CISA3 NEWSLETTER
Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology

May 2013
Qualcomm Institute/Calit2, UC San Diego

World Archaeological Congress
Held every four years, the 7th World Archaeological Congress(WAC-7) took place January 13-18 2013 at a palatial convention center at the Dead Sea in Jordan, featuring more than 800
researchers from roughly 70 different countries. CISA3’s work on
Cultural Heritage Diagnostics, Engineering, and Analytics -- applied
to Cyber-Archaeology -- was well-represented at the meeting.

WA C - 7

Pictured top: Program forthe 7th World Archaeological
Congress; (above) Balloon
used to capture aerial footage at Petra; (below) ARtifact
augmented reality app running on Android tablet in Petrachurch; and (bottom) Balloon
photo of the Temple of theWinged Lions taken fromapproximately 120 meters.

Over the course of two days, CISA3 Associate Director Tom Levy and longtime collaborator Mohammad Najjar co-chaired a session on “Deep-time
perspectives on culture change in Jordan: Cyber-archaeology, productionand exchange.” Levy led off the series of talks with a presentation on Jordan
as a model for world cultural heritage research and conservation. He notedthat since 1999, UC San Diego and Jordan’s Department of Antiquities
decided to ‘go digital’ and abandoned paper recording methods in theirwork in the Faynan copper ore district of southern Jordan. “Beginning in
2010, with the help of a five-year National Science Foundation IGERT grant,interdisciplinary students have been involved with faculty using UCSD fieldresearch as a testbed for cyber-archaeology,” said Levy, whose overview
presented an “integrated system that includes data capture, storage, analytical frameworks, scientific visualization, and cyberinfrastructures for onsite and global data sharing.”
Levy and IGERT Trainee Matthew Vincent delivered a paper, “From thecopper mines to the data mines: OpenDig and the data avalanche in southern Jordan.” OpenDig is an in-field data acquisition tool for the descriptive
metadata of field archaeology -- providing new ways of accessing andorganizing the data through the use of NoSQL databases that allow for“seamless replication and easy access through standard HTTP protocols.”
On Day Two, IGERT Trainee Ian W.N. Jones talked about “Technologicalnarratives, nrand and small: Where do we currently stand?” Fellow IGERT
Trainees David Vanoni and Vid Petrovic, working with CISA3 director Falko
Kuester, presented papers on “ARtifact in Jordan: Augmented reality foron-site scientific visualization and digital tourism,” and on “Capturing andvisualizing excavations in 3D: Lessons from fieldwork in Jordan,” referring to case studies carried out with Ashley Richter from excavations in
Faynan and Petra. The World Heritage Site at Petra was also the subjectof a paper by IGERT Trainee Matthew Howland, Matt Vincent, Tom Levy
and Christopher Tuttle (the latter from the American Center of Oriental
Research). Their topic: “Ballooning in Petra: Utilizing low-altitude aerial
photography and structure-from-motion for archaeological conservation.”

http://culturalheritage.calit2.net/cisa3/

Letter from the Director
May 2013

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

Dear CISA3 supporters and colleagues,
Last month marked the mid-point between our annual field expedition seasons.
That’s when we take our research from the laboratory into the “wild” (as somewould say), putting the underlying theory to the test under field conditions.
In 2012, our CISA3 team of faculty and graduate students funded through our NSF IGERT
Training, Research and Education in Engineering
for Cultural Heritage Diagnostics (TEECH) project were active in Italy, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia,
Jordan and Mongolia. They worked on a broad
range of research opportunities with the unifying vision of developing the cultural heritage
diagnostics and analytics approach needed tocreate a future for the past. We call this ourcultural heritage engineering methodology, andit creates the underlying approach, techniques
and tools for data acquisition, curation, analysis
and dissemination that we now apply to cultural analytics, digital archaeology
and cyber-archaeology, among other fields. The goal: to solve specific domainchallenges.

