The technology centre Eurecat anticipates at the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) fair, that is being held this week in Barcelona, the creation of acoustic digital twins of architectural spaces such as Palau Moja, a technology that that allows for sound recreation “even when the site no longer exists as such or has undergone structural changes”, explains the researcher in Eurecat’s Audiovisual Technologies Unit Julien De Muynke.
According to the Eurecat researcher, “digital twins take into account the volume and geometry of the space, as well as the composition of the construction materials”, and their use “enables actions such as preservation, assessment and forecasting, or acoustic optimisation, for cultural heritage institutions, music promoters, concert halls and large venues, as well as remote assistance for cultural experiences, among other applications”.
During the fair, Eurecat is showcasing a virtual reconstruction of the “El Vigatà” Salon at Palau Moja, one of Barcelona’s most outstanding Baroque palaces and the headquarters of the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage of the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya. The innovation, developed in collaboration with the Catalan Heritage Agency and the Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage, consists of navigating the virtual space, using augmented reality glasses and headphones, allowing visitors to experience how sound is perceived from within the space and how it changes depending on their position and orientation.
The project “is an example of Eurecat’s technology transfer, in this case to companies and institutions in the audiovisual sector and the cultural industries, anticipating the main technological trends in artistic creation and content production, as well as in the preservation and technical improvement of infrastructures and facilities, in a context marked by accelerated changes”, highlights the Business Developer for Eurecat’s Cultural and Creative Industries Market, Mònica Andreu.
Artificial intelligence to transform the exploitation of documentary collections and automatically generate content
Along these lines, Eurecat is also presenting new artificial intelligence tools and knowledge technologies to improve the use, management and exploitation of documentary collections and to generate content automatically, developed with Catalan companies and organisations. The tools use large language models (LLMs) hosted on in-house servers and extract knowledge from controlled documentation. This is the case of a new three-dimensional navigation interface inspired by the way professional librarians help users access information, developed with the Library of Catalonia. The visual navigation links documentation in a natural way and facilitates the discovery of material that would not appear through traditional searches, unlocking the effective exploitation of large documentary collections.
Among the innovations developed in artificial intelligence, Eurecat is also presenting a 3D tour of the Palau de la Música Catalana based on content automatically generated with AI, adapted to each visitor profile; a generator of personalised texts on Roman archaeological sites based on documentation from the TIR-FOR project, an international initiative for publishing the Great Map of the Roman Empire led by the Institute of Catalan Studies; a solution for creating new content from information generated by the Agència Catalana de Notícies; and a tool for generating summaries and classifying press releases, developed with Núvol.
