Every year, on the last Friday of September, 1,500,000 visitors in more than 300 European cities participate in the Researcher’s Night. The “Researcher’s Night” is a Europe-wide public event which aims to promote excellent research projects across Europe, showcase the impact of researchers’ work on people’s daily lives as well as the role of the Greek public University in science. During the event, visitors have the opportunity to learn about research and technology through interactive workshops, research games, activities, etc.
The research team of the Photogrammetry Laboratory of NTUA participated with a series of demonstrations of the results of the “METEORA” project in 2019 and 2022 with a physical presence and online in the years 2020 and 2021. In particular, the Researcher’s Night of 2019 took place on Friday September 27, at the Averof building of the National Technical University of Athens in Patision, from 17:00 to 24:00. The project team presented the 3D models of the Holy site of Meteora and the two rocks, St. Modestos and Alysos, i.e. the products of the data collection and processing, which are input data of the 5dMeteora Platform. The 3D models were visualized in a viewer of 3DHOP framework on a portable PC monitor. The public was able to freely navigate in the 3D models and use the interactive tools of the 3DHOP framework, such as changing lighting settings, measuring coordinates and distances on the models’ surface, as well as discovering the multimedia content that elucidates the monasteries of Meteora and the two rocks of interest. In addition, the team was given the opportunity to meet and interact with other researchers and scientists of the NTUA faculties and to exchange useful ideas both for the development of research in the field of geometric documentation and 3D visualization, as well as for the dissemination of its results.
In the years 2020 and 2021 the event took place online and the relevant video is available at the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxG2BrNDEgA&list=PLUcnQsG_sgfbvA2memEWTJOqNqnKQrGQq&index=2
The Researcher’s Night of 2022 took place on Friday, September 30, at the National Technical University of Patisia in Athens, from 17.00 to 22.00. The project team presented the 5dMeteora platform and the web application of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR). A portable PC screen hosted the Home page with the 3D viewer and its associated relational table, as well as the Multimedia page with the text, images and videos for the main points of interest of the 3D scene. Pupils, students and other visitors were able to interact with the platform through (i) sophisticated 3D scene navigation and real-time information retrieval mechanisms as well as, (ii) multiple levels of immersion, scientific specialization and information search. Finally, they experienced an Augmented Reality experience through the camera of their mobile devices. They explored the three-dimensional reconstruction of the destroyed monastery of St. Modestos with part of the rocks Modi, Alysos and part of the rock of Agia, in a relative position in front of them, in the real space. The projection was initially made in a virtual reality environment with an easy and quick switch to an AR overlay, a few centimeters in front of the camera position.
