Cătălin Grec’s research while affiliated with Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and other places

In metabolic diseases such as phenylketonuria (a rare disease), a very important way to keep the patient healthy is the administration of amino acid substitutes. This dispenser was designed because in other places (except home) for patients, it is very difficult to take the substitute powder due to the custom weight, which depends on the body weight. We designed and made on a 3D printer a graduated dosing device (12 g) which can be used very easily and has all the elements to be transported. In this way, the necessary dose of amino acid substitutes can be administered to patients with phenylketonuria, including infants aged 6 months–1 year, at the kindergarten or any other places with the absence of a food scale. This dispenser is very easy to carry and very useful to patients.

The most peculiar characteristic of a cultural heritage is represented by its uniqueness. To ensure that an object is preserved against environmental deterioration, vandal attacks, and accidents, modern Cultural Heritage documentation involves 3D scanning technologies. In the case of fragmented artefacts, the digitization process represents an essential prerequisite for facilitating an accurate 3D reconstruction. The aim of this research paper is to present a framework that enables an accurate digital reconstruction of fragmented or damaged artefacts using ornament stencils obtained from 3D scan data. The proposed framework has been applied for the richly adorned ornaments of the fragmented Dacian embossed disk from Piatra Roșie. The case study makes use of the 3D dataset acquired, using a structured light scanner to extract vector displacement maps, which are then applied to the 3D computer-aided design (CAD) model. The output of the framework includes a proposed digital reconstruction of the aurochs fragmented Dacian embossed disk, as well as the ornaments’ stencils database. The proposed framework addresses problems that are associated with 3D reconstruction processes, such as self-intersections, non-manifold geometry, 3D model topology, and file format interoperability. Finally, the resulting 3D reconstruction has been integrated within virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) applications, as well as computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) based on additive manufacturing to facilitate the dissemination of the results.

Wooden Churches from Romania represent the tangible part of the Christian tradition identity and wood crafting mastery from rural villages. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Romanians created and manifested themselves mainly in a civilization of wood, of a richness, a variety, and a remarkable refinement, in which the wooden churches reached their maximum peak of expression. In Romania there are over 1400 wooden churches built before 1918. The wooden churches represent an invaluable asset for the Romanian culture. Many of the wooden churches require conservation and restoration interventions to ensure their long-term preservation. The wooden church from Cizer represents the case study presented within this article, which was transferred to the Romulus Vuia National Ethnographic Park within Cluj-Napoca in the year 1968 and which was restored and reopened to the visitors along with the wooden church from Petrindu within a project financed by the SEE 2009-2014 Financial Mechanism. The article presents the workflow that made use of 3D scanning and virtual reality technologies to promote and capitalize on the invaluable wooden church from Cizer, which is one of the most representative, wooden churches from Transylvania. The results of the research work are aimed to provide a detailed * This work was realized within the project "Horea`s Church-a heritage for the future. Capitalizing on an 18th century architectural monument through virtual reality" (Unique project code CALL01-16), funded with the support of the EEA Grants 2014-2021 within the RO-CULTURE Programme. 10 Radu Comes, Călin Neamțu, Zsolt Buna, Ștefan Bodi, Cătălin Grec, Daniel Costea digital conservation that has been integrated within an immersive virtual reality environment, thus allowing visitors to transpose within the church. Various cultural heritage assets linked to the Cizer wooden church have been 3D scanned and added to the virtual reality environment to enhance visitors' experience.

Recent advancement in digital technologies enabled the development of innovative and interactive museum exhibitions. These emerging technologies can be used to define unprecedented interactive experiences within museum exhibitions allowing users to interact with accurate digital replicas of the cultural heritage assets displayed within the real museum. Some of the 3D scanned glass icon paintings had missing or deteriorated areas. The authors have proposed a virtual restoration technique aimed to digitally recreate the original appearance of the icons on glass. The digitally restored icons have been added to the virtual reality environment along with the original icons, allowing users to visualize them at the same time and interact with them. The innovative digital technologies that integrate natural gesture sensors and virtual reality systems with force feedback input enables users to interact naturally with the digital replicas, therefore providing a creative and entertaining environment. This research article main goal is to present the development and implementation of the innovative digital technologies within the Ethnographical Museum of Transylvania regarding the glass painting icons from the Sebeș Valley collection. * This work was realized within the project project "Innovative techniques in capitalizing on cultural heritage. The icons from the Sebeș Valley from the collection of the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania" (Unique project code CALL01-15), funded with the support of the EEA Grants 2014-2021 within the RO-CULTURE Programme.

Cultural heritage domain has started to adopt various modern technologies to improve their visitor’s user experience within various museum exhibitions. There are a wide variety of academic papers that present various workflow that enable the digitization of various cultural heritage assets, starting from small objects up to entire buildings and fortifications. This paper is focused on the development of 3D models that are suited for 3D printing using budget 3D printers as well as open-source 3D modelling software to enable the physical reconstruction of tangible cultural heritage assets. The case study presented within the paper has been done on the Dacian ornamental discs that has been looted from the Dacian hill fort from Piatra Roșie (Luncani, Hunedoara County, Romania) and the only references are a set of images that have appeared online at an action house from United States of America. Researchers are currently making new materials 3D printable expanding their category from plastics and metals up to composite materials that combine multiple materials to get the best properties of each. Along with these new materials, a wide variety of 3D printing technologies have been developed, these technologies have the potential to become a vital component in cultural heritage empowering the research, documentation, and preservation for a wide variety of cultural heritage assets.