(Above) IGERT demos for CENIC workshop
attendees in March 2013; (below) CISA3 OpenLab Night in February 2013 [more on page 4]

In this special issue of the CISA3 Newsletter, we highlight the field of cyberarchaeology – a field that is swiftly transforming archaeology as we know it –and a field that our research is re-shaping at a fundamental level.
Through IGERT-TEECH, a remarkable team of young minds keeps evolving,taking on grand challenges in disruptive and refreshing new ways. We invite
you to experience some of our latest research during two upcoming events: theMay 24 Open House (10am-3pm) to celebrate the naming of Calit2’s Qualcomm
Institute (where we are based); and the next CISA3 Open Lab Night on June
4 (5:30pm-7:30pm), when visitors will also get the opportunity to take in our
CISA3 exhibition, EX3: Exodus, Cyber-Archaeology and the Future (see below),which will be on display through June 9 in Atkinson Hall. We look forward toseeing you at one or all of these upcoming events.
Prof. Falko Kuester
Director, CISA3SAVE THE DATE CISA3 OPEN LAB NIGHT

AND SPECIAL EVENT IN CONNECTION WITH THE EXHIBITION

Exodus, Cyber-Archaeology and the Future

5:30PM - 7:30PM
TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013
ATKINSON HALL, UC SAN DIEGOVISIT THE EXHIBITION AND CISA3 LABS, AND HEAR UPDATES FROM GRADUATESTUDENTS AND FACULTY ON THEIR LATEST PROJECTS AT CALIT2’SQUALCOMM INSTITUTE. EXHIBITION CO-SPONSORED WITH UC SAN DIEGOJUDAIC STUDIES. EXHIBITION OPEN TO THE PUBLIC FROM JUNE 1-9.
FOR DAILY HOURS, VISIT http://bit.ly/ZnqIn3 RSVP: VPOOL@UCSD.EDU

IGERT Updates

I G E R T U P D AT E S

CISA3 Looks to the Sea for New
Challenges in Cyber-Archaeology

IGERT Trainees got a closeup look at the challenges of underwater archaeology when CISA2 staged its first underwaterarchaeology workshop February 4-7.
University of Southampton Prof. Jon Adams (above center), a
maritime archaeologist; Justin Dix, a senior lecturer in geophysics
and geoarchaeology; Graeme Earl, senior lecturer in archaeology;
and Filippo Fazi, a lecturer in the Institute of Sound and Vibration
Research, all joined Falko Kuester, Tom Levy, Jules Jaffe, Tom
DeFanti, Peter Otto, and Dominique Rissolo, as well as IGERT
students, for a series of working meetings to talk about how to
broaden CISA3’s terrestrial cultural heritage diagnostic approachand methodologies to maritime applications. Some of the outcomes
included plans to install a CAVE environment at the University ofSouthampton for collaborative visualization; submission of joint
proposals; and participation in each other’s field expeditions.

San Luis Rey
A team from CISA3 joinedwith CyArk, a non-profit
group documenting historicsites, to scan the Mission
San Luis Rey in the city of
Oceanside. Their goal: tocreate a 3D record of the huge compound in less than four days -- to help
in the Mission’s ongoing preservation and modifications. The UCSD teambrought CISA3’s terrestrial laser scanner (which will also be used as theprimary scanning device for a Balboa Park digitization project). The CISA3
team also deployed their octocopter with on-board cameras for aerial imaging. IGERT Trainees Ashley M. Richter (see story at right) and Tom Wypych
represented CISA3 on the expedition.

