Towards a common implementation framework for online virtual museums

We present a prototypical solution to a common problem in the Cultural Heritage (CH) domain. After creation, 3D models of CH artifacts need to be processed to a format suitable for presentation on multiple platforms, e.g. in a Web Browser for online virtual museum applications, to target desktop computers and mobile devices alike. The constraints of an in-browser presentation give rise to a series of optimization and conversion concerns that need to be addressed to successfully display the CH objects in a Web application. Current 3D authoring tools do not readily support this kind of optimization and conversion required for CH domain scenarios. We therefore propose a web-based service framework, which solves the problem of pipelining 3D models for interactive Web presentations. We apply open-source technologies like X3DOM, Flask, Celery, and Redis to create a Common Implementation Framework (CIF) that allows content designers or researchers to optimize their 3D models f or the Web through a simple one-step process.