The ongoing programme can be accessed via the ARCHiVe website, where it is possible to sign up to participate in future classes, aimed at scholars, researchers, students and those who want to improve their skills in the field of digital enhancement of cultural heritage.
Factum Foundation has played an active role in the AOA initiative, delivering and organising specific courses, workshops or training sessions. It is possible to browse the over 80 hours of free access AOA past courses, lectures and talks, through a dedicated playlist on YouTube. Below you can find a selection of courses curated by Factum Foundation.
2025
Photogrammetry in Heritage Documentation 2025
7 June – 12 July
Lipi Bharadwaj (Aga Khan Trust for Culture) recording the Qutb Shahi Idgah
Every Saturday from 7 June to 12 July 2025, Imran Khan ran ‘Photogrammetry in Heritage Documentation’, an online photogrammetry workshop for university students in the fields of Archaeology, Heritage Conservation, Heritage Studies, and Museum Studies. Out of 250 applications from 52 countries and 174 different universities and institutes, 15 students were selected and successfully completed the course.
Offered for free within the framework of the ARCHiVe Online Academy (AOA), this intensive programme was designed for students passionate about cultural preservation in the fields of Archaeology, Heritage Conservation, Heritage Studies, and Museum Studies. The course was open to students from Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and South Asian countries.
You can see the results on the dedicated project page.
A Fusion of Virtual and Physical: Education, Engagement, and Practice through Digital Immersive Experiences
8-9 April
© Ubisoft Entertainment. All Rights Reserved.
Large amounts of data and a wide variety of output formats pose significant challenges in their representation. From social media platforms to websites, public databases, and exhibition displays, users are increasingly looking for effective ways to convey information and ideas. A new world of educational possibilities is emerging, one that acknowledges the challenges of transferring skills and technologies while addressing the complexities of intellectual and technological change.
The course ‘A Fusion of Virtual and Physical: Education, Engagement, and Practice through Digital Immersive Experiences’ explored the potential of digital technologies to offer a fresh approach to education, blending entertainment with knowledge creation whilst reshaping curricula and course content.
Digitising Cultural Heritage to provide dynamic access
8 April
- Otto Lowe – Transforming collections from one state to another
The digital recording of collections in the GLAM sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) is an area experiencing rapid advancement, driven by the fast evolution of hardware and software systems, new workflows, increasing processing capacity, and, last but not least, the rise of AI and machine learning in the sector. Similar techniques can be applied to both artefacts and natural history specimens, whether on a small or massive scale, documenting the rich heritage of institutions and making it accessible to scholars and the general public.
Focusing on the practical challenges, this lecture presents both input and output techniques as they emerge and evolve, with particular attention to the advancement of photogrammetry, macro scanning, and the application of Gaussian Splatting. - Halley Ramos, André Paul Jaregui – Reconstructing the past through immersive experiences
Immersive experiences derived from the digitisation of Cultural Heritage are a powerful solution for preservation, dissemination and education purposes. Digitally reconstructing historical sites or objects is a way to preserve what no longer exists, while the immersive environment allows us to put the heritage into context and complete the narration. The lecture presents case studies of dissemination projects aimed at retracing everyday life into their historical context, building a bridge between the past and the present. Among the other case studies, Broken Cities is a photogrammetric scanning of conflict-affected sites creating an immersive digital tour. The goal of this project developed in collaboration with ICRC is to highlight urban war impacts on people and places. The Tenement Museum Virtual Field Trip is a custom virtual platform for educators to explore 3D models with students to explore the homes of diverse families with roots all over the world, who lived in New York City between the 1860s and the 1980s.
