Who Owns 3D Scans of Historic Sites? Three-Dimensional Scanning Can Be Used to Protect Or Rebuild Historic Structures, but Who Owns That Digital Data?
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news Society | DOI:10.1145/3290410 Esther Shein Who Owns 3D Scans of Historic Sites? Three-dimensional scanning can be used to protect or rebuild historic structures, but who owns that digital data? IGH ATOP THE Thomas Jeffer- son Memorial in Washing- ton, D.C., is a layer of biofilm covering the dome, darken- ing and discoloring it. Bio- Hfilm is “a colony of microscopic organ- isms that adheres to stone surfaces,” according to the U.S. National Park Ser- vice, which needed to get a handle on its magnitude to get an accurate cost estimate for the work to remove it. Enter CyArk, a non-profit organi- zation that uses three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning and photogram- metry to digitally record and archive some of the world’s most significant cultural artifacts and structures. CyArk spent a week covering “every inch” of the dome, processed the data, and returned a set of engineer- ing drawings to the Park Service “to quantify down to the square inch how much biofilm is on the monument,’’ says CEO John Ristevski. “This is an example of where data is being used to solve a problem,” to help preserve a historical structure, he says. Ristevski says the Park Service was not charged for the data, and the work CyArk did was funded by individual Capturing photogrammetric data for the digital reconstruction of a badly damaged temple in donors in the San Francisco Bay Area, the ancient city of Bagan, in central Myanmar. where the company is located. CyArk is one of several organiza- data to build extremely precise 3D to use them to raise awareness of their tions using 3D scanning to help pro- models, says Yves Ubelmann, an ar- historical sites,’’ he says. “It is vital to tect and preserve historic structures chitect who co-founded the company. us that countries be able to share their from looting, destruction, urbaniza- This type of work has raised the cultural heritage with their citizens tion, and mass tourism. Iconem, a tricky question of who owns the rights and the international community.” French start-up founded in 2013, to these digital scans. Officials at or- When a client finances a project, the also specializes in the digitization of ganizations involved in utilizing these rights to the images are determined on endangered cultural heritage sites in techniques for historic preservation a case-by-case basis, he notes. Iconem 3D. Like CyArk, Iconem works on-site say they address this up front to avoid works with the client to determine with local partners; in its case, in 22 any contentious battles later on. if, how, and where the images can be countries. One of those partners is Iconem’s projects are either self- circulated, but the client retains the Microsoft Research, and Iconem’s financed or paid for by a client, says rights to the images. “Our ultimate technology utilizes the software gi- Ubelmann. “If Iconem is the sole stake- goal is to share the images and mod- ant’s artificial intelligence and com- holder, we share the images with scien- els with the widest audience possible puter vision algorithms to integrate tific or governmental authorities in the while respecting the countries and IMAGE COURTESY OF CYARK COURTESY IMAGE multiple levels of photogrammetry relevant country. They have the right their heritage.” JANUARY 2019 | VOL. 62 | NO. 1 | COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM 15 news Ristevski also says ownership de- nate in Europe and the U.S. and focus pends on the terms of a contract signed on threatened heritage in the Mid- prior to any work being done. Howev- There is concern dle East should make every effort to er, he adds that regardless of the way such digital scanning make scans open and accessible to the agreement is worded, “the other the people and institutions of those party gets a free and fully unrestricted “will recapitulate countries,” he says. “There is a worry license. This is always articulated up colonial museum that digital scanning efforts will reca- front before we hit the ground and do pitulate colonial museum practices the work. None of this is ambiguous.” practices that have that have involved the illicit acquisi- CyArk has been doing this type of involved the illicit tion of objects from dominated cul- work for almost 15 years, in more than tural groups, and the retention and 50 countries, “and if we were a bad acquisition of objects control of those objects under the player, we’d never be allowed back in from dominated banner of preservation.” these countries,” Ristevski says. He Rather than using terms like stresses that if CyArk owns the scanned culture groups.” “shared” or “universal” heritage as data, it is the company’s policy to never licensing claims to ownership or con- monetize it. trol, Hatala Matthes believes “We CyArk has partnered with Google should view