OpenVGal’s open-source engine builds the room. You keep the files.

Create your own virtual art exibition with OpenVGal

OpenVGal is an open-source 3D virtual gallery for people and institutions that already have digitized photographs or artwork images. It lets them show the work in a walkable room instead of a page of thumbnails. The exhibition is a folder of files you can take away and put on your own server. It does not have to stay on a commercial platform.

Archives, museums, teachers and artists can build the rooms in the browser from their own images. There is nothing to install, and no account is needed to try it. When the exhibition is ready, it downloads as a ZIP that can sit on the institution’s own website. Anyone who does not want to run a server can instead publish to a permanent URL hosted by OpenVGal as a paid service.

Version 4 adds a browser-based builder, new gallery spaces and lighting that still runs on ordinary hardware, automatic placement of the works, and real-world sizes for prints and plates. The engine is MIT-licensed and published at github.com/lbartworks/openvgal.

Learn more about OpenVGal and start creating at OpenVGal.com/

1-2 August 2026, France

EUreka3D-XR at the Roman Days in Autun

EUreka3D-XR was back in Burgundy for the Roman Days in Autun, where the construction game once again attracted several hundred visitors to the Bibracte stand.

This time, there was no demonstration of the application, differently from the event in Arverniales: an AR Tour Builder training workshop is planned for this autumn with the municipal archaeology service, to support the team in designing its own tour showcasing its many 3D models of archaeological remains and reconstructions of lost Roman buildings.

This event, however, along with the one in Arverniales, helped introduce EUreka3D-XR to both a wide audience and heritage professionals. Feedback from using the construction game also contributed to the development of a tutorial enabling any European heritage institution or school to make, adapt and run the game with different audiences. It will soon be published on Europeana as an Open Educational Resource.

EUreka3D-XR project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

Voices from image sector – Community Survey

CHERISH Survey

In the context of small support project CHERISH, Photoconsortium along with CEPIC, developed their first online survey to collect a wide feedback on existing digital challenges in EU for the image professionals.

The survey takes approximately 15 minutes to complete, and will later be complemented with one-to-one interviews with key stakeholders operating in the sector. The results of the survey and interviews are complemented with an impact assessement action taking place during all CHERISH action.

You can access the survey here >>>

The information collected with the survey will be managed as aggregated data, with non-disclosure of personal details nor transfer to third parties.

This project has received support through a cascading grant from ECHOES, which is funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 101157364, with the support of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK Government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee No. 10110142 and No. 10110466. Views and opinions expressed herein are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

New self-paced course on Europeana Academy

Planning XR projects for cultural heritage

A follow-up course to “Introduction to XR for cultural heritage” is now live on Europeana “Planning XR projects for cultural heritage” is an introductory course that provides a foundation for understanding XR and its applications in cultural heritage, developed as part of the EUreka3D-XR project.

Aimed at Cultural Heritage professionals, XR-focused project managers and coordinators, educators, researcher and enthusiasts of XR, the course explores the core concepts of Extended Reality, discover why XR matters for heritage and provides information around the EUreka3D-XR ecosystem and the tools that support the creation of XR experiences.

Participants will learn to:

Define the goals, objectives and scope of an XR project;
Identify audiences and design accessible, user-centred XR experiences around their needs and user scenarios;
Select appropriate XR technologies, delivery methods, and tools based on audience needs, user scenarios and project constraints;
Plan resources, stakeholders, risks, and constraints;
Design, prototype and test an XR experience;
Prepare a project for publication, dissemination and launch;
Develop a long-term sustainability plan for maintenance, updates and institutional continuity.

By the end of the course, participants will have produced an XR Project Plan that can be used to:

Communicate your project to colleagues or managers;
Support discussions with project partners;
Contribute to funding or development proposals;
Guide decisions about the development, launch and long-term management of an XR experience within your organisation.

Take the course (BETA version) now!

18-19 July 2026, France

EUreka3D-XR at the Arverniales in Gergovie

This Gallic archaeology festival takes place every year at the Gergovie oppidum, the very place where the Gauls famously resisted the Roman invaders.

Around 300 people visited the Bibracte stand, where they could discover the EUreka3D-XR project.

Nearly 150 visitors took part in the game “On the Shoulders of the Celts”. Using illustrated cubes, they reconstructed the development of different fields of knowledge and technology, from the Iron Age to the Digital Age, discovering in a playful way how more than two thousand years of innovation contributed to the emergence of digital technologies, and XR in particular.

The event was also an opportunity for a new demonstration of the AR Tour Experience application. A short tour, “From the Aedui to the Arverni”, had been specially created to allow visitors to discover several archaeological remains and objects from Bibracte in AR.

