CORDIS Archive
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(AC238): Virtual Museum International |
The VISEUM project used high-speed network links to combine image archives in museums in Europe and Canada into a single virtual museum. As a result of previous projects, the European museums have large banks of high-quality digital images. Sharing this content over a network enables comparisons which previously were not feasible: for example, accurate-colour details from two paintings held by different institutions can be compared side-by-side on the computer screen. Also infra-red, ultra-violet and x-ray images which are usually not published at all can be accessed remotely in high resolution. This is expected to contribute greatly to conservation-related research. Traversing one third of the circumference of the earth, the high speed ATM infrastructure provides almost instantaneous access to formerly mutually inaccessible heritage resources.
Within the time-span of the project (September 1996 to February 1998), the virtual museum was open to professional staff from the participating museums only. However, the project put in place the basic infrastructure and technologies, so that other museums as well as research and educational institutions could use the VISEUM system after the end of the project.
The project had the following key technical objectives:
VISEUM covered both the field of ATM networking technology as well as the application area of remote access to museum image archives.
The result of the project is a virtual museum, connecting institutions in Europe and North America, where archives of very high resolution images are shared and the co-operation among the participants in research and development is facilitated. In this way, the high-speed infrastructure improves the cross cultural exchange of heritage resources. The quality of conservation of fragile objects of art is increased by sharing of information.
The following graphics show a few screenshots of the first prototype of the VISEUM client.
Screen showing a Hit List
Screen with Object Display
Zoom on Selected Details
A global index server (see figure below) provides a uniform way to query all the server sites quickly from one contact point. This uses a basic set of common fields obtained from the collection databases of all the participating institutions. An authorisation server provides security by managing a set of password-protected user accounts. The content servers actually serve the requests for information, by obtaining images from the CD Jukebox and text from the collection database. The global index server necessarily has only those fields which are common to all participating institutions. To enable detailed searches using fields specific to the type of object held at that museum, each site can also have a local index server.
Parts of the VISEUM system were based on pre-products by Advanced Cultural Technology Inc. (ACT) in Vancouver, e.g. the authorisation server. These solutions were adapted to fit the specific needs of VISEUM. For example, a new developed CD-ROM jukebox with a capacity of 150 CD-ROMs was adapted to the special needs of the VISEUM users by NSM Jukebox GmbH.
VISEUM System Overview
There were four user sites in VISEUM: the Louvre/LRMF in Paris, the National Gallery in London, Birkbeck College in London and Virtual Museum Association in Vancouver. The sites were interconnected by concatenated ATM networks. In Canada the ATM networks of British Columbia Research Networking Association (Rnet), CANARIE and Teleglobe Canada were used to transfer information between the East coast and the West coast of Canada. At the East coast the submarine cable CANTAT-3 connected Canada to Germany. VISEUM used about 10 Mbit/s of a 155 Mbit/s link to connect to Deutsche Telekom Berkom in Berlin. This link is operated jointly by Teleglobe Canada and Berkom, which was also the co-ordinator of VISEUM. Via Berlin, the ATM traffic was routed into the pan-European ATM network provided by JAMES. The two user sites in London were connected to UCL, which had a 34 Mbit/s connection via SuperJANET to the JAMES point of presence in London. The LRMF was connected to the JAMES point of presence of France Telecom in Paris. The user sites had a 10 Mbit/s local ATM access. The National Hosts in France, Germany, UK and Canada supported the project.
The network solution was required to support the VISEUM application in a manner that is easy to use, high-speed, reliable, manageable, scaleable and standards-based. ATM is designed for multimedia support, dedicated high bandwidth and the promise of global ubiquity. Since IP has become the dominant LAN protocol and allows routing to the desktop, VISEUM used MPOA (Multiprotocol over ATM), which links the power of routing IP with the scalability of ATM. VISEUM expected to be the first project to use MPOA on a global scale. Actually, the MPOA version used was previous to the ATM Forum standard. The ATM equipment at the user sites was provided by Newbridge (VIVID product family).
The image servers (Sun SPARCstation and CD-ROM jukebox) were attached via 155 Mbit/s in-house ATM to the VISEUM network. The clients (PC or Sun workstation) were connected via Ethernet and an Ethernet/ATM gateway to the VISEUM network, or directly via ATM. At each user site an ATM workgroup switch was installed. A CBR VP bearer service was used to interconnect the sites in the wide area. AAL5 and MPOA were used to carry TCP/IP traffic over ATM.
VISEUM Network Structure
National Galery Network - Phase 1
National Galery Network - Phase 2
VISEUM Network Final Stage
VISEUM trials with real world users from the participating institutions were performed from April 97 until January 98. Typically, trial sessions lasted 2 or 3 weeks with several weeks in between two sessions to make system improvements. Four applications were used for the experiments:
A promotional event with a public audience was held in March 1998.