those ideals in terms of re- Arts & Culture on the Open Heritage sponsibilities, especially to those who Project, which is using the laser tech- are most vulnerable.” nology to capture relevant data and assumption that there is some evil Like CyArk and Iconem, the Insti- store it in Google Cloud. Ristevski bent to it.” tute for Digital Exploration (IDEx) at thinks “people are suspicious when- Erich Hatala Matthes, an assistant the University of South Florida (USF) ever Google gets involved [in a proj- philosophy professor and member of works with local partners on the pres- ect] and how they might monetize the advisory faculty for environmen- ervation of culturally sensitive areas it,” but notes that many museums tal studies at Wellesley College, says that are under threat. “A lot of the work also work with the search giant’s that from a moral perspective, anyone we do aims to help major tourist sites research division. “There are some involved in 3D scanning work should strike a balance between access and beautiful exhibits” housed in Google keep the data open and available. preservation,” explains co-founder Mi- Cloud, he says, but “because Google Matthes said three-dimensional chael Decker. is involved, there’s automatically an scanning projects “that often origi- For example, IDEx is working with Vil- Milestones Computer Scientists Named Packard Fellows Two computer scientists were computation, as well as new ways to programmability and In addition to her teaching, among the 18 early-career to turn digital designs into physi- productivity in computing and Adve currently serves as chair academics named 2018 Fellows cal, shape-shifting matter.” significant community service or of the ACM Special Interest by the David and Lucile Packard ˲ Mahdi Soltanolkotabi, an mentoring contributions. Group on Computer Architecture Foundation, each of whom will assistant professor in the Ming Adve, the Richard T. Cheng (SIGARCH), as well as on the receive $875,000 over five years to Hsieh Department of Electrical Professor in the Department Defense Advanced Research pursue their research. Engineering of the University of Computer Science at Projects Agency on the DARPA The Packard Fellowships in of Southern California. Said the University of Illinois at Urbana- Information Science and Science and Engineering are Packard organization, “Solta- Champaign, was cited for her Technology study group. among the U.S.’s largest nongov- nolkotabi’s research aims to research contributions and She was named a Woman of ernmental fellowships. develop a theoretical foundation leadership in the development Vision in innovation by the Anita The computer scientists newly for design and analysis of reliable of memory consistency Borg Institute for Women in named Packard Fellows are: learning algorithms, with appli- models for C++ and Java; for Technology in 2012, an IEEE Fellow ˲ Keenan Crane, an assistant cations spanning high-resolution service to numerous computer in 2012, and an ACM Fellow in 2010. professor in the Computer Sci- imaging to artificial intelligence.” science organizations; and for She also received the SIGARCH ence Department of Carnegie exceptional mentoring. Maurice Wilkes Award in 2008. Mellon University. The Pack- ADVE RECEIVES Adve co-developed the ACM and IEEE co-sponsor ard organization said Crane KEN KENNEDY AWARD memory models for the C++ and the Ken Kennedy Award, named “explores how the shapes and ACM and the IEEE Computer Java programming languages for the late founder of Rice motions we observe in nature Society named Sarita Adve of (with Hans Boehm, Bill Pugh, University’s computer science can be faithfully expressed in a the University of Illinois at and others) based on her early program and a world expert on language that is completely finite Urbana-Champaign recipient work on data-race-free (DRF) high-performance computing. and discrete, and can hence be of the 2018 ACM-IEEE CS models (with Mark Hill), The award is accompanied by understood by a computer. His Ken Kennedy Award, which work that has influenced the a $5,000 honorarium, which is exploration of this question pro- is aimed at recognizing worldwide software community endowed by the SC Conference vides both new foundations for substantial contributions and hardware design. Steering Committee. 16 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM | JANUARY 2019 | VOL. 62 | NO. 1 news la Casale in Sicily, a UNESCO World Her- trained Syrian professionals in Leba- itage Site, to both record mosaics there non on how to use Light Detection and and to apply an advanced technique of “Ultimately, Ranging (LIDAR) and photogramme- digital forensics. This will help officials we’d like to see try. “They were able to use those skills predict when the priceless mosaics form [to scan] significant sites in Damascus bubbles in their surface, which leads to the sites themselves when it wasn’t feasible for us to en- their breakdown, says Decker, who also a doing the work ter the country,’’ he says.