Creative industries and Cultural Engagement
9 April
- Glaire Anderson – Partnering with Video Games for Cultural Heritage & Public Impact: the Digital Lab for Islamic Visual Culture & Collections
Video games have emerged as a powerful educational tool, one of the most significant ways in which the public engages with the past. Moreover, games and immersive digital experiences offer historians of visual culture and cultural heritage professionals a way to shape more inclusive and authentic public perceptions of the past by making academic research and museum collections widely accessible to audiences outside the academy. Scholars recognise the educational value of games in making knowledge accessible and informing public perceptions of the past, yet games that present histories and visual traditions beyond canonical Anglo-European traditions, and specifically those representing times and places from Islamic civilisation, are still relatively rare. This talk presents the work of the Digital Lab for Islamic Visual Culture & Collections ongoing research on using video games to make Islamic art and history widely accessible. The focus will be on the Digital Lab’s work on “Assassin’s Creed Mirage” and its ‘History of Baghdad’ educational feature, a collaboration that brought together video games, GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) and academic partners. - Álvaro Soler, Eduardo García – The reconstruction of the Kabuto of King Felipe II for Patrimonio Nacional and Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed Shadows”
Ubisoft commissioned a physical reconstruction of a Kabuto helmet from 1584, seriously damaged in 1884 during a fire at the Royal Collection in Madrid. The Kabuto helmet is part of the Spanish Royal Armory collections, which is among Europe’s oldest collections of Japanese Armour. Starting from its digitisation, Factum Arte reconstructed the item first digitally and then physically to recreate its aspect as it was before the fire. At every stage of the process, the project was guided by a commitment to historical accuracy over contemporary aesthetic sensibilities, guided by the director of the Spanish Royal Armory, Álvaro Soler.
This meticulous reconstruction effort has not only revived a historical artefact but also ensured its accessibility in the digital age. In collaboration with Ubisoft and Patrimonio Nacional, the Kabuto has been integrated into the Codex “Assassin’s Creed Shadows”, where players can explore its history and significance within the context of Feudal Japan. By incorporating this relic into a widely recognised gaming franchise, this initiative bridges historical research with modern technology, allowing global audiences to engage with cultural heritage in an immersive and interactive way.
2024
Maps are Too Exciting! Digital Innovation in Cartography
10 October
Since 2022, Factum Foundation has been working with the Bodleian Libraries and Oxford University on ARCHiOx (the Analysis and Recording of Cultural Heritage in Oxford), a parallel project to ARCHiVe. Both projects share the vision of making high-resolution 3D and colour-recording a regular part of the workflow in libraries, museums, and private collections, with the final goal of improving accessibility and research. This Sunderland Collection Symposium, dedicated to digital innovation in the field of cartography, was conceived and generously funded by the Sunderland Collection and organised in association with The Bodleian Libraries and ARCHiOx.
Complete recordings of the talks, along with insights about the speakers, are available at the dedicated project page.
Access to image-based resources in the context of the IIIF protocol
17, 23 September
Access to high-resolution image-based resources is fundamental for research, scholarship, and the transmission of cultural knowledge. The IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) standard is a set of technical specifications designed to enable the sharing, reuse, dissemination, and scientific research of digital images. Numerous projects and institutions worldwide have adopted IIIF to make collections accessible and interoperable online. IIIF supports the uniform presentation of images of cultural heritage items, allowing for display, manipulation, measurement, and annotation by scholars and students worldwide. Although initially conceived in libraries and primarily used by academics, IIIF also benefits a wider public.
Improving the access of cultural heritage through IIIF
Gennaro Ferrante, Flavia Bruni, Ilenia Maschietto, Dario Peluso
The lecture aimed to present a selection of projects on a variety of scales leveraging IIIF to improve the accessibility of collections. The examples show how IIIF connect cultural heritage scattered in different parts of the world, providing users high-quality image-based resources, ready to be compared, shared, reused, annotated and studied.
- The first example is Europeana and its latest strategies (including Europeana Pro and the Europeana API), a project funded by the European Union that provides access to millions of items from institutions across Europe, allowing users to interact with them dynamically.
- The second is the Illuminated Dante Project, born within the University Federico II of Naples, a systematic survey of early illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy virtually united on the same platform, carefully described and put in context. The project includes a digitization campaign, and the first clear classification and explanation of the illustrations that these precious artefacts contain.
- The third is the work in progress of the new Digital Library of Fondazione Giorgio Cini which showcases the digital collections of the Venetian institution, IIIF compliant and based on contentDM, a software to store and display digital collections conceived by the largest international library network (OCLC, also full member of IIIF Consortium).
