From the 25th of September until the 2nd of October I have been volunteering at Digital Heritage 2015 in Granada. I feel very happy to have made the decision to go, since besides spending a great time there it has opened many new doors.
Granada is a very friendly and beautiful city, host to the World Heritage Sites of Alhambra, Generalife and Albaicín. As part of the congress programme we had the chance to visit some of these sites, as well as to attend a full day cultural visit to Córdoba, Úbeda-Baeza or La Alpujarra, at choice.
 |
| Welcome reception at Carmen de los Mártires |
Although I had already been to Granada a couple of times, I had never visited Carmen de los Mártires or La Alpujarra before. It has also been my first time at Alhambra by night, which has been another well worth visit. The feeling you get in the moonlight is very different from the one you get during the day. Anyway, Alhambra is a place that never ceases to amaze the visitor, no matter how many times you have been there.
 |
| Visit to Alhambra |
We spent the second evening walking around Albaicín and topped it up with a nice dinner with tapas. It was funny to discover that some of the attendants had been following us, the volunteers, on our way to the restaurants. "You look like you know where you are going" - they said. So they joined us and we had a really great time. It's very unfortunate that nobody thought of taking a photo all together.
 |
| Walking tour in Albaicín |
The third day was resting day for some and cultural visit for others. I went to La Alpujarra, since it was the only place among the options available where I had not been yet. This is a region in Sierra Nevada full of vegetation, valleys and beautiful landscapes, along with some very interesting towns that have been built to adapt to slopes.
 |
| La Alpujarra |
On Thursday there was yet another social event, the Gala dinner. The restaurant was beautifully decorated in Arabian style, belly dancers included, and food was delicious. This was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.
 |
| Gala dinner |
These occasions have been very interesting and useful to me because, besides the fun, here is where you get to talk to people. Without them I would have had little chance to have a personal talk with anyone outside the staff.
Aside from the social events there was of course a lot of work to do and tons of presentations to attend and projects to try at the exhibition hall. We as volunteers didn't get much sleep during the week, since we had to be at the venue very early every day to prepare everything. But on the other hand I could also attend most of the presentations I was interested on, so it has been a great and profitable experience.
As for the sessions, almost all of the presentations that I attended were related to interactive applications and storytelling. Most of the projects used similar technologies and techniques to create and present the contents and to allow interaction: laser scanning and/or photogrammetry to create the models, web-based or phone/tablet applications, AR, Unity, Oculus Rift or Samsung Gear, Kinect. Although it was interesting to see the different approaches, few projects were truly innovative. The highlights for me would be the following:
The tutorial on Monday by Federico Fasce "Developing a Mixed Reality Interactive Application for Cultural Heritage" was also very interesting. He talked about game design and showed us how to create AR and VR applications in Unity.
 |
| Developing a mixed reality interactive application tutorial by Federico Fasce |
In the exhibition area I personally liked the
MeSch project a lot. It consists of a custom device and a web-based application that allows to enrich physical artifacts with digital content in a very easy way, triggering different contents depending on the proximity of the visitor, its age, etc. The device uses a NFC reader, IR sensors, an Arduino Mini, a Raspberry Pi and a projector. Dario Cavada kindly explained how their device was built and how to set-up the different contents, and I was really impressed. You can read more about
creating the meSch cases on their blog.
 |
| Digital Heritage Expo |
 |
| MeSch project |
I am very grateful to have had the chance to participate in such an event. The whole experience has been very intense and rewarding, from the organizational point of view as well as for the contents and the interpersonal relationships. I am now more aware of what's going on in the field of digital heritage, plus I have met many people and even made some good friends among the other volunteers. So guys, if you are reading this, thank you all for your hard work, your good mood and your friendship! And thanks as well to my flatmate Jae-Hong Ahn, a Korean researcher who happened to book a room in the same flat as me, for being such a friendly and nice companion!
 |
| Volunteer team |
Finally, to put the icing on the cake, I got a few job opportunities out of this! So I would recommend you all to do something similar if you ever get the chance :-)
