Sally MacDonaldYean-Hoon OngMona HessFrancesca Millar

E-Curator

3D colour scans for remote object identification and assessment

Dr Ian BrownDr Graeme WereDr Stuart Robson

UCL Context

• 3 Museums open to the public, 10 departmental collections

• Half a million objects and specimens

• First Arius3D Foundation Scanner in Europe providing state of the art colour artefact scanning

• Interdisciplinary expertise

Research issues

• Need for curators, conservators etc to have physical access to objects for

• object identification/ comparison

• condition monitoring, within institutions and for touring exhibitions

• Limitations of the catalogue entry and the conservation report

Project Aims

• Develop a traceable methodology for recording surface detail and colour quality of range of object types and materials

• Explore potential for producing validated datasets to allow closer and more scientific examination of groups of objects, their manufacture and issues of wear and deterioration

• Examine how resulting datasets could be transmitted, shared and compared

• Begin to build expertise in use and transmission of 3D scan data as a curatorial tool

3D Colour Laser Scanning

Red, Green and

Blue Lasers

Lens

Mirror

• 6 pilot object from UCL Museums and Collections to form the core study

• Scanning with the Arius 3D Foundation Model 150 colour scanner, accuracy 0.25mm, point spacing 100 x 100 microns, geometric and colour information (XYZ RGB)

3D Colour Laser ScanningScan results of the Petrie Quartzite UC55606. Minute surface features become visible through the 3D scan.

• Workshops for Curators and Conservators: Opportunity for Museum specialists to be involved in the project and produce a detailed specification for the user interface and review criteria

Dissemination – Formative Workshops, International Conferences, E-curator Website

E-Curator Application (Technology)

• Web-based application• Server side:

– Storage Resource Broker (SRB), Java Server Pages (JSP), servlets, Jargon

• Client side:– Javascript, AJAX

E-Curator Application (Prototype)

E-Curator Application (Interface)

• Embed 3D scan images within web pages

• 3DImagePlayer: an ActiveX control from Arius3D

• Tools are available for users to tumble, pan, zoom and rotate the 3D images and to alter lighting conditions and colour display

E-Curator Application (Interface)

• Metadata provides information about artefact

• The GUI facilitates viewing, comparing and analysing museums artefacts

AHRC Studentship: PhD Anthropology Department

The networked technology of the digital image

• Ethnographic research will explore the production, visualisation, circulation and consumption of the image within the framing of the museum

• Different stakeholders mediate the image; technician, conservator, curator, source community and museum public

• Transforming museum practice and the museum space

Issues of concern for the museum framing

• The digital image reforms ideas on aura, authority, authorship and reality

• In praxis it mediates different sensuous engagements, material knowledge and attachments

• Brings into context issues on the rights to the image, copyright, repatriation and management of knowledge

Field sites for research

• Extended multi sited ethnographic fieldwork in London at UCL museums and collections and in Oxford at the Pitt Rivers museum and Ashmolean. Further research in Toronto at the Royal Ontario museum and Arius 3D