Interdisciplinary
Research Award
IGERT
Trainee
AshleyRichter was honored forher efforts to understandthe past by using hightech, 3D data visualization
tools to analyze artifacts
and excavation sites.
Richter is a Ph.D. candidate
in archaeological anthrop o l o g y, a n d r e c e i v e d t h e
Interdisciplinary ResearchAward from UC San Diego’s
Office of Graduate Studies
andGraduate
Student
Association. She was one ofthree students selected forthe award in what the Deanof Graduate Studies called“ a n i n t e n s e c o m p e t i t i o n .”R i c h t e r, w h o i s a d e s c e n dant of the Danish antiquarian and ‘Renaissancem a n’ O l e Wo r m , s a i d s h e wa s
especially honored to win
the award because it recognizes the interdisciplinary nature of her research.
Her approach incorporates
principles of computer science and engineering (suchas using a LiDAR scanner
to create digital ‘point
clouds’ of archaeologicalsites) as well as traditionalarchaeological methods.
“ To o o f t e n i n t h e f i e l d o f
a r c h a e o l o g y, m o v i n g t h eknowledge forward is broken down by the politics
of departments, who don’t
want to ‘share’ researche r s ,” R i c h t e r s a i d . A t l e a s t
at UC San Diego, she added,that is changing.

http://culturalheritage.calit2.net/cisa3/

Events

EVENTS

Cyber-Archaeology andWorld Cultural Heritage
In January, CISA3’s Tom Levy
(above left) headlined a meeting on
cyber-archaeology for the American
Academy of Arts & Sciences. UCSD
Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla(above right) welcomed the American
Academy members to the campus,
before Charles Stanish introduced
Levy. Stanish directs UCLA’s Cotsen
Institute of Archaeology. Levy’s keynote talk is available for viewing ondemand at http://bit.ly/15CGf6d. His
talk was followed by tours of CISA3
labs and demos by IGERT graduate
students (below right and left). See
photo gallery at http://bit.ly/X3sUhO.

Open Lab Night

Clockwise from top left: CISA3 director Falko Kuester;
visiting Jordan in the StarCAVE VR environment; TourCAVE system; and John Mangan displays MPF app.

In early February 2013, CISA3 organized its latest Open Lab Night and invited patrons andthe public at large to walk through its labs at
UC San Diego and witness more than 20 hightechnology demos staged by graduate students funded through CISA3’s NSF IGERT program. MediaCommons, developed in Calit2,
was demonstrated by computer scientist John
Mangan. It is a Multi-Purpose Framework (MPF)
application that allows various types of data(including video images, panoramic images
and flat images) to be viewed remotely, andsimultaneously, on multiple displays. “So it’s
possible,” explained Mangan, “for collaborators to view the exact same data, at the exact same time, in the exact same spot on theirscreens, no matter what type of screen they’reusing.”

http://culturalheritage.calit2.net/cisa3/

Research Highlights

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Seismic Testing of Statues
Christine Wittich, a grad student from
Structural Engineering who is part of Calit2/
CISA3’s NSF IGERT program in cultural heritage diagnostics, won a Best Use of Literature
award from the Science & Engineering Libraryat UCSD in April 2013. She received one of
the two awards given by the S&E Library at
the Jacobs School’s annual ResearchExpo
on April 18, selected from among over 200
posters. Wittich’s prize-winning poster on“Shake Table Testing of Stiff Model Statue
Structures Considering Mass Eccentricity”
will be displayed in the library through thesummer.
Wittich and her advisor, Prof. Tara Hutchinson(pictured above at left, with Wittich prior to thefirst shake) undertook shake table experiments
to understand the seismic response of culturally important statues. The tests were conducted at the UCSD Powell Laboratory throughan IGERT mini-grant. A stiff, steel specimen
was designed with movable weight plates
and a marble base to represent 85 percent
of statues surveyed during Wittich’s 2011 field
experience in Florence, Italy. Planned configurations of this specimen systematically vary thetheoretical governing geometric parameters.
The experimental setup included specimen andshake table, which were subjected to both recorded
earthquake motions as well as simulated earthquakes. The intent was to monitor the response of
the statue with respect to the input motion in termsof rocking, sliding, and vibration. Typical structural
engineering displacement and acceleration sensors were used in combination with computer vision
techniques and high-definition cameras to track thecomplicated motion of a statue.
The results of this experiment will be used for thecalibration of predictive numerical models and tounderstand which types of statues are most vulnerable during an earthquake.

