A Comparative Study of the High-Fidelity Computer Reconstruction of Byzantine Art in Cyprus in the Past and Present

遗址的计算机重建为我们提供了一种可视化过去环境的手段，让我们得以一窥过去可能很难欣赏的过去。然而，这些重建必须包含一个遗址的所有实物证据，否则就有歪曲过去的非常真实的危险。重建过去环境的关键特征是真实的照明和环境本身。今天，我们的建筑物内部是由明亮和稳定的光照明的，但过去的社会依靠日光和火焰来照明，因此，由于我们对环境的感知直接受到到达眼睛的光线的数量和性质的影响，任何计算机重建都必须准确地模拟这种照明条件。此外，在许多图形应用中，包括虚拟考古，假设光通过非参与的介质，通常是干净的空气或真空。对于大多数合成图像来说，这是一个令人满意的假设。然而，在某些情况下，有必要包括参与的媒体，如雾、烟或灰尘，以在图像中提供所需级别的真实感。特别是在考古遗址中，用于提供室内照明的材料，包括蜡烛和木火，会产生烟雾，此外，例如用于礼拜目的的香炉产生的烟雾可能会对这些环境中的能见度产生重大影响。在这项可行性研究中，我们将承担拜占庭艺术的高保真重建，即从东罗马帝国发展而来的持久拜占庭帝国的罕见可见遗迹。拜占庭人全神贯注于黄金的使用，并在他们的教堂中广泛使用黄金。在这些图标、巨大的墙壁和天花板马赛克以及壁画中，金色的使用意在从内部照亮图片。这种照明效果与教堂的某些建筑元素相结合，被用来创造某些错觉，包括冲天炉马赛克上的圣人似乎走出金色背景，走近观众。黄金不仅被用来画画，还被用来制作烛台和悬挂烛台。拜占庭建筑师实际上对教堂建筑某些部分的直接和间接照明的使用给予了仔细的关注，这取决于各自空间明确定义的宗教价值。这种宗教价值也通过建筑形式和图片的使用来象征。我们选择了塞浦路斯拜占庭艺术，因为它的卓越质量和地理位置的接近。在拜占庭时代，塞浦路斯紧随首都君士坦丁堡的艺术和文化潮流，尤其是高质量的艺术。今天，在拜占庭帝国这个曾经富饶而和平的小省，许多最珍贵的拜占庭艺术遗迹被发现。这项可行性研究将受益于最近的两项关键发展，这两项发展现在使开发这种高度真实的古代拜占庭环境成为可能：基于物理的高保真计算机图形技术的进展，包括参与媒体的准确建模，以及新型高动态范围显示器和高精度眼球跟踪系统的可用性。这项可行性研究的目标是确定今天人们看待拜占庭艺术的方式是否真的有显著不同，以及它在过去可能出现的样子，因为它们在原始环境中展示，并被烛光、油灯和日光照亮。该项目的结果应该为人们对拜占庭艺术在过去的看法提供新的见解，并为未来高保真的计算机重建文化遗产文物提供指导。

Computer reconstructions of heritage sites provide us with a means of visualising past environments, allowing us a glimpse of the past that might otherwise be difficult to appreciate. However, it is essential that these reconstructions incorporate all the physical evidence for a site, otherwise there is a very real danger of misrepresenting the past. Key features when reconstructing past environments are authentic illumination and the environment itself. Today the interior of our buildings are lit by bright and steady light, but past societies relied on daylight and flame for illumination, and thus, as our perception of an environment is directly affected by the amount and nature of light reaching the eye, any computer reconstruction must accurately model such lighting conditions. Furthermore, in many graphics applications, including virtual archaeology, it is assumed that light travels through a non participating medium, normally clear air or a vacuum. For a great majority of synthesised images, this is a satisfactory assumption. However, in some situations it is necessary to include the participating media such as fog, smoke, or dust to provide the required level of realism within the images. In archaeological sites in particular, the materials used to provide interior light, including candles and wood fires would have caused smoke, and in addition, smoke from, for example incense burners for liturgical purposes, might have significantly affected visibility in these environments. In this feasibility study we will undertake the high-fidelity reconstruction of Byzantine art, that is the rare visible remains of the long lasting Byzantine Empire, which grew out of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Byzantines were much preoccupied with the use of gold and favoured it extensively in their churches. In the icons, massive wall and ceiling mosaics and frescoes, the use of gold was meant to illuminate the pictures from within . This lighting effect in combination with certain architectural elements of the churches was used to create certain illusions, including the holy people on the cupola mosaics seeming to step out of the golden background, approaching the viewer . Gold was not only used for the pictures, but also for candlesticks and in hanging candelabra. Byzantine architects in fact paid careful attention to the use of direct and indirect lighting in certain parts of the church building, depending on the firmly defined religious value of the respective space. This religious value was also symbolised by the architectural form and the use of pictures. We have chosen Cypriot Byzantine art, because of its outstanding quality and the geographical closeness of the sites. During Byzantine times, Cyprus followed closely the art and cultural trends of the capital, Constantinople, with especially high-quality art. Today it is in this tiny former rich and peaceful province of the Byzantine Empire that many of most precious surviving relics of Byzantine art are to be found.This feasibility study will benefit from two key recent developments which now make it possible to develop such highly authentic reconstructions of ancient Byzantine environments: progress in high fidelity physically based computer graphics including accurately modelling of participating media, and the availability of novel High Dynamic Range displays and high-precision eye-tracking systems. The goal of this feasibility study is to determine whether there is indeed a significant difference in the way in which people view Byzantine art today, and as it may have appeared in the past as they were displayed in their original environments and were illuminated by candle light, oil lamps and day light.The results from this project should provide new insights into how Byzantine art may have been viewed in the past and provide guidelines for future high-fidelity computer reconstructions of cultural heritage artefacts.