************************************************************************* * PLEASE FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO YOUR COLLEAGUES, * EXPERTS/PROFESSIONALS, STUDENTS, RESEARCHERS, INSTITUTIONS * Thank you very much for your support, * Regards, * Marinos Ioannides * www.vsmm2008.org ************************************************************************* International Conference VSMM 2008 - Call for Participation Digital Heritage: Our Hi-tech-STORY for the Future Technologies to Document, Preserve, Communicate, and Prevent the Destruction of our Fragile Cultural Heritage October 20. - 25th, 2008 Limassol, Cyprus http://www.vsmm2008.org -------------------------------------------------- Dear Colleagues, We are pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 14th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia - VSMM2008: "Digital Heritage 2.0: Our Hi-tech-story for the Future". Technologies to Document, Preserve, Communicate, and Prevent the Destruction of our Fragile Cultural Heritage The conference, held under the Patronage of H.E. the President of the Republic of Cyprus and UNESCO, will take place in the 5-star beachfront Amathus Hotel in Limassol, Cyprus from October 20-25th, 2008. Leading heritage, digital technology, and policy leaders from around the world in libraries and archives, museums, virtual reality and multimedia, and heritage documentation and presentation, will be converging to share ideas, present their latest findings, and develop new initiatives. Conference registration, and air and hotel discounts are all now available on the conference website http://www.vsmm2008.org Centered on the key themes of Digital Libraries, Digital Museums, Digital Recording, and Virtual Systems, some 180 papers have been selected by a 100-member program committee from over 300 submissions from across the world. The papers will be available in proceedings, which will be complimentary with conference registration. The 10 best papers presented at the conference will be published in a Special Edition of the International Journal of Architectural Computing, while the 11 special panels and workshops will be published in a unique book edition to be published in early 2009. In addition to the many papers, across its multiple days the Conference will feature 7 plenary talks by leading experts, and a rich variety of workshops, and special sessions. Conference Highlights: Digital Heritage Information: Libraries and Archives Keynotes i2010 Digital Libraries' Initiative - Europe's Cultural Heritage at the Click of a Mouse Javier Hernandez-Ros, Head of Unit, Information Society & Media DG, The European Commission The World Digital Library Initiative Dr. John Van Oudenaren, Director, World Digital Library, The Library of Congress Panels & Workshops . Open Content - Maximizing Usability of Digital Heritage (Alexandria Archive) . Archives Infrastructure for Digitized Cultural Content in Europe (Rob Davies, Romana Krizova) . Multilingual & Multimedia Access to Cultural Heritage Digital Objects (the EU MultiMatch Project) . The EU Michael / Minerva Projects (Rosella Caffo, Italian Ministry of Culture) . Preparing the Cultural Heritage Research Agenda of Tomorrow ( Sorin Hermon, EU Cultural Heritage Informatics Research Oriented Network) Digital Museums, Interpretation and Presentation Keynote Libraries, Monuments, Archives, Museums: European heritage facing the digital challenge, Prof. Massimo Negri, Director, European Museum Forum and Board of the European Digital Library Showcases & Panels . NODEM: Nordic Excellence in Digital Museums (Halina Gottlieb, The Interactive Institute) . COINS: Automated tools to trace stolen collections (Franco Niccolucci, EU COINS Project) . EPOCH KnowHow Books: Knowledge Transfer (Halina Gottlieb & Daniel Pletinckx, EPOCH Project) Digital Heritage Documentation Keynote The Acropolis of Athens: From Ancient Greece to the Digital Age, Vassilios Tsingas, Elliniki Photogrammetriki Ltd Workshops and Panels . Terrestrial Laser Scanning Essentials (Andreas Georgopoulos, National Tech. Univ. of Athens) . Digital Tools for Recording Heritage Places (Mario Santana, KU Leuven) Virtual Systems and Multimedia Keynote Designing the Digital Imaginary: a Convergence of Art and Supercomputer Science, Prof. Donna J. Cox, Advanced Visualization Laboratory, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne Panels and Workshops . Virtual Reality: Communities and 3D Worlds (Maurizio Forte and Lily Diaz) . FocusK3D: Promoting Semantic 3D Media (Manolis Vavalis, Marios Pitikakis)