A New Introduction to the London Charter

While 3-dimensional visualisation methods are now employed in a wide range of humanities contexts to assist in the research, communication and preservation of cultural heritage, it is increasingly recognized that, to ensure that such work is intellectually and technically rigorous, and for its potential to be realised, there is a need both to establish standards responsive to the particular properties of 3D visualisation, and to identify those that it should share with other methods. Numerous articles, documents, including the AHDS Guides to Good Practice for CAD (2002) and for Virtual Reality (2002) and initiatives, including the Virtual Archaeology Special Interest Group (VASIG) and the Cultural Virtual Reality Organisation (CVRO) have underlined the importance of ensuring that 3D visualisation methods are applied with scholarly rigour, and that the outcomes of visualisation-inclusive research should accurately convey to users the status of the knowledge that they represent. There remains, however, a significant gap between theory and practice. Last February, therefore, as part of an AHRC-funded project, King’s Visualisation Lab, King’s College London, convened a Symposium, jointly sponsored by the AHRC ICT Methods Network and the EU Framework 6 Network of Excellence, EPOCH (Excellence in Processing Open Cultural Heritage), during which over 50 international delegates debated approaches to the issue of “transparency”. A smaller expert group then debated a discussion document on which the first draft of The London Charter for the use of 3dimensional visualisation in the research and communication of cultural heritage was subsequently based. “Cultural heritage” domains here encompass museums, art galleries, heritage sites, interpretative centres, cultural heritage research institutes, arts and humanities subjects within higher education institutions, the broader educational sector, and tourism. It is hoped that the Charter, currently in its first draft and being discussed by an international panel of experts, may be adopted as an EU and international benchmark. The Charter aims to define the fundamental objectives and principles of the use of 3D visualisation methods in relation to intellectual integrity, reliability, transparency, documentation, standards, sustainability and access. It does not aim to prescribe specific aims or methods, but rather to establish those broad principles for the use, in research and communication of cultural heritage, of 3D visualisation upon which the intellectual integrity of such methods and outcomes depend. The Charter attempts to establish principles that are sufficiently focussed to have an impact, but sufficiently abstract to remain current as methods and technologies evolve. Therefore, up-to-date guideline documents with specific recommendations about, e.g. technologies, standards, and methodologies, will be needed at subject community level. Categories and Subject Description: H.3.7: Standards