A portable system to build 3D models of cultural heritage and to allow their exploration by blind people

This paper addresses the increasing attention to the preservation and fruition of cultural heritage via the acquisition of 3D digital models. A special care is also paid to enable these treasures to be accessed by people with different abilities. The latter problem can benefit from haptic interfaces that allow the exploration of artistic objects that cannot be physically touched. A portable low-cost system to rapidly build 3D models and to allow their haptic exploration is presented. The 3D model construction module builds VRML models of the scene that can be rendered using proper tools. VRML models are imported into the haptic module to extend the access to blind people. The system enables the dynamical change of the relative size between the virtual fingertips and the objects to simulate a multi-resolution perception. Furthermore, it supports the use of guided paths in the kinesthetic exploration of the object. The exploration of specific regions of the model can be enhanced by textual information provided to the user by text-to-speech tools. The validation of the proposed portable haptic system has been done on the "Palazzo del Sedile", of the XII century, located in Bitetto in the south of Italy.