CISA3: Aerospace, Disaster Response + Pattern Recognition
I n M a r c h 2 0 1 3 , CI SA3 and I G ERT f ie l d e d as t r o n g p r e s e n c e at I EEE Aero sp ace, which to o kp la c e i n M o n ta n a t his year. Tom Wypych, An d re w
Hu y n h ( p i c tu r e d below) and Jason Kimb a l l a l l
g a v e ta l k s to t he assembled aerospace e n g i n e e r s , s c i e n ti s ts and managers f rom ind u sty,
NA S A , g o v e r n ment labs, t he milit ary an d a ca d e m e . Wy p y c h ’s paper spelled out a “Syste mf or In te r a c ti v e Management of Aerial I ma g i n g
Ca m p a i g n s ,” o ff ering a f ramework f or re a l -ti me
m a n a g e m e n t o f int erchangeable image se n so r
payloads on unmanned aerial vehicles. Theg o a l : to s tr e a m l ine t he dat a acquisit ion pi p e l i n e
d u r i n g a e r i a l i maging campaigns while p ro vi d in g a h i g h d e g r ee of int eract ivit y. Kimball sp o ke
a b o u t “ In te r a c ti ve Visualizat ion of Large-Sca l e
Atomistic and Cosmological Particle Simulations,
wh i l e H y u n h ’s talk f ocused on “Visual Ana l yti cs
o f In h e r e n tl y N oisy, Crowdsource Dat a o n U l tra
Hig h R e s o l u ti o n Displays. ”

IGERT Trainee Huynh (right) alsopresented his work at two meetings
in Japan. Last fall, he spoke on thelimitations of using crowdsourcing for damage assessment at
the 10th International Workshop
on Remote Sensing for Disaster
Response, held in Tohoku. After the workshop, researchers went on a two-day field trip visiting sites that weredamaged by the 2011 tsunami. The workshop resulted
in a call for better metrics of damage assessment inremote sensing. Then in mid-November, Andrew wasback in Japan to present his work on the application of
triadic clustering to map dirt roads in northern Mongolia.
The venue was the 21st International Conference on
Pattern Recognition, in Tsukuba. Huynh’s oral presentation went over the difficulties of working with noisy,
crowdsourced data, capturing human perception, and theuse of methods such as triadic clustering to make more
sense of the data.

http://culturalheritage.calit2.net/cisa3/

Internships
With summer approaching, CISA3 at
UCSD becomes home for undergrads
interested in cultural heritage.

INTERNSHIPS

Calit2 Scholars
The Calit2 Summer Undergraduate Research
Scholars program kicks off in June, with two of the
30 Calit2 Scholars slated to work on CISA3 projects. Lillian Wakefield, who is studying environmental chemistry, will focus on the “Development ofAnalytical Methodologies for the Characterizationof Lead White Pigments in Microsamples from
Renaissance Paintings,” with Maurizio Seracini as
her advisor. Separately, undergraduate Aliya Hoffwill explore “Diagnostic Visualization Systems andMethodologies for Underwater Archaeology.” Hoffis interested in biological anthropology, and she
will work with advisor Jules Jaffe at the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography. http://bit.ly/xTJfRM

UCSD-NGS Engineers for Exploration2013 is the inaugural year for a new summer program funded through a $380,000 NSF grant under
its Research Experiences for Undergraduates(REU) program in the CISE directorate. The
grant went to CSE professor Ryan Kastner, Calit2
research scientist Albert Yu-Min Lin and Calit2
wireless functional manager Curt Schurgers, who
run the UCSD-National Geographic Engineers for
Exploration program. Engineers for Explorationis continually seeking new ways to break down
barriers in the world of exploration with UC San
Diego’s partners in the program, including National
Geographic, Hubbs SeaWorld Research Institute,and San Diego Zoo Global. The eight undergrads
in the inaugural class – some from UCSD, somefrom other institutions – will spend their summer
in San Diego tackling real-world engineering challenges in exploration and scientific discovery.
As with the UCSD-National Geographic program,the REU grants will match upper-division undergrads to a variety of high-tech research projects
overseen by scientists, engineers, and explorers
from the university and program partners. “ThisNSF funding will allow us to expand the Engineers
for Exploration program to invite enthusiastic
engineering and computer science majors fromacross the U.S. to come to San Diego to design
and test their own research projects in the field,”
said PI Kastner. “The undergrads will benefit fromthe guidance of existing undergraduate leadersin the program, graduate students, professors,and scientific mentors from our partner institutes.”
Check back in January re: summer 2014: http://bit.
ly/Zjuez1.

