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Ciberarchaeology project by M. Knorich Zuffo (University of Sao Paulo), M. Forte (Duke) and R. Kopper (Duke) awarded a grant from the Sao Paulo Research Foundation

(December 9, 2014) The project proposal “CyberArchaeology – Virtual Reality and E-science meets Archaeology, Archaeology Digital Excavation: Interactive and Collaborative Immersive Visual Analytics & Editing From Massive Distributed 3D Point Cloud Databases” (PI Marcelo Knorich Zuffo, University of Sao Paulo, CO-PIs Maurizio Forte and Regis Kopper for Duke) has been awarded a grant from FAPESP (Sao Paulo Research Foundation)

The main goal of the FAPESP eScience program is to encourage bold, novel, and unconventional approaches to world class multidisciplinary research involving joint collaboration of computer scientists and researchers in other domains. eScience is concerned with joint exploration of how advances in Computer Science research can help face core science and technology challenges in other fields, and vice-versa.

Cyberarchaeology is a new branch of archaeology, combining state-of-art digital and virtual archaeology with e-science. E-Science is computationally intensive science carried out in highly distributed network environments such as cloud and grid computing. Immersive Visual Analytics advances science and technology developments in data representation, interaction and analytical reasoning and reporting. This project aims to develop an interactive system coupled with visual analytics tools to explore archaeological worlds and artifacts, harvested with modern archaeometry digital techniques and stored in distributed databases. The proponents of this Project are Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia and Centro Interdisciplinar de Tecnologias Interativas, from University of Sao Paulo, in partnership with Duke University Cyberarchaeology Research Group and Immersive Virtual Environment. The main objectives are: 1) improve digital scanning techniques for archaeological excavations and artifacts; 2) explore cloud-based storage methods for 3D big data; 3) create analytical tools for proper data mining in 3D big data and to build 3D real Worlds. 4) create a Virtual Excavation based on data extracted at the pre-historic site Abrigo do Alvo rockshelter (São Paulo State, being excavated by MAE/USP) and at the Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey (whereas Duke University owns all the 3D datasets); 5) create a virtual record of the prehistoric rock art of the three largest rockshelters in São Paulo state. 6); explore those virtual sites in Fully Immersive Enviroments such as the DIVE at Duke University and Caverna Digital at USP, collaboratively suing grid computing and cloud computing; 7) promote the Second USP-Duke International Workshop in Cyberarchaeology to Disseminate Project Results.

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