Managing the Archaeological Risk through Virtual Reality

In the last decade 3D technologies have become a very effective means for managing and interpreting archaeological data. A better way to perceive, understand and communicate Cultural Heritage has been achieved through VR applications, which have enabled archaeologists both to make reconstructions of original landscapes and to put artifacts in their original context. Furthermore, the pervasive growth of the Web has led to a massive availability of digital contents, even in the field of CH, that can be accessed by a broader audience of people in an easier and more intuitive way.
The case study we are presenting is meant to demonstrate how important can be the contribution given by Web3D technologies for communicating specific research aspects, such as the ones connected to the GIS-based spatial analysis applied to the archaeological landscape. In this sense, a research project has been carried out in order to get a final 3D-predictive model for detecting archaeological presence in a portion of the Pisa coastal plain, implemented in a Web-oriented VR system. The final user is able to navigate the model in real-time and observe different thematic layers, such as the distribution of the archaeological sites, maps of lithology, land use and, finally, the assessment of the archaeological risk.