Thursday, November 11, 2010 hours 11:30
Presentation of the project T-VedO: Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of Pictorial Works of Art for the Visually Impaired.

Università degli Studi di Firenze- Department of Mechanical and Industrial Technologies (DMTI) Università degli Studi di Firenze
Thursday Novermber 11- from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Sala Gaetano Bianchi

Speakers: Rocco Furferi, Lapo Governi, Yary Volpe
People normally believe that art is something to be referred only to visual art. Blind people often cannot enjoy art events or cultural heritage exhibitions because it is not simply to take part to some actions created and designed not expressly for them.
In the last recent years there was some progress, in order to facilitate that aspect improving participation of blind people to art and cultural activities. There were created some proper sections with tactile collection in the art exhibitions, reserved to blind people or to people in need of special care. The major part of these objects are copies of 3D artefacts as sculptures, archaeological finds, bass-relieves, monuments, etc. These objects are in most cases true art reproductions, made by good artisans and artists, using classic materials as gesso, clay, wood etc. Only in few cases they used some advanced techniques as the Reverse Engineering (RE) or the Prototipazione Rapida (RP). If the diffusion of the 3D objects and of the tactile museums is increasing, in the contrary the pictorial works remains without any change. In the pictorial museums there isn’t any new advanced technology able to help blind people. This is probably originated by the fact that there are not much technologies able to create a 3D object starting from a 2D image. Some studies were recently done, in order to create new methodologies to conceive virtual tours starting from photos or images but no one of the obtained results, can currently be used in the case of the pictorial tactile museums.
The meeting will describe in this sense, the main goals and the methodologies used in the project T-VedO financed by the Regione Toscana with funds PAR – FAS 1.1.a.3. This project aims at the creation of an integrated system able to create a 3D object starting from a 2D image. In particular it will be provided with a system vision which includes an hardware –with the main tools of image acquisition, a software interface properly created to work in a development ambient, a prototipale software for the automatic “translation” of the information acquired by photos or artworks in 3D virtual models and a rapid prototipazione system to convert a virtual model in a real model as a tactile bass- relief.

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