Artworks narrating a story: a modular framework for the integrated presentation of three-dimensional and textual contents

The integrated presentation of a 3D model and a descriptive text which is strongly connected to the geometry (and, more in general, of multiple interconnected datasets of different nature) is still problematic. This is often solved by using plugins and/or resulting in poorly connected exploration tree (where one media is used as a "primary content", and the rest of the data are just used to enrich it). In this paper, we present a framework for the presentation, on the web platform, of multiple heterogeneous datasets. Thanks to a modular design, and a simple mechanism to index data structures and messages, it is possible to design interconnected viewers, and build a flexible system for this purpose. By explicitly annotating the datasets with locators, which are present in all datasets, it is possible to build a strongly connected graph, and let the user explore it, obtaining a real multi-media exploration, inside and across the various datasets. The entire system is implemented using HTML5 and JavaScript, making it a portable solution, able to run natively inside browsers, without additional components. We tested the system on two practical, complex examples, both composed of an intricate high-resolution geometry, and rich textual information.