University of Sussex (UoS), Sussex Archaeological Society (Sussex Past) as assistant contractor to UoS, the department of Information Technology of the Poznan University of Economics (PUE), Commissariat à l'Energie (CEA-LIST), Giunti Gruppo Editoriale (GIUNTI), the UK Office for Library and Information Management at the University of Bath, (UKOLN), and the Victoria & Albert Museum (VAM) as assistant contractor to UKOLN. These partners have come together to achieve the optimum balance between technical and cultural knowledge in order to provide a high quality system for the creation, manipulation, storage and presentation of cultural object archives.

UoS will coordinate the project and lead the Interactive Refinement and Rendering tool (IMRR) and Augmented Reality Interface (ARIF) workpackages. UoS is experienced in high quality 3D modelling, rendering and animation for virtual reality applications, both in hardware accelerator systems and software. Expertise will be provided in the field of camera based modelling to support CEA-LIST, in development of the Object Modeller, the design of the IMRR tool, and the ARIF UoS will liaise closely with PUE and UKOLN to define and implement the XML technology for the interface between components in the system and the XML description of the cultural objects that are refined in the IMRR tool.

PUE will provide expert knowledge in dynamic virtual world generation using X-VRML. PUE have currently developed the X-VRML language under contract for France Telecom who has allowed its use in ARCO. Their work will be focused on the development of the XML metadata, Schemas, Style sheets and application of X-VRML, and the object relational database technology (ORDBMS). This will involve tight co-operation between UoS, UKOLN and PUE to ensure the XML technology integrates with all system components. PUE is also the door to the Eastern European community and its culture, providing links to the east European heritage extending our cultural network.

CEA-LIST will provide expertise in the development of the robust and cost effective Object Modeller based on photogrammetry techniques. CEA-LIST will ensure the final Object Modeller is user friendly and integrates with the IMRR tool seamlessly. CEA-LIST and UoS will liaise closely to define the XML interface description between the OM and the IMRR.

GIUNTI is highly specialised in multimedia content creation and delivery. Their expertise in the use of software tools will be invaluable to promote the project technology throughout the project. In particular, they will participate in the development of multimedia presentation of cultural object content on the Internet, CDROM and the PC museum platforms. Their expertise gained in the AQUARELLE and ARTISTE projects will be used to help define the ARCO metadata architecture. Although GIUNTI lead the system integration and evaluation workpackage, system integration will take place in parallel at the two museum pilot sites with close support between, UoS and Sussex Past, and Bath and the Victoria and Albert Museum, plus GIUNTI and local Italian heritage museums.

UKOLN has established significant bodies of project work in metadata and resource discovery. They are currently involved in the SCHEMAS project, an EU project, which aims to provide a forum for metadata schema implementers and designers involved in projects under the IST Programme and national initiatives in Europe. UKOLN will act as experts in the design of the XML metadata, schemas and style sheets for ARCO.
The MCSG will initially consist of three end-user museum pilot sites: (1) Sussex Past is the foremost archaeological society in Southern England with extensive cultural object archives located in six museums. (2) The Victoria & Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of the decorative arts and is home to 145 galleries, including national collections of sculpture, furniture, fashion and photographs. These museums, which operate at both local and global European levels, will select appropriate cultural objects from their respective archives for trial in this project. These museums will also do trial and evaluation of the project, help to specify requirements in terms of prototypes, and will participate in the validation of the project results.