virtual archive of three-dimensional laser-scanned sculptures by the most meaningful artists of the XX century.

The virtual sculptures polygonal structures have been carefully simplified, and a special material texture has been applied.

This methodology allows a fluid and linear real-time visualization of large amounts of data (in this case, a high resolution 3D object) despite the limited performance of the system video card.

The Virtual Museum of the Sculpture has been realized with the essential contribution of the Pietrasanta “Museo dei Bozzetti” that has provided the art pieces we have digitized, of Lucense (Lucca Services Centre), of the Industrial association of Lucca’s Province and with the scientific collaboration of the Prof. Vittorio Fagone. It is based on a virtual reality immersive system that allows interaction with the models of the sculptures through a trackball (a navigation device particularly suitable for a 3D virtual environment).

Our system allows the visitor to rotate the work of art a full 360 degrees through simple hand gestures. Small details are revealed, while an explanatory text stays in the foreground and a recorded narrator provides information on the work, its style and its author.

The realism of the virtual simulation is increased by the stereoscopic visualization of the digital models.

The Museum represents a meaningful development in the context of the application of new technologies to Cultural Heritage. The Museum is totally virtual and it does not correspond with a physical museum: at the same time, its immateriality is profoundly linked with local reality. The museum site, Pietrasanta, has centuries of history and material culture as witnessed by the presence on the territory of countless craftsman shops and artistic laboratories.

The link with the territory is enhanced by museum potential for teaching activities and tourist enjoyment: both are made possible by the high degree of immersion and realism that allows the visitor to perceive virtual works of art that, in reality, are scattered all over the world,

The first phase of the project has been the digital acquisition of the plaster casts through a laser scanner. Thanks to the modest size of the casts, it has been possible to place every piece on a revolving base and acquire the whole surface without material contact.

We have scanned the following sculptures:

• Nudino (Leone Tommasi),
• Nudo di Ragazzo (Leone Tommasi),
• V° Tempo della VI° Sinfonia Pastorale di L. V. Beethoven (Leone Tommasi),
• S.t. (Costantino Nivola),
• Monumento ai Fratelli Rosselli (Carlo Signori),
• Puce (Cesar),
• Paternità (Niki de Saint Phalle).

After the scanning, we have transformed the resulting clouds of points in polygonal models of the scultures. The models have been produced at various resolutions and organized in a database.

The final step of our process has been to insert the sculpture models in an immersive virtual environment reminiscent of a Renaissance plaza: the environment is perceived by the visitors through a stereoscopic visualization system that emphasizes the three-dimensional quality of the environment and the statues.