Europe’s cultural heritage is not waiting for the next big scanner

The European Commission judges progress on digitising cultural heritage to be measurable, yet still considers the ambitious European targets for 2025 and 2030 clearly out of reach. The report documents the first two years of implementing the 2021 EU recommendation on the common European data space for cultural heritage.^[1]

This is no footnote of digital policy. The recommendation applies to libraries, archives and museums, and links preservation and protection with better online access and the reuse of digital cultural assets in education, sustainable tourism and the cultural and creative industries.^[1]

The decisive question is therefore no longer whether cultural heritage should be digitised. It is: how does the capacity arise to digitise large quantities of highly varied cultural assets under professional control, for the long term and in a reusable way?

The misunderstanding of the flagship project

The misunderstanding begins with size.

To preserve Europe’s valuable and unique cultural treasures, high-quality 3D digitisation of endangered monuments, buildings and sites is invaluable. The EU calls on member states to digitise in 3D, by 2030, all monuments and sites considered at risk as well as 50 per cent of the most visited heritage locations.

For tasks of that kind, classical methods are often indispensable: terrestrial laser scanning, UAV-based capture, controlled photogrammetry, geodetic referencing and documented accuracy models. In restoration planning, building survey, monitoring or metrological questions, a vivid visualisation is essential — but confusing it with a robust basis for measurement must be avoided at all costs.

The European digitisation task, however, is not only about built monuments. The recommendation applies equally to objects, artefacts and collection holdings. And here a specific production question arises: how can large quantities of objects — often visible only locally or stored in a depot — be made digitally accessible without needing an elaborate special project for every piece?^[1]

The missing middle layer

Many institutions have no productive middle layer between plain inventory photography and the high-precision scanning project.

An object may already have an inventory number, a catalogue entry and one or two photos. That is enough for stock management, but only partly suited to showing form, surfaces, the back and spatial detail. In some cases a full metric 3D capture with a specialist provider is neither economical nor necessary.

The gap lies with a third kind of digital surrogate: an image-based, interactively explorable and curated 3D representation. It can serve interpretation, visibility, first access, online exhibition and supplementary research.

This layer is no competition for scientific measurement. It is a valuable complement, creating from many carefully made images a far richer access than a single catalogue view.

Scaling begins at the object

As a rule, the bottleneck is not the computing method alone. The work also includes shooting time, quality control, metadata, clarification of rights, release, data storage and interpretation.

A scalable strategy therefore has to begin where the object is: in the depot, at an excavation, in a regional collection or at a partner archive. Not every institution needs its own 3D department. But it is essential that every shoot follows a repeatable standard.

For small, transportable and cleared objects, a local workstation consisting of a camera, diffuse light sources, a turntable and a computer with a capable GPU can be a realistic addition. DFX SplatCore is designed for such a local workflow: photo or video footage is processed on your own system instead of being transferred by default to an external cloud service.

That does not make 3D automatically easy. The technical infrastructure can be centralised while the shoot happens locally.

Field to world

A robust production model separates the shoot from the computing and publishing work.

A careful image series can be produced by an excavation team, a regional museum or a volunteer. The original files are handed to a central office unchanged, ordered and backed up redundantly. There, specialists check coverage, sharpness, light, image alignment and suitability for the chosen reconstruction method.

Reconstruction, metadata work, clearing of rights, export and interpretation follow.

The model does not lower professional standards. It divides the work differently: computing power, 3D expertise and editorial quality can be available centrally, while the careful shoot happens on site.

Quality before 3D effect

The trustworthiness of an interactive 3D view depends decisively on the quality of its underlying data and its description.

That is why every project must define clear aims. Is an object to be conveyed vividly? Is its condition at a given moment to be documented visually? What is the result to be used for — digital education, an exhibition, a research portal? Or is a metric evaluation required?

