A Week That May Reshape 3D Cultural Heritage

From September 15-19, 2025, the Lorentz Centre at Leiden University hosted a groundbreaking workshop that brought together 23 leading experts from across Europe and beyond. The “Paradata in 3D Scholarship: Intellectual Transparency and Scholarly Argumentation in Digital Heritage” workshop, funded by the eScience Center and Lorentz Center Innovation in Digital Heritage call, represents a pivotal moment in the evolution of 3D cultural heritage practices.

The Critical Challenge

The workshop addressed a fundamental gap that has long plagued 3D scholarship: how do we document, communicate, and share the decision-making processes behind 3D research visualisation? As millions of 3D heritage assets are created worldwide, many risk having little scholarly value beyond their visual impact due to inadequate documentation of their creation processes.

“Without capturing how and why 3D models are created,” noted workshop co-organizer Costas Papadopoulos, “we’re creating beautiful visualizations that can’t be properly evaluated, reused, or built upon by other scholars.”

A Collaborative Design Thinking Approach

Following a structured Design Thinking methodology of Discover – Define – Develop – Deliver, the five-day intensive workshop achieved remarkable outcomes:

Discover: Understanding the Landscape

Participants immersed themselves in the complex world of 3D heritage visualization and paradata through keynotes by leading experts Isto Huvila and practical sessions with the Smithsonian’s 3D team. The discovery phase revealed critical tensions between standardization needs and contextual flexibility.

Define: Framework Development

Working with different use case scenarios, participants defined the specific needs of various communities – from researchers and museum professionals to students and the general public. This phase resulted in a comprehensive framework for developing the first standardized paradata model for 3D data.

Develop: Practical Solutions

The development phase focused on creating tangible solutions, including user requirements and wireframed tools and interfaces for the Smithsonian’s Voyager platform. Research Software Engineers from the eScience Centre worked alongside domain experts to ensure technical feasibility.

Deliver: Implementation Planning

The final phase established clear pathways for implementing the developed solutions, including integration with existing infrastructures and planning for future development phases.

Key Breakthroughs and Insights

The workshop generated several critical insights that will shape the future development of paradata standards:

Flexible Frameworks Over Rigid Standards: As one participant noted, “systematization is lethal to paradata.” The solution lies in developing flexible frameworks that balance methodological rigor with interpretative openness.

Graduated Approaches: Different communities require different levels of detail and complexity. The framework must serve everyone from technical specialists to general users seeking basic transparency information.

Embedded Solutions: Rather than creating standalone tools, paradata capture should be embedded in existing workflows and software platforms that 3D creators already use.

Quality Certification: Building on EU VIGIE2020 findings, the workshop advanced standards for quality certification in 3D data acquisition, ensuring both processes and outcomes meet recognized standards.

Broad Impact Across Communities

The workshop’s discussions centered on how cultural heritage is digitally represented, ensuring transparency and reproducibility while enabling critical engagement with how histories are constructed. Participants explored synergies between technical standards and scholarly argumentation that will strengthen 3D scholarship internationally.

The diverse participant base – including archaeologists, museum digitization specialists, heritage professionals, and data managers – ensured that the developed solutions address real-world needs across multiple domains.

Next Steps: Integration and Implementation

The paradata frameworks developed during the workshop will be directly integrated into the PURE3D infrastructure. Key next steps include:

  • Open Call for 3D Projects: Testing the developed frameworks through real-world applications

  • Technical Implementation: Integration of paradata tools into existing platforms, beginning with the Smithsonian’s Voyager

  • Community Building: Expansion of the paradata community of practice established during the workshop

  • Follow-up Workshop: A planned spring 2026 workshop to further solidify and refine the results

  • Standards Development: Working with Europeana and CIDOC to incorporate paradata standards into existing cultural heritage data models

Recognition and Thanks

The workshop’s success was made possible through the collaboration of exceptional co-organizers and participants:

Co-organizers:

  • Costas Papadopoulos (Maastricht University, PURE3D)

  • Isto Huvila (Uppsala University)

  • Trilce Navarrete (Erasmus University Rotterdam, CIDOC Chair)

  • Kira Zumkley (Victoria & Albert Museum)

  • Vincent Rossi (Smithsonian Institution)

Participating Institutions:

  • Smithsonian Institution

  • Victoria & Albert Museum

  • DANS (Dutch National Archives)

  • Leiden University

  • DARIAH ERIC

  • Europeana

  • 4DResearchLab, University of Amsterdam

  • DARKLab, Lund University

  • The Discovery Programme

  • CODA – Centre for Digital Culture and Innovation

  • International Council of Museums (ICOM)

  • And many more leading institutions

A Foundation for the Future

As we move forward, this workshop represents more than just a successful gathering – it marks the beginning of a new era in 3D scholarship where transparency and quality are built into the foundation of digital cultural heritage practices.

The future of 3D scholarship depends on transparency and quality. This week in Leiden, we built those foundations. The PURE3D infrastructure stands ready to support the next phase of this crucial work, ensuring that the digital heritage we create today will remain valuable and trustworthy for generations to come.