CISA3 Undergraduate Research Internships
The CISA3 Undergraduate Research Internship(CURI) program offers academic credit to students
interested in the interdisciplinary application of science and technology to cultural heritage diagnostics
and preservation. The CURI internship is a fourunit independent study course listed as a choice of
CSE 199 or Structural Engineering 199, which may
serve as a technical elective towards the student’s
degree. Positions are available for all levels of
experience, and each project will be crafted to suitand develop the student’s personal skill set. Current
undergraduate research projects include:• Digital archaeological illustration techniquesand metadata recording applications• Educational outreach about archaeology andtechnology• Digital documentation (laser scanning, photogrammetry, structure from motion, GIS) of
Balboa Park and Old Town
• X-Ray Fluorescence and multispectral techniques for cultural heritage diagnostics of artwork and artifacts• 3D printing for cultural heritage analysis• Creating Diagnostic Point Cloud Maps of
Mosaics for conservation• Design of cognitively ergonomic user interfaces for augmented reality and visualization in
the immersive CAVE systems; efficient systemsof visual and “tactile” navigation IN virtual space• Diagnostic imaging techniques and data capture methodologies for underwater archaeology;
designing underwater panoramic stereo photography, structure from motion, and LiDAR.

http://culturalheritage.calit2.net/cisa3/

Publications“Interactive Visualization of Large-Scale Atomistic and Cosmological Particle
Simulations,” J. Kimball, M. Duchaineau, F. Kuester, IEEE Aerospace, March 2013.

P U B L I C AT I O N S“Archaeological Remote Sensing in Jordan’s Faynan Copper Mining District with
Hyperspectral Imagery,” S.H. Savage, T.E. Levy, I.W.N. Jones, Mapping ArchaeologicalLandscapes from Space (Springer), pp. 97-110, February 2013 (pictured) http://bit.ly/ZIxtfO“The 2012 Petra Cyber-Archaeology Cultural Conservation Expedition: Temple of theWinged Lions and Environs, Jordan,” T.E. Levy, C.A. Tuttle, M.L. Vincent, M. Howland,
A.M. Richter, V. Petrovic, D. Vanoni, Antiquity, February 2013. http://bit.ly/13r2TKK“Technological Narratives, Grand and Small: Where Do We Currently Stand?” 7th World
Archaeological Congress, January 2013.
“Capturing and Visualizing Excavations in 3D: Lessons from Fieldwork in Jordan,” V.
Petrovic, A. Richter, T.E. Levy, F. Kuester, 7th World Archaeological Congress, January 2013.

At right are someof the latest journal
articles, conference papers, books
or book chapters
authored by CISA3affiliated faculty
and students:“The Leonardo Project and the Futures of the Field,” S. Stout, Clark/CLIR Colloquium on
Preservation and its Intellectual Framework, January 2013.
“Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land: The Future of the Past,” T.E. Levy, N.G. Smith, F.
Kuester, T.A. DeFanti, A.Y-M. Lin, M. Najjar, Biblical Archaeology Society, December 2012.
http://bit.ly/ZI8Cy0“ARtifact: Tablet-based Augmented Reality for Interactive Analysis of Cultural
Artifacts,” David Vanoni, Maurizio Seracini and Falko Kuester, 2012 IEEE International
Symposium on Multimedia (ISM), pp. 44-49, December 2012. http://bit.ly/17ekeJ4“Terrestrial laser scanning (LiDAR) as a means of digital documentation in rescuearchaeology: Two examples from the Faynan of Jordan,” A. Richter, F. Kuester, T.E. Levy,
M. Najjar, International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia, December 2012.
http://bit.ly/USSu82“Islamic Metallurgy in Faynan: Surveys of Wadi al-Ghuwayb and Wadi al-Jariya in
Faynan, Southern Jordan,” I.W.N. Jones, T.E. Levy, M. Najjar, American Schools of Oriental
Research, November 2012. http://bit.ly/17ekNlZ