Different aims call for different shooting and quality standards. A scale in the image establishes size relations, but replaces neither camera calibration, nor control points, nor a documented measurement procedure. With reflective, transparent, very dark or finely structured objects, additional measures and possibly different methods are required.

The professionally correct formula is not "3D for everything". It is: the appropriate method for a clearly defined purpose.

Metadata and rights

Image created with AI

The digital representation of an object consists of more than a file.

It requires an object ID, information on provenance or collection context, a description, rights information, a creation date, details of the shoot and processing, and clear release rules. This has to be considered especially with archaeological finds, sensitive collections, loans and as yet unpublished material. In those cases, the technical possibility of publishing is not the same as permission.

The EU report names uncertainties in copyright, licensing, reuse and questions of ownership explicitly as challenges for heritage institutions. At the same time it stresses the relevance of open standards and long-term preservation strategies as essential conditions for access and reuse.^[1]

In practice that means: raw images, project information, metadata and export files belong together in an institutional store. An online viewer alone is no archive.

Open paths instead of dead ends

The common European data space for cultural heritage rests on Europeana’s infrastructure. It is meant to create the basis for institutions to exchange trustworthy cultural data across borders, set shared standards and reuse digital content responsibly.

The EU campaign "Twin it!" makes clear that 3D technology is not conceived as a mere display format. In its second phase, participants were explicitly asked to explain the intended reuse of the contributed 3D assets and to provide additional data, so that models become more meaningful, more findable and more reusable.

For local production workflows, a clear principle follows: interactive presentation, open export files and descriptive metadata have to be designed in step with one another. DFX SplatCore can supply PLY and GLB output, while DFX Orbit can add the interpretive layer with hotspots, galleries, an audio guide and guided viewpoints. Long-term responsibility nevertheless stays with the institution. Format strategy, metadata model, rights management, backup and migration planning cannot be covered by a single piece of software.

Local processing as a professional question

Much cultural data is not arbitrary. Find sites may be protected, objects may be as yet unpublished, rights may be unclear, or images may be bound by contract. That is why the data path is an essential part of professional planning.

A local 3D pipeline guarantees no automatic legal safety. It gives institutions and service providers stronger technical control over the storage, processing and checking of original images and intermediate states. That matches the European aim of creating a trustworthy and interoperable environment for heritage data without tying local processes to a compulsory external cloud.

DFX SplatCore is a matter-of-fact positioning covering local processing, control over raw data and open output. It is not meant as a substitute for governance, but as the technical basis on which governance can be put into practice.

From pilot series to capacity

The European goal calls for a differentiated approach. Turning every depot into a flagship project overnight leads nowhere.

A viable way in is a clearly bounded pilot series — say 20 to 50 objects of one material or object group. Purpose, shooting protocol, rights path, metadata fields, quality criteria, archiving and form of publication are settled beforehand. Once the run is complete, the real shooting time, failure rate, computing effort, post-processing, data volume and interpretive benefit can be assessed.

A sound decision on scaling can only be taken after a thorough review that weighs all the relevant factors. Where exactly do systematic problems arise? Which tasks can staff or regional partners take on? And which work has to stay central — in restoration, photography, 3D processing or data management?

The European Commission calls on member states to pool resources, build competence and work with other sectors. This logic can be started at institutional level, and there is no need to treat the technology as a one-off purchase. It is better understood as a repeatable production process.^[1]

The mandate needs production paths

European cultural policy has set the frame: more digitisation, more 3D, better access, digital preservation, interoperability and responsible reuse.

What is missing now are production paths that do not work only for large flagship projects.

The cathedral still needs a big scanner. The excavation site still needs surveying. And it is decisive that the potsherd, the tool, the brooch, the figure and the regional collection in the depot also get a digital future.

There is no need to wait for the next big scanner.

What is needed is a workflow that turns a careful shoot into a checked, explainable and durably usable digital object.

Sources

1. [1] digital-strategy.ec.europa — https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/de/news/eu-report-calls-member-states-accelerate-digitisation-cultural-heritage