3D image-based resources and IIIF
Thomas Flynn, Richard Allen, John Barrett, Dylan Schirmacher
The IIIF standard, originally designed for 2D images, is being extended to support 3D content. This evolution allows for the sharing, viewing, and annotation of 3D models using the same principles that have made IIIF popular for 2D images. This represents a significant step forward in making rich, interactive media more accessible and usable across a wide range of disciplines.
The lecture introduced the work of the IIIF Consortium and the community, particularly the IIIF 3D Community Group, given the extremely relevant role of the IIIF community and users in the development of software and technologies. Moreover, the lecture addressed technical aspects of the recent challenges faced by developers in presenting three-dimensional images within IIIF-compliant viewers. The ARCHiOx team provides updates from the Digital Bodleian platform and shared insights into the ongoing research on implementing 3D viewers with material qualities—such as texture, moving lights, and reflectance—to enhance user experience and deepen the understanding of the artefacts’ materiality.
Photogrammetry in Heritage Documentation 2024
7, 14, 21 September
Amber Shahid Mumtaz (Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Pakistan) recording the Postern Gate of Lahore Fort, Lahore
In September 2024, within the framework of AOA – ARCHiVe Online Academy, Factum Foundation organised ‘Photogrammetry in Heritage Documentation’, an online workshop focusing on the use of photogrammetry to document cultural heritage. The program received over 300 applications from 120 institutions across Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. From these, 20 students were selected, ensuring diversity in gender, region, and academic background, based on their statements of intent.
The workshop comprised 24 hours of instruction delivered over four Saturdays by Imran Khan, with six hours of lectures each week. The first half introduced participants to photogrammetry techniques for recording built heritage and artifacts, while the second half focused on processing the captured data into digital outputs, such as 3D models, using Reality Capture software. Students engaged in hands-on assignments, learning to document cultural heritage through photography and data processing. By the end of the workshop, participants were able to create detailed 3D models and orthophotos, earning certificates to recognise their achievements.
You can learn more about the course and its results on the dedicated project page.
3D Digital Investigation for Canvases and Painted Panels
7, 14 March
Lecturers: Luca Massimo Barbero, Sanne Frequin, Carlos Bayod Lucini
This online course offered insights into the opportunities for deeper study and research created by the three-dimensional digital recording of painted surfaces and their supports. It featured two projects undertaken by ARCHiVe, alongside other case studies: the digitisation of the Palazzo Cini Gallery (47 panel paintings) and the digitisation of a painting by Jacopo Tintoretto from the collections of the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice (The Creation of the Animals, 1550-1553). The course also shared the outcomes of the reconstruction of The Crucifixion by the Master of Lamentation from Lindau in Utrecht and the recreation of historical textile patterns derived from digital analyses of pictorial surfaces on both panel and canvas, in collaboration with Helena Loermans (Lab-O).
2023
Workshop on Analysis and Recording of Cultural Heritage in Venice
9, 13 October
The first on-site workshop organised and taught in tandem by Fondazione Giorgio Cini and Factum Foundation in Venice on 2D and 3D methods and technologies for Cultural Heritage preservation. Five days of immersive experience on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, learning in theory and practice how to deal with various aspects of digital preservation and recording.
Across the Planet. The Past and the Future of Libraries
14 September
On 14 September Cristina Dondi, who leads the 15cBOOKTRADE project at the University of Oxford, presented her research on the lost Benedictine Library that was once part of the monastery at San Giorgio Maggiore, now home to the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and ARCHiVe. The monastery was suppressed in 1806 and its rich collection of manuscripts and incunabula was dispersed. Dondi and colleagues have identified the location of over 180 important works and continue to add new titles as they are located in museums, libraries and private collections. A book with a manuscript inscription from the Library of San Giorgio appeared for auction at Sotheby’s in the preceding months.
Whilst Dondi’s research was focussed on a disbanded library, the work of the Middle-East Falconry Archive (MEFA) commissioned by the International Fund for Houbara Conservation (IFHC), was centred on bringing all known medieval Arabic manuscripts on falconry together online in one place. The first phase of this work, carried out by the Factum Foundation team based within ARCHiVe, was completed in June 2023. Carolina Gris presented a summary of the first two years’ work and discussed the role of IIIF and inter-library sharing to make specialist areas of interest available to a wider audience of both scholars and general interest users. This approach to the creation of specialised repositories of knowledge is an important part of the work in ARCHiVe.
