A WEB-BASED PLATFORM FOR MANAGEMENT AND VISUALIZATION OF GEOMETRIC DOCUMENTATION PRODUCTS OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES

Abstract. The mission of digital Cultural Heritage (CH) repositories goes beyond engagement and dissemination; their research data should be approached and correlated spatially and semantically in the service of conservation and accessibility. Therefore, a flexible system is needed to expand, reuse and repurpose their content, addressing online collaboration, real time progress and ease of use. Towards this direction, the “METEORA” web-based platform is a novel and holistic approach to the organization, management and visualization of the 3D and 2D documentation products of CH sites. It integrates a multi-scale 3D viewer based on the 3DHOP framework, personalized information access and interactive tools for data retrieval and presentation. Emphasis is given in the development of a mid-level interface for creating, updating and maintaining 3DHOP’s functionalities and customizing information based on the user’s scientific specialty and field of interest. The proposed admin control panel updates the state of the current visualization, allows the integration of 3D models and multimedia and automates the creation of clickable points of interest on top of the 3D surfaces. It is based on a MySQL Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) that supports the back-end User Interface (UI) with create, read, update and delete (CRUD) management functions of a typical RESTful service. Moreover, all the control mechanisms as well as the procedures of authentication, authorization and encryption of the credentials of the certified users are configured through the PHP scripting language and JSON files. The resulting platform achieves maximum adaptability in digital archiving of heterogeneous datasets and has increasing efficiency in representing all types of data supported by 3DHOP.