About the Open Virtual Worlds Research Group and EU-LAC-MUSEUMS Project
Open Virtual Worlds (OVW) is an interdisciplinary research group located at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. OVW uses emergent technologies and research to present heritage in ways that are both interactive and engaging. The group consists of historians, museum experts, programmers, modelers, a videographer, and a commercially certified drone pilot. We have been involved with the EU-LAC-MUSEUMS project since its proposal in 2015 and helped to develop its technological investigations.
The EU-LAC-MUSEUMS project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. It is led by a consortium of eight institutions investigating the social, technological, and cultural relations between Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean through community museology. Digital technologies can help instigate these global connections between communities across the world, build relationships between a community with its own museum as well as stimulate participation in the creation of digital heritage.
Prior to the project start, emergent technologies such as 3D and 360 degree capture had been recently accessible methods for both preserving and promoting cultural heritage, but the knowledge and hardware presumed to be required to take on such digitisation projects were out of reach for museums or communities without the proper means or staff. To investigate this challenge, we developed 3D digitisation workshops that would support community creation and development of their heritage, democratisation of technologies and processes, and promote underrepresented communities on the global online stage.
The goal for the team was to design digitisation processes and workflows that tapped into communities’ established digital skill sets and use of available equipment. Digitisation workshops were designed and led by the OVW team, including myself, in over twenty museums across three continents between 2016 and 2017. Museums were selected by regional partners within each country by the ties to their community, heritage’s significance to the country, and urgency for digitisation (due to environmental concerns, loss of identity, poor infrastructure). Over 300 participants digitised 3D artefacts, created 360 degree virtual tours, and supplied metadata to our project-created virtual museum.
Workshops
Photogrammetry was the main method of digitisation as photos could be taken with a decent megapixel digital camera or mobile phone and can be accessed without specialised equipment or software. We wanted to employ open-source software where we could, as accessibility was integral, and chose a combination of Visual SFM and MeshLab for manual post-processing, and MVE (Multi View Environment software) plus TexRecon for a bespoke queue system. We did use Metashape (then called Photoscan) for higher resolution and challenging models. Sketchfab was used exclusively as a 3D global platform, as it could bolster the exposure of the models, communities, and heritage while simplifying the process of sharing and embedding.
Project Structure
As part of the pre-workshop research, we tested and created a manual for digitisation (including 360 degree virtual tours) to send to community museums before the start of the workshops to familiarise themselves with the material and begin the process of object selection. Museums familiarising themselves with criteria for object selection, which we believe, is the most important step of the digitisation process, as it’s necessary to know the strengths of the digitisation method you’re using and to select objects based on those strengths.
The workshops were limited to a single day at one location, but frequently we used the day prior to visit and coordinate with the museum, as well as approve or further select objects to digitise. The workshops were given an entire day, and began with a sharing of skills and experiences, to evaluate the digital literacies present. The morning would follow a lecture format of demonstrating technologies and processes. In the afternoon, participants chose activities that interested them (from photogrammetry, 360 degree virtual tours, or data entry for interpretation) for hands-on learning, and could move from group to group. Formal and informal evaluations were conducted by the host museums and contact was retained for further queries and support.
Digitisation Workflows
Equipment setup
As part of the budget for the workshops, each regional partner for the country was given a complete “travel set up” that had been tested prior to the workshops. The set up included either a Sony a5000 dSLR or a RICOH Theta for 360 degree photography as well as:
- IKEA cheese board – sturdy manual turntable
- LED table lights and stands
- Lightbox with included matte backdrops
- Black felt for tacking on turntable
- Tripod
- Remote with Bluetooth connectivity for steady photographs
- Rechargeable AA batteries and power station (for table lights)
Process
The object capture part of the photogrammetric process was broken down into Selection of Objects, Selection of Equipment, Process of Capture (dSLR), and Process of Capture (mobile phone). The camera used during the workshops was a full frame Sony Alpha 7 with its stock zoom, a FE 28-70mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS lens. Due to the high volume of objects we would be digitising during the workshops (20 museums x 10-15 objects each), as well as teaching while trying to digitise, we also deployed a laser scanner (NextEngine 3D scanner) and a structured light scanner (EinScan-Pro with colour module) for efficiency. We were able to conduct scanning (laser scanner is an automatic process from pre-selected criteria) and photogrammetry simultaneously, which made a more efficient use of our time. We taught both technologies and methods, but placed greater emphasis on photogrammetry, as it was the method we were hoping the museums would begin to use.
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- Hands on photogrammetry at Museo Histórico y Antropológico Maurice van de Maele at Universidad Austral de Chile.
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- Pre-selecting criteria for laser scanning artefacts at Museo Histórico y Antropológico Maurice van de Maele at Universidad Austral de Chile.
