Three-dimensional modeling and printing of museum artifacts have a growing role in public engagement and teaching—introducing new cultural heritage stakeholders and potentially allowing more democratic access to museum collections. This destabilizes traditional relationships between museums, collections, researchers, teachers and students, while offering dynamic new ways of experiencing objects of the past. Museum events and partnerships such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art “Hackathon”; the MicroPasts initiative; and Sketchfab for Museums and Cultural Heritage, encourage non-traditional methods of crowd-sourcing and software collaboration outside the heritage sector. The wider distribution properties of digitized museum artifacts also have repercussions for object-based and kinesthetic learning at all levels, as well as for experiential and culturally sensitive aspects of indigenous heritage. This article follows the existing workflow from model creation to classroom: considering the processes, problems, and applications of emerging digital visualization technologies from both a museum and pedagogical perspective.

The application of digital technologies has greatly improved the efficiency of cultural heritage documentation and the diversity of heritage information. Yet the adequate incorporation of cultural, intangible, sensory or experimental elements of local heritage in the process of digital documentation, and the deepening of local community engagement, remain important issues in cultural heritage research. This paper examines the heritage landscape of tunpu people within the context of digital conservation efforts in China and the emergence of emotions studies as an evaluative tool. Using a range of data from the Ming-era village of Baojiatun in Guizhou Province, this paper tests an exploratory emotions-based approach and methodology, revealing shifting interpersonal relationships, experiential and praxiological engagement with the landscape, and emotional registers within tunpu culture and heritage management. The analysis articulates distinctive asset of emotional value at various scales and suggests that such approaches, applied within digital documentation contexts, can help researchers to identify multi-level heritage landscape values and their carriers. This methodology can provide more complete and dynamic inventories to guide digital survey and representation; and the emotions-based approach also supports the integration of disparate heritage aspects in a holistic understanding of the living landscape. Finally, the incorporation of community participation in the process of digital survey breaks down boundaries between experts and communities and leads to more culturally appropriate heritage records and representations.

Photogrammetry and laser scanning, or combinations of the two, are increasingly used in cultural heritage settings to create three-dimensional digital replicas. Yet the technical production processes involved can sometimes result in undesirable outcomes – flattening shadows, light, and surface textural variations of original artifacts. Many of these important visual cues contribute to our understanding of digital models as ‘historical objects,’ and the resulting overly digitized photogrammetry – lacking visual context and depth – can impede user interactivity. Viewers of digital heritage can become deterred by the uncanny, static, or unreal aesthetic of some photogrammetric and laser scans. This article considers two digital heritage projects: “Emotions3D: Bringing Digital Heritage to Life,”and the Smithsonian Apollo 11 Command Module scans in order to explore how technical and curatorial decisions can address issues in photogrammetric and laser post-processing. While often subtle, different post-processing choices are perceived and deeply cognitively and emotionally internalized by viewers and users of digital cultural heritage. Therefore, this paper assesses the relevance of emotions studies, theories of the ‘uncanny’ and the ‘uncanny valley,’ and issues of authenticity and best-practice digital interventions to enhance user engagement and accessibility through digital post-processing techniques.

From 1225 to 1250, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, built or renovated at least seventy defensive structures in the southern Italian province of Apulia. These buildings blended Roman, Islamic, or Byzantine elements with newer Gothic architecture; however, many of these architectural traits had already been adapted by the Norman lords of southern Italy in the preceding two centuries. Thus we must consider Frederick's originality in light of this less studied trend in the existing Romanesque canon. Frederick's replication of Norman architectural practices was based on the fact that they previously been used as a tool of empire, and it echoes his reuse of Roman remains. This article considers several aspects of Frederick's architectural program, including topographical layout and geographical positioning, his appropriation of Roman and Norman remains, and his adoption of classical and Norman artistic and engineering practices as nuanced processes of architectural spoliation and innovation.

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