Jarring Modeling

As part of my group’s 3D object modeling project, we needed to start with taking the pictures of our target: a Neolithic Jar. The process itself was fairly simple, with a few guidelines to help us through taking the optimal pictures for future processing: keep the light consistent, take pictures with plenty of coverage, take from multiple angles, etc.

Instantly, I noticed a big difference compared to when I was just viewing a similar artifact in the past: while I had only glanced at it for a while to acknowledge its existence, now I needed to focus a lot more to ensure as much of the Jar could be captured within our pictures. Sadly, my idea of taking pictures inside the Jar didn’t quite work out. Since it was narrow inside it looked like I was taking pictures of a wall. As a result, we could only take pictures from above the Jar’s mouth into it, in addition to the normal pictures of its body. We also needed to try our best in thinking of places to take pictures, since we only had 1 chance to do it. For example, we almost forgot to take pictures behind the Jar’s handles.

Originally, as a passive observer, I thought that the best way to communicate about art and history to others would be to give a piece of art to someone and let them take whatever information they managed to glean from it. Now, as an active modeler, I realized that that would have been grossly insufficient to communicate in-depth the details and history behind such an art piece. A more proper way would have been to also feed them additional information, preferably in a way that would leave them curious and actively seeking out more by themselves.

After taking pictures, we needed to use Autodesk ReCap Photo, which would compile our 95 pictures into a 3D model. However, after days of trying, it seemed that there was some problem with my laptop, which prevented the program from finding the file to save the result. Consequently, I had to switch jobs with one of my team members, whose copy of ReCap actually worked.