As our team learns more about the photogrammetry process including patterning, software workflows, and general tips and tricks, we like to share these methods with our students and the general Brandeis community. Here is part of a workshop presentation given by Tim Hebert to the Brandeis CLARC intern group. Some topics covered in this session include what photogrammetry is and how it works, some of the settings you may want to adjust to optimize your scanning process, pre and post processing options for your data, and a quick overview of some software workflows.

We cover general photogrammetry theory, including image overlap and patterning, some notes on science vs art in photogrammetry, and some settings that are most notable. This sessions also references a previous workshop on camera use to optimize photos for photogrammetry as one of the most important parts of a good scan is good initial data collection. Noting the importance of good input data, we acknowledge that some datasets are flawed and cover the use of pre processing photos to prepare them for photogrammetry if the photo-stack was not initially ideal for the photogrammetry process. Finally we finish up with some live demos doing a very brief overview of some features of photoshop for both pre and post processing your image data as well as a general workflow introduction to capturing reality.

Designing a Virtual Environment (VE) requires many decisions to be made and crisp communication between team members. As the SCAPP Bot team, we have worked on different types of projects. Short burst projects, where we had to decide and execute quickly, like the Pizza Giza and Marshmallowhenge projects that happened in the span of two weeks. Long haul projects, like the CLARC Virtual Museum, that is ever evolving with new students and new objects with stories being added as the academic year continues. In all cases, it is important to keep these decisions and visions in a central document, or the design document as we like to call it. Our design documents are inspired by game design documents used by the video game industry, but you can really adapt it to any design project. A successful design document allows team members to get to information quickly and accurately, which means less time wasted and easy onboarding of new members. In our case, we had a few steps before we got to start working on our design document.

The first step was to explain the technology to the team, so that everyone is aware of the advantages and limitations, as well as being on the same page with terminology. An example of miscommunication due to terminology is the different use of “texture” in XR and Archeology. When I was talking about textures in Unity3D, I meant textures files like the normal maps, while Alex was thinking about the archeological textures that have more properties and are also tactile rather than being just visual. For this I prepared some examples of XR projects that are related to the field of study I thought the SCAPP Bot team worked with. You could say I cheated a little, since I knew about the type of research they do for a while before getting involved. For projects where the VE development team and the subject matter experts don’t know about each other’s projects, examples are to start conversation.

The second step was to understand the other side. As I mentioned, I was already familiar with the type of work SCAPP Bot team was doing before, but not enough to understand their workflow. For example, I knew they 3D scanned artifacts to digitize them, but what were they going to do with these after? I wanted to understand the fundamentals; how and why they did what? An “AHA” moment for me was when Alex got excited about curating two artifacts from the same time period belonging to different countries or museums. I naively assumed if a museum asks another museum for an artifact, they simply ship it over. I only learned that it wasn’t that easy, after talking to the archeologists in the team and asking the fundamental questions like “why are you conducting your research”, “what do you do with an artifact after you find it” and “how are they studied”.

The third and final step before starting the design document, is deciding on the general idea of the VE. This is my favorite step, where dreaming big is encouraged! What would you do if you didn't have to worry about the law of physics? What would you show if you could time travel, or teleport? It is important to be able to accurately capture what the goal is in a short paragraph, similar to an elevator pitch. For the short burst projects, we had the challenge of making an historical monument with materials found at home. Since we had a short time to complete these projects, we had to keep it simple. We decided to complete the original challenge, digitize it by 3D scanning the home-made monument and create a VE where everything is realistic other than the monuments, we could even add some easter bunnies if we had time. It is more difficult to keep the goal as short when you are working on bigger, more complex projects, but by trying to get a short elevator pitch, you will also refine your ideas and goals.

Finally, we are ready to start filling the design document. A design document can and should be different for each project. I have a general design document template but since it needs to evolve with the project, you can add or remove sections according to your project’s needs. For short bursts projects, you might not get to fill as much of the document as you would with long haul projects. In Marshmallowhenge project, we picked Stonehenge as our monument, Alex made it out of marshmallows, Ian digitized it, and I put it in Unity3D. Then we came up with the idea of adding an easter bunny, where if the user walks to the center of the Marshmallowhenge, suddenly aliens appear, and the sky turns blue; a humorous way to show the theory of Stonehenge being related to aliens. Since we didn’t have too much time, a lot of the creative design was left to me and we didn’t use the document for these types of details. For a project like the Virtual CLARC, we needed to be more detailed. Just like Marshmallowhenge, we started with a brief project description, but added a detailed description under it. Alex and Nicole found examples of different museums or curations they were impressed with, as the visual influence so that Jalon could understand what they were picturing in there heads better. We also used different methods of digitization and scaling needed to be accurate, so we created a 3D model section where we could take note of the actual dimensions of the object if we needed to. We even added an “Other Comments” section at the bottom, for questions and ideas that came to us while working on the project.

Some parts of the document are tedious work, but don’t give up! At the end your detailed design document helps team members to be on the same page, allows fast onboarding of new team members and provides easy access to what/how/why questions, making team communication fast and accurate.

-H Uzunkaya

In 1845, a British diplomat named Austen Henry Layard arrived at the site of Nineveh, then only a series of earthen mounds known to locals as the location of an ancient city. His expedition to Mesopotamia was financed by the British Museum and the goal was clear: collect as many beautiful, ancient objects as possible to line the walls of the Museum. Though his excavation methods were crude, Layard uncovered the stunning remains of the vast capital city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

The site of Nineveh, formally looted by Layard more than 150 years ago, continues to be threatened. In the mid-2010s, the site was occupied by ISIS extremists, who bulldozed many of the remaining architectural elements.

In 1958, the Classical Studies Artifact Research Collection (CLARC) at Brandeis acquired 7 plaster casts of the Neo-Syrian reliefs from Nineveh created from the originals at the British Museum, along with several additional casts of reliefs from the palace complex at Nimrod. Several of these are displayed in various campus buildings, others are in storage. The plaster material of all the Brandeis casts is cracked and crumbling as a result of both time and neglect. These plaster casts, which are important symbols of both the ancient history of Mesopotamia and the complex modern history of archaeology and collecting, are at risk of being lost.

By 3D printing the casts, we create a durable copy of them, which will help to preserve the reliefs as the plaster continues to erode. We completed the first 3D print in February 2020, using a BigRep printer at Autodesk Technology Center in Boston to create a 1:1 copy of a cast of two lions in a garden scene from Nineveh. Beyond this, the project asks us to reflect on our own role in the movement and uprooting of cultural heritage, and considers how we can be responsible stewards of the past. As new technologies for digital imaging and 3D fabrication become available to researchers and scholars, we have an increased ability to share the past with a broader audience. We can share scans of artifacts and architecture in open-access web spaces, and distribute 3D printed artifacts as teaching tools.

- Nicole Constantine

The scanning, processing and printing of the 3D model. The printing was completed at Boston Autodesk Technology Center using a BigRep One 3D printer.