Project description
Technology-enhanced learning and access to cultural heritage
In the largest collection of Neanderthal findings in Europe, state-of-the-art virtualisation technology make fragile, dispersed fossils and artefacts easiliy accessible, independent on their location.
The main results of the TNT project are: NESPOS - the Neanderthal Studies Professional Online Service, the VISICORE Suite (tools for 3D visualisation and annotation) and the National Geographic ArchChannel, a dissemination Web portal.
NESPOS: Establishing the leading scientific network on Neanderthal research
NESPOS, the Neanderthal Studies Professional Online Service, is the first fully interactive inventory and catalogue of the Neanderthal heritage (fossil specimens and techno-cultural setting).
This service enhances the current knowledge on human peopling and bio-cultural evolution across Europe, facilitates joint international remote research on virtual primary sources and supports the preservation of the unique originals for future generations by making them available in digital form.
At the end of the TNT project in February 2006 NESPOS contained a variety of 3D scans of Neanderthal fossils, artefacts and subsidiary scientific data covering a major part of the most important Neanderthal excavation sites and objects from anthropological collections of cooperating museums. Additionally, the repository offers multi-scale scientific and documentary information (including thematic bibliographies) on the archaeological sites and their geo-chronological context and links to the main European-wide inventories.
A professional Wiki-based collaboration platform enables paleoanthropologists and archaeologists to exchange their Neanderthal research results and share ideas.
Since 1 March 2006 the Neanderthal Studies Professional Online Service is run by the NESPOS Society, an international non-profit organisation which will guarantee its further development and the sustainability of the most significant outcome of the TNT project.
The VISICORE Suite - Virtual archaeology at work
The TNT 3D visualisation and analytic applications are combined in the Visual Simulation and Collaborative Rendering Engine. The VISICORE Suite provides a tool collection that covers the whole scientific workflow from the topographics of an excavation campaign to the exploration and documentation of single findings and artefacts. Its two main components are:
ArteCore, the Artefact Exploration and Collaboration Rendering Engine, a complete virtual archaeology toolset with 2D and 3D visualisation routines, allowing for the examination of virtual high-resolution representations without touching and damaging the originals.
GeoCore, the Geofact Mapping and Rendering Engine, a map-based geo information system for presenting, exploring, and editing of archaeological excavation data in real- time 3D perspective. GeoCore is pioneering the digital excavation campaign.
ArchChannel: sharing the world's archaeological knowledge
The ArchChannel, hosted by TNT project partner National Geographic, is a cross-media Web portal into the cultural heritage of mankind. It adapts knowledge from historical and pre-historical science and archaeological findings to an interested layman public. It also provides information on how to actively use the relevant museums and archaeological sites, and therefore has the potential to stimulate cultural tourism.
A comparably rich and in-depth Web portal has not been realised before - neither on the particular Neanderthal issue nor on a broader archaeological scope. The spectrum of subjects relevant to archaeology and anthropology reach from the first Europeans (Homo heidelbergensis, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens sapiens) to the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Roman and Celt civilisations, the Goths and many other peoples and cultures, right through to recent archaeological times, spanning a period of over 500 000 years of cultural and sociological history in Europe.
TNT is a combined RTD- and demonstration project. It has a technology -, service - and application strand. Technology-wise, TNT develops a Visual Simulation Engine, called VISICORE. VISICORE enables researchers in different locations to collectively explore and modify digital models of artefacts, sensor scans and other scientific data. VISICORE will also enable media companies to apply such technologies in commercial digital media applications. Service-wise, TNT will establish NESPOS - The Neanderthal Species Professional Exploration Service. NESPOS will streamline business processes in a range of European Natural History museums and will improve distributed collaborative working among European pre-historians. Application-wise, TNT will create the ARCH Channel - a cross media popular science channel for intelligent heritage and cultural tourism whose goal is to transform (pre)-historic and other archaeology related representational content into commercially viable and tourism related digital media applications accessible from a range of Internet and mobile portals. TNT will show how multiple forces can be combined to push the limits of research collaboration and media generation. While the VISICORE simulation technologies are applicable universally, in TNT they are used to improve access to Europe's cultural heritage, to promote intelligent heritage and tourism applications and to open up new revenue streams. VISICORE will be used to digitise, visualise, exchange and explore artefacts and objects from four European Natural History Museums specialising on the Neanderthal man. The content will then be repackaged and enhanced with different content and services from other sources to serve as kernel and reference application for a homogeneous (sub)-channel within tourism and archaeology related b-2-c portals. Finally, a role model is derived detailing how representational cultural heritage content may be transformed into digital media applications.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
FP6-2002-IST-1
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