Introducing The Spatial Heritage Review

Culture, history, & 3D.

Photogrammetry capture of ‘Relief with male figure and bearded face’

The best digital heritage content.

The Spatial Heritage Review is a monthly round up of things happening at the intersection of cultural heritage + digital 3D, covering digitisation techniques, new 3D/XR publications, open access 3D data sets, events & conferences, tutorials, and more.

You can check out some previous issues below:

• Issue #1

• Issue #2

• Issue #3

• Issue #4

• Issue #5

The format of the review will no doubt evolve over time, but my hope is that you’ll find at least one or two new things in it each month that interest and inspire you.

Oh and this is me, in case you’re wondering :)

Why this, why now.

During my 6 years as Cultural Heritage Lead at Sketchfab, I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing the huge uptake of 3D digitisation and publishing, both in the GLAM sector and beyond. More individuals and organizations around the world are capturing cultural heritage content in 3D and publishing it in all manner of ways for other people to experience it.

With so much happening on a regular basis, I figured creating a monthly roundup of relevant content might be useful for busy folk out there to help them catch up on great stuff they may have missed.

If you think I’ve missed something in any given month’s review, feel free to submit a story, project or link for next time!

Oh, and why is it named “The Spatial Heritage Review”? Well… I had to name it something and this was as close as I could get to a name that alludes to the general scope of the round up, but is also vague enough to allow me space to include related but perhaps off-topic content as well :)

The Cultural Heritage & History Content Category on sketchfab.com

The kind of community I am looking to build.

So who is The Spatial Heritage Review for? My hope is that this publication will be useful to:

• Museum professionals (newbies and veterans alike) looking to add to their knowledge and build their network.

• Commercial sector professionals working on related technologies and services wanting to follow trends in the GLAM sector.

• Digital creators interested in discovering new open access 3D content or working (or hoping to work) in the heritage space.

At Sketchfab, I had the privilege of working with and getting to know all kinds of people working on 3D digitisation projects. One week I might be speaking to an industry expert working out of a national level institution about how to make the best of publishing 3D for a high profile online exhibition, the next I’d be chatting to a volunteer at a tiny local museum who was looking to start a photogrammetry project with no prior knowledge of the subject.

What became clear is that everyone had specific needs but also useful insights into the rapidly developing field 3D digitisation & publishing. This blog/newsletter/social post/however-you-consume-it is my attempt at helping everyone learn from each other and maybe even help people drift towards some consensus of ‘how to 3D for cultural heritage’.

Me on Substack.

For now, I plan on posting The Spatial Heritage Review in the first day or so of each new month, reviewing what has been shared and posted in the previous ~30 days. No doubt some months will be have more news than others but I hope that by scouring my feeds and beyond, sifting and distilling the content I find, I can bring something valuable to your screen on a regular basis.

The plan is for the Review itself to be a free subscription so please do tell your peers, friends, family, and pets about it.

If I can think of ways to create other content that would be valuable enough for a paid subscription, I will let you know :)

Thanks for reading, I look forward to seeing you around!
Tom