Assessing Visual Perception in Heritage Sites with Visual Acuity

Abstract

A challenging aspect of visibility studies is visual acuity, which concerns the clarity of vision within a given space in relation to variables such as spatial geometry, lighting conditions, the physical properties of the viewed object, or the familiarity of viewers with the target. Our research proposes a novel approach to visibility studies, based on visual acuity and its related pipeline, which integrates qualitative and quantitative aspects such as the cultural background of viewers, the illumination values of space, contrast, and size of objects of interest as well as their meaning and context. The proposed pipeline relies on 3D documentation of the investigated space, light measurements, research in optics, trigonometry calculations, and 3D GIS set against images and architectural space. The method's effectiveness is demonstrated in the study of the iconography of the Cathedral of St. John the Theologian in Nicosia, Cyprus, the work hypothesis being that the church's spatial organization, choice of scenes, and level of detail were carefully planned to establish visual narratives with strong political and religious connotations and to overall dictate the ways the building was accessed and experienced. The method can be broadly applied for visibility analyses in a variety of case-studies in closed spaces.

A Digital 4D Information System on the World Scale: Research Challenges, Approaches, and Preliminary Results

“…Scaling has been frequently assessed as an important parameter for perceiving architecture [210,228]. Visual acuity is the ability to distinguish details and is mainly influenced by the distance to a virtual or physical object [229][230][231][232]. Perspective depiction and perception include the effect of different fields of view [232][233][234][235].…”

“…Three-dimensional XR spaces add the methodological challenge of mapping what the user sees, which can be achieved, e.g., via viewshed calculations in fully 3D spaces [232,249,250]. Despite much research, the main criticism is that studies of viewer effects are primarily descriptive rather than proven by user tests [230,251,252].…”

Digital Restoration of Cultural Heritage With Data-Driven Computing: A Survey

“…Visual Acuity is the clarity of vision at a given distance. Visualization of heritage sites and artifacts based on visual acuity is demonstrated through the iconography of the Cathedral of St. John the Theologian in Nicosia, Cyprus, in [95]. Raman spectroscopy is a spectroscopic technique that relies upon Raman scattering.…”

Digital 3D Technologies for Humanities Research and Education: An Overview

“…Digital 3D/4D reconstructions [516,517] have joined a long tradition of architectural reconstruction and depiction [302,518]. Despite much research, a main criticism of the studies of viewer effects is that they primarily take descriptive rather than quantitative approaches [519][520][521]. What are the visual properties of 3D/4D visualizations?…”

“…Visual acuity is the ability to distinguish details: in contrast to scale, the main influencing factor is the distance to a virtual or physical object [519,[539][540][541].…”