TXT e-Solutions is a private, mid-sized software vendor and system integration company, with its headquarters in Milan and growing branch offices in Genoa, Turin, Bari, Paris (F), Barcelona (E), Berlin (D) and Cambridge (US). Thanks to an highly qualified and motivated staff of about 400 people, 90% of which are graduated, the 2002 turnover exceeds 42 million Euro (30 million in 2001) and the company has been growing during the last 5 years at a steady rate of 25-30% per year and it is among the leading Italian companies in the sector since more than 15 years.

TXT is a technology intensive Company, offering complete solutions to its customers, based upon kernel products, high-level competence on enabling, innovative IT and specific know-how in a number of application domains. It acts on the market through three operating divisions:

• Supply Chain and Customer Management Division, which, focusing on the manufacturing industry, provides solutions in production planning, supply-chain planning and logistics for medium-to-large companies

• Media Content Management Division, which focuses on the development of generic XML-based data repositories and powerful editing and publishing tools for supporting the personnel of a polymedia journalistic office in acquiring contents from data channel sources and in redirecting them as outputs to several different communication media like the TV teletext, the INTERNET web and recently the mobile phones and/or handheld computers messaging and web browsing (WAP, UMTS) channels. TXT Content Management platform is named TXT Polymedia. New research directions for this division include Geographic Information Management and Localisation Services integrated with our TXT Polymedia platform

• Professional Services Division, which focuses on real-time, safety-critical, embedded systems in domain such as avionics, defence, medical equipment, and utilities. This Division leverages on deep competence and proven experience in both more traditional technologies in the real-time domain, and more innovative ones, such as Java and, particularly, Java embedded

Sergio Gusmeroli. Born in Sondrio (Italy) in 1961, he has been at CISE Tecnologie Innovative (a dedicated research organisation of the national energy utility) as a software engineer from Sept 1987 to May 1989. He has been with FIAR SpA Space Division from May 1989 to Dec 1991 and at the FIAR Group’s SIAP Sistemi from Jan 1992 to Oct 1994. SIAP was one of the leading Italian companies in the environment market, providing solutions including data collection systems, environment monitoring systems and application software. He went back to FIAR Radar Division from Oct 1994 to Jul 1995 and in July 1995 he joined TXT Ingegneria Informatica, where he has been since then Project Manager in a number of commercial and R&D Projects. He is author of more than 30 publications in Italian and International magazines and conferences. His main areas of competence and experience include E-Commerce, Internet and Intranets and Workflow technologies. Since June 2000, he has been appointed head of the International Research Unit and operating manager of TXT EU funded projects in the ICT domain. He will act as Project Exploitation and Dissemination Manager.

Gabriella Monteleone. Born in Milan in 1963. She received her laurea degree in Computer Science from Universita’ Statale di Milano in 1988. She worked as knowledge engineer at LABEN from 1986 to 1989 in the study and application of Artificial Intelligence techniques for spacecrafts requiring a high degree of autonomy. In 1989 she joined TXT to work on knowledge based systems, database systems, and distributed systems. Now she works as Project Manager and has responsibility of projects in the area of database and internet applications for Leisure and Entertainment and Cultural Heritage preservation.

Alessandra Bagnato. Born in Busalla (GE) (22/03/1974). She received a Laurea degree in Computer Science from University of Genoa (Italy) in 1999. She has a strong know-how and experience on Distributed Object Broker Architectures, Network Technologies, Security, Component Based Software, Java, XML and Legacy System Integration Infrastructures. She joined TXT in 1998 where she was involved into the analysis, design and development of the Polymedia TXT Platform and in a number of web-based R&D and commercial projects within the Media Content Management Division of the company. She developed a strong skill on the Knowledge Management Systems and Natural Languages technologies working as a technical leader on a successful EC-funded project (ESPRIT CLIME). She is currently working as Project Manager in the IST WISPER Project, dealing with Semantic Web issues.

Role:

TXT will lead the development of the infrastructure, and will provide the Cultural Heritage Information Module and the Progress Agent.

IGD submitted a paper to the VAST2008 conference in Braga, Portugal in December ( http://www.vast2008.org ).The paper has been accepted.

The paper title is "Reality Filtering: A Visual Time Machine in Augmented Reality". Here is an abstract of the paper:

We present Reality Filtering, an application that makes it possible to visualize original content like drawings or paintings of buildings and frescos seamlessly superimposed on reality by using filtered augmented reality. This enables simple and inexpensive applications in the cultural heritage and architecture area.
The main idea is that the video stream showing the reality is filtered on the fly to acquire the same presentation style as the virtual objects.
This allows for a better integration of original historic content and creates the impression of a virtual time journey.
The registration of the virtual objects in the video images is provided by a robust 6DOF tracking framework based on two technologies that work in tandem: an initialization step based on Randomized Trees and a frame-to-frame tracking phase based on KLT. For the initialization, we present the novel concept of temporally distributed computational load (TDCL), which is able to automatically detect and register multiple objects while maintaining a constant video frame rate of 20 frames / sec.
For mid- to long-range augmentation a pure 2-dimensional tracking with 3DOF is applicable and leads to significant performance gain. The entire application runs in real time on Ultra Mobile PCs.

A paper related to the iTACITUS project has been presented by Michael Zoellner during the Stockholm eChallenges conference 23rd of October 2008.

The title of the paper is "Encouraging Cultural Exploration: a Dynamic Tour Guide based on Personalised Contextual Information and Ad-hoc Planning" and the authors are: Jonah DEARLOVE, Maurizio MEGLIOLA, Silvana TOFFOLO, Michael ZOELLNER.

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Fraunhofer IGD showed an iTACITUS-based application in cooperation with Rome Reborn at SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles. The mobile application overlayed 3D models of roman monuments on floor-maps and posters at the booth in real time.

See a video of the installation at Youtube!

TXT presented a paper about the Progress Module used in iTacitus at  the “EVA 2008" conference in Wien, Austria on Tuesday , 26 August 2008.

The title of the paper is "Integrating Agent and Wireless Technologies for Location-based Services in Cultural Heritage", authors are Maurizio Megliola and Luca Barbieri.

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