Preservation and popularisation of the ancient Roman cultural heritage using the modern information and communication technologies

The paper outlines how the modern information technologies can be used for the preservation and the popularisation of historically and culturally significant Roman sites from the lower part of the Danube Limes, a UNESCO World Heritage site candidate. This specific geographical zone was selected due to the many well preserved, but fairly unknown sites along the lower part of the Danube River and on the border area between Bulgaria and Romania. All results, which are presented in this paper, are obtained during the implementation of the ongoing project 15.2.1.038 "Ancient roman cultural heritage interactive visualization environment for the cross border area between Bulgaria and Romania" (ARCHIVE), co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund under the INTERREG V-A Romania-Bulgaria Programme. In the initial sections of the paper we briefly present the international consortium and the structure of the project, its aim and main objectives. The next sections of the paper are focused on the activities for the preservation and popularization of the ancient Roman sites. These activities range from the traditional ground-based photo and video shootings of the selected Roman locations to the use of the modern unmanned aerial vehicles for obtaining low and high altitude photographs, video clips, as well as for the creation of ortho-photo images and 3D models. The paper investigates also the use of 3D scanners and photo cameras for the digitalization and the creation of 3D models of some of the most significant Roman artefacts and the printing of these 3D models as scaled replicas using modern eco-friendly 3D printers. The next section of the paper investigates the possibilities for the use of the created digital materials - for the development of tourist applications for mobile devices, for the creation of electronic educational resources about the Roman history in the cross-border area between Bulgaria and Romania, for the creation of Virtual museums and so on. Last, but not least, we present some topics from the created joint strategy for popularisation of the Roman heritage, which focus on the use of the developed resources for the training and education of the local school and university students.