{"id":1204,"date":"2015-10-15T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T16:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/?p=1204"},"modified":"2023-01-24T12:20:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T16:20:51","slug":"photogrammetry-and-site-preservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/2015\/10\/15\/photogrammetry-and-site-preservation\/","title":{"rendered":"Photogrammetry and Site Preservation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kaelin Jewell<\/p>\n

I want to take a break from Gephi, spreadsheets, network analysis, and prosopographies<\/a>\u00a0to reflect on the recent acts of violence and destruction that have begun to rid\u00a0Syria and its neighbors of its cultural heritage and how digital tools are attempting to ease these losses.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, and still continues<\/a>,\u00a0at the site of Palmyra, an ancient city located in Syria.<\/p>\n

\"Before<\/a>
Before and after Destruction: Temple of Baal, Palmyra, August 2015 (Photo: Reuters, via NYT)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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<\/a>, an interactive website that crowd-sources images of\u00a0archaeological 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<\/a>, which produces a 3D model that can be rotated and is fully zoomable.<\/p>\n

\"3D<\/a>
3D model of 2nd c. CE Nirgul Tablet from the Mosul Museum, made by AD&D 4D (click here for model<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the recent destruction at Palmyra, an archaeological geometrician named\u00a0in the\u00a0UK has started a similar project called Palmyra Photogrammetry<\/a>. The project’s\u00a0mission is simple:<\/p>\n

“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,\u00a0Palmyra Photogrammetry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

\"Photoscan<\/a>
Photoscan model of Palmyra’s Tetrapylon (Images: Palmyra Photogrammetr<\/a>y)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.\u00a0Unfortunately, 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<\/a>, to use.\u00a0These technical considerations aside,\u00a0initiatives\u00a0like 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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read more at NPR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kaelin Jewell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5602,"featured_media":6607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[238,259,260,174],"class_list":["post-1204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grad-students","tag-3d-modeling","tag-cultural-heritage","tag-digital-preservation","tag-photogrammetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5602"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/tudsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}