Recording Giulio Romano: Shape and Surface
12-16 September
Organised by Factum Foundation and ARCHiVe as part of the programme ‘Fare Arte’ conceived by the Scuola di Palazzo Te, the workshop Recording Giulio Romano: Shape & Surface aims to introduce students and professionals to the techniques and methods of digital preservation, which Factum Foundation has been pioneering through a number of international projects around the world.
For more details, go to the dedicated project page.
ARCHiOx. Exploring the potential of photometric stereo 3D capture
24 May, 7 June 2023
Funded by the Helen Hamlyn Trust, ARCHiOx – Analysis and Recording of Cultural Heritage in Oxford – is a collaborative project, bringing together Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries and Factum Foundation. John Barrett (Bodleian Libraries) presented the latest recording system developed by Factum Foundation: the Selene Photometric Stereo System. During its first year at the Bodleian, it has been used to reveal near-invisible text and artwork, following two main goals: data can be used to create renders which show the 3D surface of an original in order to reveal what is difficult or impossible to record through conventional photography; or for the purposes of creating incredibly accurate 3D facsimiles. Working closely with researchers and experts, the project has been responsible for making and documenting multiple exciting discoveries.
2022
3D Techniques for Cultural Heritage
14 June
The session illustrated the updates on the 3D digitisation of the Teatro Verde and the Vatican Chapels as part of the major project of recording the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice; it also introduced the 3D and 2D digitisation techniques and methods used for the digital recording of one of the oldest tapestries in the Cini collections: The Entry into Palestine of Vespasian’s Troops (1470-1480).
2021
Three-dimensional Digitisation
13, 14, 27, 28 October & 4, 18 November
A twelve-hour course entirely curated by Factum Foundation, aimed at expanding into the concepts and practices of 3D digitisation for cultural heritage. The contents were organised in two parts: Input (capturing information) and Output (sharing information), with classes focusing on theoretical aspects, case studies and sessions demonstrating the application of a particular technology discussed in a previous class.
13 October: Recording the relief of paintings, Speaker: Carlos Bayod Lucini
13 October: The Lucida 3D Scanner (workshop), Speakers: Carlos Bayod Lucini, Guendalina Damone
Recording with the Lucida 3D Scanner, Factum and ARCHiVe’s system for digitising relief. The process of planning, capturing, processing, visualizing, sharing and reproducing the surface of paintings and other low-relief artefacts for conservation purposes. Creating the digital fingerprint of an artwork.
WATCH THE CLASS WATCH THE WORKSHOP
27 October: Recording (and reproducing) surface and shape, Speaker: Carlos Bayod Lucini
28 October: Close-range photogrammetry (workshop), Speakers: Carlos Bayod Lucini, Otto Lowe
3D and colour recording of an object’s surface and shape employing close-range photogrammetry and structural light scanning: reliefs, sculptures, architectural elements, rock art, city and landscape, etc.
Production of facsimiles through the combination of digital technology and craft skills.
WATCH THE CLASS WATCH THE WORKSHOP
4 November: Stereo-photometric recording (workshop), Speaker: Carlos Bayod Lucini, Jorge Cano
Illustrating the potential of stereo-photometric recording using the prototype of Factum’s newest recording system: the Selene.
18 November: Digital restoration and analysis, Speakers: Carlos Bayod Lucini, Irene Gaumé
The final class, together with Irene Gaumé (3D sculptor at Factum Arte and Factum Foundation) analysed new approaches to higher-resolution surface 3D recording; surface scanning for research and analysis. The concept of digital restoration and its methodologies for non-contact conservation were also talked in depth.
Recording the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore and its collections
27 September
As part of the celebrations around the 70th anniversary of Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Adam Lowe (Factum Foundation) and Frédéric Kaplan (EPFL) discussed the outcome of the recording of the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in 2020. The online presentation ‘Recording the island of San Giorgio Maggiore’, was streamed live on YouTube on 27 September as the opening event of AOA 2021 programme.