Around twenty people tested the experience. Although the very bright sunlight made the content on smartphone screens more difficult to see, the demonstration attracted the interest of several representatives of heritage institutions who were keen to discover the possibilities offered by AR Tour Builder.

EUreka3D-XR project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

by Frank Golomb; prepared with assistance from AI United Archives GmbH (Cologne, Germany)

From Archive to Dataset: AI-Assisted Mass Digitisation of Historical Photographic Collections, Using the Sven Simon Archive as a Case Study

Saint Joan of las Abadesas’ archive. Provided by Ajuntament de Girona.

Paper for the 19th Image and Research Conference in Girona, 19-20 November 2026.

Abstract

Historical photographic archives contain considerably more information than the comparatively small number of images traditionally selected for digitisation and publication. United Archives is therefore developing a scalable process that combines high-throughput scanning with AI-assisted metadata creation in order to digitise complete analogue photographic archives as comprehensively as possible. The objective is not merely to preserve individual images, but to transform entire collection contexts into structured, searchable datasets. The first large-scale implementation is the Sven Simon Archive, comprising approximately 1.6 million photographs relating to German and international political, cultural, economic and sporting history since the early 1960s.

The paper describes the collaboration with a specialised scanning company in Cologne, the linking of physical objects to digital files, the capture of inherited captions and the use of multimodal AI to produce structured metadata drafts. Experience to date shows that AI substantially accelerates descriptions, keywords, translations and the structuring of heterogeneous source information. It does not, however, replace archival contextual knowledge or the verification of people, places, dates, events and rights.

Comprehensive digitisation is particularly valuable because it reveals series, developments over time and previously overlooked relationships, while enabling new forms of data use in journalism, research, education, historical analysis and future AI applications. Prerequisites include traceable metadata provenance, risk-based quality assurance and a clear separation between source evidence, machine inference and human-verified statements.

Keywords: photographic archives; comprehensive digitisation; artificial intelligence; metadata; Sven Simon; mass scanning; data value; historical analysis.

Read the full paper<<<<

REGISTRATIONS OPEN and PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED

Image and Research 2026

The Image and Research Conference aims to foster reflection and the exchange of knowledge on various aspects related to the management of photographic and audiovisual heritage. This year’s edition (19th Antoni Varés Conference) will be held in Girona on 19 and 20 November – on 18 and 21 November, workshops related to the conference will take place at the Municipal Archive of Girona.

The 2026 edition is structured into 4 thematic blocks related to photographic and audiovisual heritage

Innovation
Access and creativity
Heritage
Conservation and historical research

Each will include two keynote presentations and several contributed papers on related topics. In addition, a dedicated debate session is included to address a specific issue that benefits from multiple perspectives.

Learn more about the programme: https://web2.girona.cat/sgdap/eng/jornades_programa.php

Registration are now open: sign up at this link<<<<

Read the latest editorial published in the context of EUreka3D-XR

The Hidden Side of Bibracte: now blogpost live on Europeana

What if the visible remains of a place are only a tiny part of its story?

With this blogpost, written by EUreka3D-XR’s partner Bibracte EPCC, you can discover how augmented reality, combined with complementary digital resources, reveals the many hidden layers of Bibracte’s archaeological heritage.

Read “The hidden side of Bibracte” at this link<<<<

EUreka3D-XR project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

July 28 and 30, 2026, Bibracte (onsite)

Online training by Bibracte: workshop on designing geolocated tours using augmented reality using the AR Tour Experience tool

EUreka3D-XR project’s partner Bibracte has organized an onsite workshop focused on the AR Tour Experience tool developed within the project: Bibracte is inviting heritage, tourism or education professionals that want to enrich the experience of their audiences with immersive technologies.

The workshop will allow participants to use the open-source tool, designed to allow users to create geolocated outdoor tours integrating 3D models displayed in augmented reality in the dedicated mobile application AR Tour Experience.

Programme:

Presentation of the AR Tour Builder tool
Guided creation of a mini-tour featuring two or three points of interest (POIs), conducted in the participants’ immediate physical environment
On-site testing of the tour using the AR Tour Experience application, individually or in pairs depending on available equipment
Discussion and feedback with the group.

Learn more about the event and register at this link<<<<

EUreka3D-XR project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

Two new galleries published on Europeana

Explore all objects published on Europeana ingested through EUreka3D-XR

Starting today, it is possible to explore every single object that has been ingested on Europeana through EUreka3D-XR project.

Produced by project coordinator Photoconsortium, two new galleries are now available on Europeana: one where all the 3D digitised, reconstructed and produced within EUreka3D-XR are grouped together, and a second one that focuses specifically on the work done in collaboration between EUreka3D and Twin it! (June 2023 – June 2024).

Explore the galleries:

EUreka3D-XR project is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union.

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