I nv e s t i n C I SA 3 !
Research universities are criticalto the growth of our economy. Your
investment in innovative centerslike CISA3 helps new methods of
discovery and i n this case, preservation of our cultural heritagefor future generations. With yourgift, you become part of the WorldC u l t u r a l H e r i t a g e S o c i e t y, a n d
enjoy special benefits and exclusive access to world-renowned
explorers, emerging innovators, and bright young minds. Your gift
at any level is meaningful, please consi der the following opportunities to invest in CISA3:
Support students through graduate andexploration fellowships.
Create opportunities for field work and hands-on
experience with travel grants.
Provide flexible funding to meet the greatest
needs for innovation and discovery.

Give Onl ine:
To contribute via the Web,
click on this link:
http://culturalheritage.
calit2.net/
cisa3/patrons.php
and click on “Give Now” to be
directed to the UC San Diego
Giving site.
For more information about
ways to support the World
Cultural Heritage Society
and CISA3, please contact
Sarah Beckman, Director ofDevelopment, at sbeckman@
ucsd.edu or call (858) 5347320.

http://culturalheritage.calit2.net/cisa3/

To provide the vital support necessary for innovative research,
international expeditions, and unique global partnerships, theWorld Cultural Heritage Society (WCHS) for CISA3 was formed.
With ever increasing competition for public funding, private support from individuals, foundations, and corporations is critical to
the growth and sustainability of CISA3. We are grateful for thepassionate donors and volunteers who have invested their timeand resources to support exploration and discovery, and helped
position CISA3 as a global leader in the field of cyber-archaeology
and cultural heritage preservation.

Lifetime Benefactors $100K+
Robert and Natalie Englekirk
Paul and Stacy Jacobs
K e v i n a n d Ta m a r a K i n s e l l a
National Science Foundation
Rick Sandstrom and Sandra TimmonsBenefactors $25K-$99,999
Linda Brandes
Doug Carlson
Steve and Sue Hart
Norma Kershaw
Ken Widder and Jacki Johnson
Legler Benbough Foundation

Patrons $10K–$24,999

Italian Cultural Center of San Diego

Friends $1K-$9,999

Pi ctur ed(l -r) P at r ons
N ormaKers haw,
Th ad andAre lene
Wo l i ns k i,b ei n g br ief ed
b y IG E RT
Trai n ee A ar on
Gi dding on his
rese ar c h in
Jord an.

Industry Supporters

SUPPORTINGCISA3World Cultural Heritage Society

ai-oneBrunton
Digitaria
GEM Adv
Magnetometers
GeoEye Foundation
Geonics Limited
Geostudi Astier
Hilti
ImageCat
ImationIntel
JR Resources
Kalpa Group/
Loel Guinness
Leica Geosystems
Minelabs
Olympus Europe
Once Extraordinary
EventsPerkin Elmer
PontLabPrecision Camera
RepairQualcomm
R A I - 2 Vo y a g e r
Satcom Direct
SO.IN.G
The North Face
To m n o dTrimble USA
ViaSatRichard Wolf AG
Friends of Florence
Ministero per i Benie le Attività
Culturali
National Geographic
Society
Per la Buona Cura di
P a l a z z o Ve c c h i oInternational
Association for
Mongol Studies
Mongolian Academyof Sciences
Waitt Foundation

Joyce Black
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Arthur and Barbara Bloom Foundation
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Pat and Maggi CrowellR o n a n d Vi c t o r i a C u r r i e
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E l i z a b e t h a n d J o s e p h Ta f t
C a r o l To h s a k u
C a s p e r We i n b e r g e r , J r.
T h a d a n d A r e l e n e Wo l i n s k i
UC San Diego Alumni Association

Supporters

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