Members: Carl Zhang, Parker Johnson, Aaron Bronstone
Synopsis/Objective: For our final project, we have decided to try to make an interactive 3D model of Thorpe Pool in West Gym. Thorpe Pool is a 6 lane, 25-yard pool with seating for up to 350 spectators, and it is the primary training facility for both the Carleton Swim and Dive team as well as water polo teams and various masters swimming programs.
Sources: Our primary source for this project will be photographs and building plans. If we are going to use photogrammetry to create our model with Recap Photo, we will be taking our own photos of the interior of the pool deck using our phones. We will also try and get the building floor plans to get the proper facility dimensions, either by asking facilities or by conferring with our head coach Andy Clark.
Process: We will process the photos we take with Recap Photo to create our model, followed by some manual modifications. We will also be using obtained room dimensions to accurately scale the model. On the off chance that the photogrammetry goes wrong or does not work with a facility this large, we will switch to creating a rough model using Fusion 360 that is dimensionally accurate.
Presentation: If all goes well, it would be awesome to have this project embedded into the website it will be featured on.
Proposed Timeline:
End of Week 7: Solidify project idea
End of Week 8: Complete Research on 3D modeling rooms and begin taking photos.
End of Week 9: Finish taking photos and create the 3D object
End of Week 10: Have Site Draft Ready for Presentation
End of Exams: Finish Site
Our Personal Interests:
Aaron: I am a member of the men’s swim and dive team, and Thorpe pool has been where I’ve spent the majority of mornings and afternoons for fall/winter term for the past three years. Likely (hopefully) in the next 20 or so years, Carleton may have a new pool/gymnasium, and if so it would be beneficial to have a model of the current pool to archive. When looking for records of the older Sayles Hill pool, we were only able to find several pictures. While there are most certainly more pictures of Thorpe Pool than of the Sayles pool, Thorpe Pool deserves an archival form that keeps up to the standards of modern digital humanities.
Parker: As a senior on the swim team who has spent a considerable amount of time in West Gym, I’m interested in preserving a place that means something significant to me. Additionally, in case Carleton builds a new pool, preserving the pool as it stands would be important for having good documentation for Carleton’s history.
Link to a Similar Project:
https://medium.com/realities-io/getting-started-with-photogrammetry-part-2-f957c9e8d61d
I have a lot of friends on the swim team who would really think this was cool. I also really love to see stuff 3D modeled so I am really excited to see how this turns out. I really like how you made a clear outline of how you are going about achieving your goal. This will be a really cool project! Good luck!
Team Thorpe,
This sounds like a good idea for a project that ties into your swim team interest and serves a useful archival purpose. Photogrammetery is a good plan for creating the model, and I would also encourage you to do some archival research on the history of the building and the swim team to write a narrative historical element to your project.
If you are interested, it would also be fun to drop the model into a game engine like Unity so you could allow people to move around the 3D space with a first person controller, rather than just spinning the object in a viewer. Happy to provide resources if that is of interest.