The fortification known as „White Bastion“ is one of the most impressive and important historical sites in Sarajevo. It is located on the southeast outskirts of the City, with an overview on the city valley. Through history it had a very significant and strategic position. The fortification is a part of the dominant defense walls that were surrounding the old city of “Vratnik”. The value of the historical site presents the various strata, starting from medieval until the present time. During the archaeological excavations there were found the remains from medieval fortification from 14th century, Ottoman period (17th century) when the fortification was expanded and some new objects were built. During Austro-Hungarian rule the part of the fortification and the object inside the walls were demolished and destroyed and a new group of objects was built. During the early excavation, a significant number of artefacts was found, registered and conserved for the purpose of the exhibition hosted in Museum of Sarajevo.
4D virtual presentation of White bastion aims to present the historical development of this cultural heritage object using virtual reality and interactive digital storytelling, in order to support archaeological research of the site and raise awareness of general public. This idea was proposed by the leading archaeologist of the White bastion excavation in order to visualize their hypotheses on the appearance of the object in different historical periods. There was also a need to inform the Sarajevo citizens and tourists about cultural importance of the fortress and facts from its history. Benefits of this work will be enjoyed by the archaeological scientists, museum professionals and visitors of the site, as well as internet visitors of the project. BH Radio Television, a co-producer of the project, will broadcast a documentary about White bastion created from digital stories within the project, which will benefit their viewers.
Implementation of 4D virtual presentation of White Bastion consisted of following steps: materials collection, design of the application and interactive digital storytelling concept, digitization and virtual reconstruction of archaeological findings, 3D modeling, digital stories production, interactive virtual environments creation and web implementation.
All digital stories, interactive environments and virtual reconstructions are accessible through the project web site. Project contains 10 digital stories (Intro, Medieval period, Ottoman period, Austro-Hungarian period, the mosque, military music, Hećimoglu Ali pasha, gunpowder magazine, reconstruction in 1889, the end), 6 interactive virtual models of the fortress and presentations of 22 selected digitized and virtually reconstructed archaeological findings.
The costs of the project were minimal as in Bosnia and Herzegovina is very difficult to find funding for such projects. The Faculty of Electrical Engineering staff was working on the project within their research activities inside the Laboratory for Computer Graphics – Sarajevo Graphics Group (http://people.etf.unsa.ba/~srizvic/sgg.htm). Some small amount of funding (3000 eur) was received as support from BH Telecom to our Association for CH digitization DIGI.BA. BH Radio television made production of digital stories in exchange for broadcasting rights of the documentary edited from these stories.
Sarajevo Graphics Group has been involved in several European projects (Tempus, FP7, H2020 – see http://people.etf.unsa.ba/~srizvic/). This project has been implemented as a case study of MPNS COST Action TD1201 “Colour and Space in Cultural Heritage” (COSCH). Within a COSCH Short Term Scientific Mission a person from “Athena” Research & Innovation Center, Greece has performed digitization of museum artefacts.
The public promotion of the project has aroused a lot of attention from media and general public. Sarajevo citizens were happy and excited to rediscover a cultural monument which has been standing at their sight all along their lives and of which they have known nothing or very little. Tourists and visitors of the city now have an opportunity to learn about this object through Internet and see it with different eyes in reality. Museum of Sarajevo has a foundation for a new exhibition which will combine findings from excavation site with digital content and enable the viewers to learn about important events and characters from White Bastion’s history.