Loretta C. Duckworth Scholars Studio

⠀

Menu
  • Scholars Studio Blog
    • Disciplinary Fields
      • Anthropology
      • Archaeology
      • Architecture
      • Art History
      • Business
      • Computer Science
      • Critical Digital Studies
      • Cultural Studies
      • Dance
      • Economics
      • Education
      • Environmental Studies
      • Film Studies
      • Gaming Studies
      • Geography
      • History
      • Information Science
      • Linguistics
      • Literary Studies
      • Marketing
      • Media and Communication Studies
      • Music Studies
      • Political Science
      • Psychology
      • Public Health
      • Sculpture
      • Sociology
      • Urban Studies
      • Visual Art
    • Digital Methods
      • coding
      • critical making
      • data visualization
      • digital pedagogy
      • immersive technology (AR/VR)
      • mapping
      • textual analysis
      • web scraping
  • About
    • Current Staff
    • Current Fellows
    • Faculty Fellowships
    • Graduate Extern Program
Menu

Photogrammetry and Site Preservation

Posted on October 15, 2015March 10, 2020 by Kaelin Jewell

By Kaelin Jewell

I want to take a break from Gephi, spreadsheets, network analysis, and prosopographies to reflect on the recent acts of violence and destruction that have begun to rid Syria and its neighbors of its cultural heritage and how digital tools are attempting to ease these losses.

As many of us are acutely aware, the ongoing armed conflict in Syria has led to an international humanitarian crisis. Alongside the human cost of all of this sits a cultural one: the intentional demolition and subsequent looting of numerous archaeological and other historical sites. In February of this year, the world was shocked by terrorist videos showing the deliberate destruction of ancient objects at the Mosul Museum in northern Iraq. A month later, news broke that terrorists had attacked the remains of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, also in Iraq. The latest in this series of cultural destruction occurred sometime in late August, and still continues, at the site of Palmyra, an ancient city located in Syria.

Before and after: Destruction at Palmyra, August 2015 (Photo: Reuters)
Before and after Destruction: Temple of Baal, Palmyra, August 2015 (Photo: Reuters, via NYT)

In an attempt to preserve the memory of these ancient monuments, which are quickly losing a battle against modern conflicts, archaeologists and art historians have begun to rely on digital tools. One group of these scholars has started Project Mosul, an interactive website that crowd-sources images of archaeological sites and museum objects, which are now destroyed, looted, and/or damaged as a result of conflict and natural disaster. These images are then stitched together utilizing the photogrammetry software Photoscan, which produces a 3D model that can be rotated and is fully zoomable.

3D model of 2nd c. CE Nirgul Tablet from the Mosul Museum, made by AD&D 4D (click here for model)
3D model of 2nd c. CE Nirgul Tablet from the Mosul Museum, made by AD&D 4D (click here for model)

With the recent destruction at Palmyra, an archaeological geometrician named in the UK has started a similar project called Palmyra Photogrammetry. The project’s mission is simple:

“I am looking for people’s holiday photos from Palmyra, before it’s deliberate destruction by extremists. Using these I can build a 3D model of the ruins.” -Conan Parsons, Palmyra Photogrammetry.

According to his Facebook page, Agisoft, makers of Photoscan, have donated the software and Project Mosul has agreed to host the finished models. Here is his prototype of Palmyra’s Tetrapylon, which marked one of the ancient city’s intersections, created using crowd-sourced images:

Photoscan model of Palmyra's Tetrapylon (Images: https://www.facebook.com/Palmyra3Dmodel/posts/1650111615270419 )
Photoscan model of Palmyra’s Tetrapylon (Images: Palmyra Photogrammetry)

As with the reconstructions found on Project Mosul, the Palmyra models will only get better as more photos are donated. One caveat to these donations is they should consist only of digitally-captured images. Because digital cameras create image files that contain meta data such as focal length and ISO, this allows Photoscan to calculate positions and distances of each image relative to the object or monument. Unfortunately, this means that analog photographs taken of these vulnerable or now-destroyed sites prior to the widespread use of digital photography are more difficult, but not impossible, to use. These technical considerations aside, initiatives like Project Mosul and Palmyra Photogrammetry are becoming a popular way that people outside of the academy can help scholars to preserve vulnerable cultural heritage across the world.

 

Read more at NPR.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Email

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Recent Posts

  • Digital Practices for the Study of Cultural Heritage (Part 2) April 7, 2022
  • Visualizing Changes in Colombian Wetlands with ArcGIS Story Maps March 21, 2022
  • Digital Practices for the Study of Cultural Heritage (Part 1) February 8, 2022
My Tweets

Tags

3D modeling 3D printing 360 video arduino augmented reality coding corpus building critical making Cultural Heritage data cleaning data visualization digital art history Digital Preservation digital reconstruction digital scholarship film editing games GIS linked open data machine learning makerspace mapping network analysis oculus rift omeka OpenRefine Photogrammetry physical computing Python QGIS R SketchUp stylometry terrain modeling text analysis text mining textual analysis top news twitter video analysis virtual reality visual analysis voyant web scraping YouTube

Archives

©2022 Loretta C. Duckworth Scholars Studio | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.