Our group is working through the process of photogrammetry to make a 3D model of a tomb figure from Carleton College’s Perlman Teaching Museum. We’ll then be uploading the object to Omeka, where the digital collection of objects from Carleton is stored.
The figure is an earthenware sculpture of a horse and rider, from the Han Dynasty in China (226 BCE -220 CE). This morning, we visited the museum and photographed the figure. The process of getting the photos into Autodesk Recap has proven to be a challenge, but Hermela managed to work the licensing out on her computer and we are currently waiting in the queue for the photos to be processed into an object. In the meantime, I’m entering all of the metadata and other photos of the figure into Omeka, in preparation for when our model is ready to upload.
Engaging with the Smithsonian’s digital collection in class today was an exciting and new type of museum experience for me. I was able to easily access and learn about a wide range of objects, and I could pick the ones that excited me, like ceramics, coral, clothing, and even models of matter in outer space.
Some of the benefits I found with the online models:
- You’re able to see the entire object, even the bottom of it that you couldn’t normally see in a museum.
- You’re able to zoom in and see a higher level of detail (in terms of texture) than you would with the naked eye.
- You can manipulate the lighting and material of the object to be able to inspect the form more closely.
However, there are also some limitations to this method:
- Given the web-based application of these objects, the mesh has to be somewhat simplified and some detail in terms of form is lost. I noticed this particularly when looking at the corals; the porosity of the coral was not fully captured.
- It feels slightly less meaningful than it does to be in a museum. Part of what’s cool about museums is that you get to be in the same room as objects that are thousands of years old, or have an important context to them, and that same experience isn’t quite replicated online.
Overall, this has been a frustrating but fun experience, and it’s fun to participate in something that feels connected to the real world.
I think you did a really great job at capturing the benefits of using 3D modeling. Since I was having a back procedure I was not there so your explanation of the process gave me a little bit better idea of what I missed. Thank you so much I found your post very informing.