Abstract
The chapter focuses on the relationship between cultural heritage and digital heritage, and in particular on the peculiar characteristics of digital heritage derived from physical heritage. This kind of heritage poses technological and methodological knowledge and representation matters: It has own documental, historical, and aesthetic values, but it depends from tangible and intangible reality. Digital heritage cannot substitute physical heritage but keep and represent its values. Follows issues related to heritage digitalization, visualization, and transparency. In addition, the relationship with people has changed: They experience digital heritage with an aware cultural participation, and from the “marriage” between real heritage and its digital expression, new important potentialities rises.
TopBackground: The International Context
Digital heritage studies found place in many international conferences, and they are the subject of interdisciplinary publications. We remember the “Digital Libraries Initiative” of the “Digital Agenda for Europe of European Commission”. Topics related to cultural heritage recur in numerous conferences and publications in the international arena. We cite initiatives of “CIPA – The International Committee for Documentation of Cultural Heritage” and the papers presented by the “IJHDE - International Journal of Heritage in the Digital Era”, the Proceedings of “International Conferences on 3D Imaging, Modeling, Processing, Visualization” published by “IEEEXPLORE - Digital Library” in 2011. More interested in built heritage: “Euromed - International Conference on Cultural Heritage and Digital Libraries” (2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016); the conferences promoted by “ISPRS – International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing” and published by the “Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing” (in particular the conferences in 2011, 2013, and 2015 titled “3D-ARCH – Virtual Reconstruction and Visualization of Complex Architectures”). Last but not least the “International Congresses on Digital Heritage” (2013 in Marseilles and 2015 in Granada). This list is not exhaustive but it merely provides references and examples.
Moreover, paper’s repositories and scientific social networks like Academia.edu (www.researchgate.net) favor the diffusion of knowledge inside and outside fields, the meeting between scholars, and their updating. Ever more research books are dedicated to built heritage (Brusaporci, 2015; Ippolito, 2017; Ippolito & Cigola, 2017)