The Visionary Cross Project announces a free beta test of its viewer for the Ruthwell Cross

The Visionary Cross Project announces a free beta test of its viewer for
the Ruthwell Cross

You can access the test viewer at the following URL:

http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/cross/
About the test

We are using this test to gain initial feedback on usability and use
cases
for the viewer including corrections, advice for further development,
and
discussion of potential uses. As a result we are particularly interested
in:


-

Suggestions for improvement and additional features that you would
like
to be added for it being a useful product for all the intended users.
-

Comments on shortcomings or problems with the viewer quality.
-

General feedback and comments on the viewer


We will be collecting comments via a simple feedback questionnaire at
the
end of your session. The data we collect will be used to assist us
refactoring the interface for future official release. Nothing will be
shared with third parties or used for other purposes.

Potential use cases

We anticipate that this edition of the cross will be useful for
teaching,
popularisation activities and self-study. The edition provides a
moderately
detailed 3D representation of the Ruthwell Cross (optimised for use over
the web) that can be rotated and manipulated by the user in various ways
(zoom in, turn on and off colour, rotate horizontally and vertically,
and
examine with a “light source” that can be used to throw features into
relief). Annotation aimed at the lay person is associated with each face
of
the cross and its panels.

Licence and copyright

The material in this viewer is being released under a Creative Commons
Attribution Only 3.0 licence (CC-BY)
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/>. This means that you can
Share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format)
and/or
Adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose,
even
commercially) provide you give appropriate credit
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#> (as indicated on the
beta
test site), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were
made
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/#>. Use of the Beta test is
free of charge.

About the project

The Visionary Cross project is an international, multidisciplinary
research
project whose principal objective is the development of a new kind of
digital archive and edition of texts and objects associated with the
Visionary Cross tradition in Anglo-Saxon England. The material this
project
represents includes some of the most studied and most popular artefacts
from the Anglo-Saxon period: the Ruthwell Cross, Bewcastle Cross,
Brussels
Cross and Vercelli Book Dream of the Rood and Elene poems.

Taking its cue from recent developments in digital editorial theory and
practice, the project takes a data-centric, distributed, and
generalisable
approach to the representation of cultural heritage texts, objects, and
contexts in order to encourage broad scholarly and popular engagement
with
its material.

This is a collaborative project between University of Lethbridge,
University
of Leeds, Università degli Studi di Torino, University of Pennsylvania
Libraries, ISTI-CNR, Pisa.

We are now collecting and publishing these digital representations as
part
of a thematically organised, Open Access, and extensible, multimedia
digital library. We will also develop two other forms of mediated
access: a
research/educational edition aimed at researchers and students and a
more
popular interpretative portal designed to work with tourism and cultural
heritage outreach activities. We intend to release the final version
aimed
at:


-

General public/ tourists
-

Scholars working with the artifacts involved
-

Lecturers/Teachers for pedagogical usage


The project has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research
Council (O’Donnell, PI; James Graham, Wendy Osborn, Co-applicants), the
University of Lethbridge CREDO (O’Donnell, PI), the University of Leeds
(Karkov, PI), and the Università degli Studi di Torino (Rosselli Del
Turco,
PI).