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- Laser scanning a bronze Mercury statuette found in a Roman villa in Seixal, Portual.
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- Extraordinary ceramics from archaeological sites around the Museo de Sitio de Tucume.
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- Teaching photogrammetry techniques in the Museu Comarcal de l’Horta Sud, Spain.
We encouraged the use of a camera with manual settings, to be able to keep settings constant throughout the shoot. The manual settings (for indoor shooting) included:
- ISO: 100-200 range
- f/: f/12-f/18
- WB: set manually, or adjust with appropriate preset
- Shutter speed: adjust with lit set up, bright without wash out
Processing workflows
Virtual Museum
A challenge we had to address and tackle was the processing power required for model creation. In 2016, and similarly today, it takes a sizeable amount of memory, decent CPU and graphics card to process 3D models in a timely manner. Processing through the cloud was not an option, as copyright of the digital content needed to stay within the project.
To help remedy this issue, we developed a virtual museum framework that would continue developing as the project progressed. The virtual museum website serves as a home base for all digital content created during and after the workshops. The framework provides support for creation, archiving, interpretation, and dissemination of digital heritage. Media (such as 3D objects, photospheres, videos, images, audio, and documents) are uploaded through a form to be archived in the virtual museum and sent to social sites if applicable. Data supplied using the archive form is stored in a back-end DAM system implemented through Omeka and incorporated into the European Data Model (Dublin Core schema).
Where processing power is an issue, unprocessed photogrammetry photos can be uploaded in a zip file, indicated by type “Unprocessed Photogrammetry”, and sent through a bespoke automatic queue system that begins processing the photos. The queue system was also integral in processing the high volume of objects as well as completing models promptly (during or within a few days after the workshop) so they could be used during subsequent workshops. It has a web-based interface which uses the uploaded images and runs them through MVE and TexRecon to generate a textured mesh and is put into a .zip file which OVW downloaded. All values chosen in the script were values recommended by MVE. We would check the fidelity of generated models to the actual object, then upload the successful 3D model to the original archive entry, changing it from “unprocessed” to “3D model”. If the “Cleared for Release” and “Social Archive” boxes are ticked, the model would automatically upload to the indicated collection on Sketchfab. We are currently in development to make this a more user-friendly and stand-alone service with more selectable options based on the specifics of a user’s 3D project.
Any model that was not successful in the queue system was processed by hand by the OVW team using Metashape, VisualSFM and MeshLab. During the workshops, VisualSFM and MeshLab software were discussed and demoed as potential open-source alternatives, while some of the project’s institutions have been able to upgrade to educational licenses with Metashape.
Future Work
The community digitisation workshop framework was adapted many times during the workshop’s run, based on evaluation, changes in workflows, and updated technologies. These changes have also influenced how we continue to support digital creation while the project continues, so community museums can become sustainable digital educators and producers in their communities. As the museums were the hosts of the workshops, participants were able to connect with existing community networks and revitalise their own identity and heritage within the relevant objects, locations and stories, which instills future engagement and participation.
The ground-breaking success of the digitisation workshops have led them to be integrated into other funded projects, such as CINE and CUPIDO, to protect, develop, and promote natural and cultural heritage in rural and remote communities. The EU has conducted a roundtable session with EU-LAC-MUSEUMS project leaders, with special attention paid to the work and impact from the digitisation workshops. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) adopted the proposed resolution “Museums, Communities, and Sustainability” set forward by EU-LAC-MUSEUMS at the ICOM summit in Kyoto, Japan September 2019. The value of digitising tangible heritage was fully understood when communities in Rey Curré and Boruca in Costa Rica experienced unprecedented flooding, and both Museo Nacional Sicán and Museo de Sitio de Tucume, Peru, were affected by unseasonal flooding after workshops were held. All communities were able to recover, but the floods highlighted the reality of loss that can happen to any heritage collection at any time. 3D models are not a replacement for the original object, but are situated to prevent total loss, preserving heritage at a moment in time, and allowing for global dissemination and research.
Future of 3D Heritage
3D digitisation in the field of heritage will become more commonplace when the practice becomes integrated with museological standards. As technology develops, by becoming faster, smaller, and more affordable, digitisation techniques will only become more attainable. In order for communities and their museums to align themselves with these standards, they need access to knowledge, hardware and software to achieve their goals. By democratising the process while still maintaining museological standards, more community museums and remote communities can preserve and promote their unique and fragile heritage.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 693669.
Website / Virtual Museum / Facebook / Twitter / Open Virtual Worlds on Sketchfab
About the author
Catherine Anne Cassidy
Catherine Anne is a PhD student with the Open Virtual Worlds research group in the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews, which is a partner in the EU-LAC MUSEUMS project.
