Cultural Heritage Imaging

By Carla Schroer

The National Park Service’s National Center For Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) workshop was a great opportunity for the instructors as well as the participants. First, Mark and I got to spend a couple of days with Tom Noble and Neffra Matthews (from the Bureau of Land Management) prior to the workshop.

Tom and Neffra are extremely knowledgeable photogrammetry experts with lots of field experience. They also keep up with what’s going on in that field in terms of new products, and new features in existing products. They are a tremendous resource, and happy to share their knowledge. CHI welcomes any future opportunities to work with them again.

The next opportunity for me as an instructor was to hear from folks that participated about their own experiences in the field. A few had tried reflectance transformation imaging (RTI), others photogrammetry, others laser scanning, and all had done photographs and drawings (or been part of projects that did that).

The workshop afforded opportunities to discuss practical issues in the field, as well as get an understanding of some of the challenges people face, and what they are willing to do to overcome the challenges. The group worked well together, shared ideas readily, and asked good questions. I think we all got a lot out of the interaction. It wasn’t just instructors passing knowledge to students, and I really appreciated that aspect of it.

It was also fantastic that we had a range of people with a wide variety of  experiences participating. Having Professor James Davis from the University of California, Santa Cruz attend the full workshop was really valuable, because he could hear directly the issues people face, and share his perspectives as a computer scientist.

James has worked with RTI for some years, and is also well versed in a range of computer graphics techniques, including laser scanning, structured light scanning, and other forms of capturing 3D geometry. He was really interested in the challenges in the field, and what takes the most time and is the most painful about the capture process, always thinking about ways he might be able to remove some of the time consuming parts.

Overall the experience was lively, interactive, open, and fun, but we made serious progress, too. I think it added a lot to have folks staying at the Presidio and getting to know each other in the evenings. Several people mentioned how the opportunity for them was in not only getting access to the technical information, but interacting with other participants.

I think that no matter how good we get at training people with web- based materials, there will always be a place for human interaction and sharing. It was a rich experience, and I truly thank everyone involved for participating fully.