Spatial Heritage Review Issue #10, August 2024
This month: ancient pinball, teleportation, thoughts on the future of 3D, + much more!
Hi, hello, & welcome!
August 2024 was another bumper month for all things 3D and cultural heritage. I think you’ll agree that the sheer volume of ingenious work going on is inspiring. I’ve pulled out my highlights below but recommend you click through on the ‘more stories’ links as there’s some really great stuff there, too!
I’m also very happy to introduce this month’s guest post “The Importance of 3D Standards Development for the Museum Sector” by the Met Museum’s very own Scott Geffert. More on that below 👇.
My schedule in August was a quite compressed for various reasons, but I still managed to get up to a few things:
Just in time for issue #10, we hit 1,000 subscribers! Thanks so much! 🎉
I presented thoughts on the ‘big picture’ of 3D to the British Museum’s internal Digital Methods Working Group.
I was glad to facilitate a presentation by Histovery to the IIIF 3D Community Group. (Join the group to access a recording!)
Captured some 3D gaussian splats at the excellent LAIKA: Frame x Frame exhibition at London’s BFI.
Curated my weekly 3D model collections while shimmying along various consultation projects.
Whatever you’ve been up to I hope you’ve been well :)
Until next month!
Tom
Guest Post:
The Importance of 3D Standards Development for the Museum Sector
Scott Geffert, General Manager Imaging at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, shares his experience attending Siggraph 2024 and following the development of the OpenUSD file format.
AR/XR
AR/XR experiences are best (at least in my opinion) when they add something to a subject as it is viewed through technology. Overlaying a digital 3D model into a physical space and saying “Ain’t that cool?” is a short lived high.
In August, I enjoyed this playful pinball take on the “Dutch version of Stonehenge” [featured] that Jachim van Huut built with Niantic Lightship. I also enjoyed Florent Germain bringing animal skeletons to life in his AR sizzle reel, and the XR Hack demo Dino Dig by Rory Clark, Pip Turner, and Julia Ronneberger.
VR
A perhaps understandable theme that emerges in the review of VR this month is “teleportation”:
[Featured] VR hardware manufacturer Varjo has begun demoing gaussian splat outputs from its Teleport software.
Immersive India (via Krishna Jagadish) is “an immersive 16K 180° 3D film takes you into the heart of India's most stunning cities”
Keith Wood’s The Great Exhibition of 1851 in VR can now be wish listed on Steam.
Immersive Exhibitions, Interactive Tours, Online Experiences
Here are 3 interesting examples of spatial heritage you can try out in your browser right now:
[Featured] Species of the River, a meditative digital exhibition by Selina Martinez | more info
40 models of Ukranian architecture heritage have been added to Google Arts & Culture by Skeiron, some are even surfaced during a Google search for the subjects. Via Skeiron.
A “virtual exhibition of AI sculptures and paintings inspired by the work of the artist Pablo Picasso” link via Daniel Pikl
Digitisation & Spatial Initiatives and Projects
Many projects updates were shared last month but I want to highlight the recent update to Dynamic Collections Plus by Lund University’s DARKLab. While I’d like to see some UX improvements (it would be great if clicking on the map filtered the visible collection and object thumbnails should open the object page), it’s a neat example of a 3D model database powered by an open source 3D viewer (3DHOP).
Also: shout out to the teams at Cleveland Museum of Art for continuing to dedicate 3D models to the public domain via sketchfab.com 🙌
Software, Hardware, & Technology
Lots of software updates and demos pushed over August, especially with regards to gaussian splatting. I’m a special fan of an update to Niantic’s Scaniverse app that plots publicly uploaded meshes and splats to a social map, as well as the launch of Scaniverse Community.
From what I’ve explored, it appears that a LOT of the captured 3D content is cultural heritage related! Who knew: if you make 3D scanning easy, the general public naturally begin documenting nearby art and history 👌✨
3D printing, CNC, & Physical Reproductions
The article Enriching Museum Experience: 3D Models Bring Science to Life for the Visually Impaired published last month by ZEISS Microscopy is a great overview of the innovative work being done by Dr. Alex Ball and PhD student Kate Burton at the Natural History Museum London—exciting not least because there is a shoutout to dear old Museum in a Box 😇
Interactive & Games
[Featued] “Black Myth Wukong became the most-played single-player game on Steam. The game’s setting features 3D scans of real-life ancient Chinese architecture, creating a digital archive of China’s rich architectural heritage.” video via iReal 3D | also via Frontline Story | also via Mandate of Heaven | also | also
Articles, Publications, Presentations, Courses, Jobs
“3D Pipeline Days North America brought together thought leaders and innovators in the area of scalable 3D processing pipelines.” videos via RapidPipeline
“Mastering Photogrammetry: Crafting 3D Models with RealityCapture | Unreal Fest 2024” video via polarization_yu
“The lifecycle of 3D data in academic libraries: A survey of methods and implications for information professionals” link via Matt Cook and CS3DP
Events
11 events added to The Spatial Heritage Events Directory this month.
Surveys
“Calling all 3D-based researchers! We'd like your feedback on how to improve the publication and evaluation of 3D projects.” link via PURE3D
Help us to map European data infrastructures for 3D cultural heritage link via Europeana
“The MorphoSource Team is investigating ways that we can improve and expand support for cultural heritage data on MorphoSource.” link via Mieke Roth
Meemoo Flemish Institute for Archives 3D Scans & Objects Survey link
“Museums in the Metaverse needs your help to understand how audiences might use virtual museums.” survey via Museums in the Metaverse
[FR] “Call for testimonies on your professional use of 3D models related to heritage” link via BIBRACTE EPCC
Miscellaneous 3D
AI
“I used LumaDreamMachine to expand the space of two film photos of the Sumitomo Benbetsu Coal Mine shaft tower taken in 1996” via 2012apocalypsis
Gaussian Splats & NeRFs
“ SongbookTrail exhibition at the V&A Museum” via Jan Flac
Meshes & Point Clouds
Archaeological excavation campaign in La Motilla del Azuer 3D via Juan Torrejón Valdelomar
Reconstructions, 3D Illustrations, and Renders
“Under the cover of darkness, Nipponites come out to feed.” via Kiabugboy