DigiCULT. Info 6 information and made it more appealing to the public. Physical and chemical char- acteristics were, however, still interesting only to a limited number of researchers. Images combined with historical excerpts in the form of digital catalogues became the standard in promoting private collec- tions and museums. Catalogues with deep- er descriptions and scientific facts were also used for educational purposes and typolog- ical research. Multimedia brought a new era with virtual worlds. Relatively simple catalogues, enriched with video and graph- ics, were transformed into virtual muse- ums, while multimedia databases offer a multitude of information.Yet this wealth of information remains, to a great extent, bound to 2D media. G reat advances in 3D technologies offer new opportunities to record every detail of cultural heritage in high precision, and to present it in a more reading to narration.The introduction of these ‘supplements’ made the communicat- ed information more objective, enduring and precise. Further technological advances like typography and photography have since been used to expedite the process. M ore recently,the advent of new technologies and their applications have radically altered the way information is stored, archived, retrieved and presented. The enormous impact this could have on the registration, documentation, presenta- tion and, ultimately, preservation of cultural heritage was appreciated and explored early on. Systematic recording of the phys- ical and chemical characteristics, typologi- cal description, and historical information of cultural objects led to the first databases, mainly for research purposes. D igitisation of 2D images of the objects enriched the stored textual N ESTOR C. T SIRLIGANIS , F OTIS A RNAOUTOGLOU , A NESTIS KOUTSOUDIS , G EORGE PAVLIDIS , C HRISTODOULOS C HAMZAS C ULTURAL AND E DUCATIONAL T ECHNOLOGY I NSTITUTE , G REECE 3 D ArchGIS is an experimental applica- tion that attempts to implement the capabilities and promises that new tech- nologies bring to the field of documenta- tion and preservation of cultural heritage. It enables scientists to map and browse physicochemical information on the sur- face of 3D scanned archaeological arte- facts. In addition, it is a Web oriented application that provides functionality and features not commonly available from sim- ilar applications.The aim is to develop a flexible and user-friendly tool for combin- ing and displaying various data types alongside 3D models – in some respects, an online GIS tool for objects of any size and shape, from a ceramic fragment to an archaeological site. P reservation and dissemination of cul- tural heritage has always satisfied a multitude of psychological, aesthetic, social and political ambitions of humanity.The aspiration of the human race to dominate time was manifested early on with a gen- uine and ardent attempt to record, preserve and spread its present achievements and its cultural heritage.Vision, memory and nar- ration were the original means used to serve this purpose, and remained basically unalterable until the revolution that accompanied the addition of writing to vision, stone and paper to memory, and 3D-ARCHGIS: ARCHIVING C ULTURAL HERITAGE IN A 3D MULTIMEDIA S PACE Figure 1. 3D ArchGIS plugin © 3D ArchGIS, 2003