It’s been a busy few weeks!… We have been hanging out in graveyards (meeting with the Friends of the Glasgow Necropolis), scrambling up rocks (with the climbers at Dumbarton) and wandering around abandoned gun batteries (with the Health Walks and How Old Are Yew groups in Castlemilk). See more pictures of our escapades here. And keep your eyes on this blog, check out twitter @ACCORD_project for announcements of fieldwork projects!
Here we are at the WW2 battery, next to Castlemilk, Glasgow:
Last weekend we were in gorgeous Glendaruel, on the Cowal Peninsula. Together we are working with members of the Colintraive and Glendaruel Development Trust to co-design and co-produce 3D models of archaeological monuments in their landscape; a stunning valley and community owned forest peppered with neolithic chambered tombs, potential ancient standing stones, neolithic rock-art, medieval and post-medieval remains. On the Saturday our colleagues from Archaeology Scotland ran a workshop in the field on recording monuments and plane-table survey (did you know you can build 3D models using this very technique?).
Despite the mist and constant rain we all got stuck in (and had a few laughs!), while Danuta’s soup, mugs of tea and cakes back at the village hall were greatly appreciated and warmed us all up!
Here is a quickly thrown together model of one of the ‘standing stones’ I made over the weekend, a little blurry because of the rain!
3D model made with photos taken on a Panasonic Lumix with 12X optimal zoom, and processed using Agisoft Photoscan
– I am excited to see what we create together… follow this blog to hear more from the group and watch our progress!
Stuart Jeffrey and Mhairi Maxwell having a natter at last weekend’s at Dig It 2015! website launch and showcase.
ACCORD were at the Dig It! 2015 website launch on Saturday at the lovely setting of Rouken Glen- did we see you there?
We had a grand old time (it certainly beat the rugby…). It was great to be amongst the first to see the beautifully designed and engaging website (check it out here), to find out what other worthwhile work is being produced by community groups and colleagues, and to talk to curious weekenders out and about in the park. Plus I am particularly pleased with my freebie bright pink T-shirt, which were going like hotcakes!
Dig It! 2015 will be the year of archaeology and is being co-ordinated by two charities – the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and Archaeology Scotland. At the heart of the festival is the ethos Archaeology is for everyone, and there will be a series of exciting educational and participatory events taking place across the whole length and breadth of Scotland.
At the heart of ACCORD is the belief that archaeology is not just for everyone, but is increasingly made by everyone– especially with the accessibility and ubiquity of digital technology today.
Here is a photogrammetic 3D model produced using photographs taken on an iphone of a blown-over bench in the walled garden at Rouken Glen by the ACCORD team and some willing volunteers. Thank you to the ranger who gave us special access to this area on the day! Only 30 photos were taken walking around the object at various angles, some close-up/ others further away, which were then processed using Agisoft-Photoscan software. If you’re out and about, have a go yourself!
3D model generated using Agisoft Photoscan
We also attempted a more ambitious 3D model of the whole walled garden by walking around he perimeter- however, I need more of your photos! If you are reading this and took part in our wee experiment please get in touch and I will stitch them into my incomplete version…AND watch this space!
I have just come to the end of my first 2 weeks working on the @ACCORD_project and my has it flown past! Already I have been up at Glasgow Cathedral playing with lasers, and have learnt to create 3D models of buildings using photographs taken with my own camera and iphone.
I am a trained field archaeologist and love getting my trowel muddy. So how did I find myself here, surrounded by whiz-kids at the digital design studio? Well, my own fascination with the potential of digital methods came to the fore when I was based at the National Museum of Scotland and helped design a popular online 3D platform for a crowd-sourced project which aimed to refit thousands of fragments from the hacked-off face of the Hilton of Cadboll Pictish Stone (go to http://www.pictishpuzzle.co.uk to find out more). This is a truly democratic attempt to piece together the past, only made possible in a digital world. More and more, digital technology is becoming recognised as an incredibly helpful tool for recording, preserving and communicating the past (check out the very exciting Scottish Ten project http://www.scottishten.org). However, in the main projects have been carried out by specialists, and remain in the field of experts.
Uniquely, at the heart of the ACCORD project is the co-design ethos. Together with local communities we will digitally document and capture the stories of significant heritage monuments, in ways appropriate to that community’s needs, hopes and desires. I am excited to see the various outcomes of what we create together- watch this space!
The ACCORD project seeks to examine the opportunities and implications of digital visualisation technologies for community engagement and research through the co-creation of three-dimensional (3D) models of historic monuments and places. Despite their increasing accessibility, techniques such as laser scanning, 3D modelling and 3D printing have remained firmly in the domain of heritage specialists. Expert forms of knowledge and/or professional priorities frame the use of digital visualisation technologies, and forms of community-based social value are rarely addressed. Consequently, the resulting digital objects fail to engage communities as a means of researching and representing their heritage, despite the now widespread recognition of the importance of community engagement and social value in the heritage sector.
The ACCORD project aims to address this gap through the co-design and co-production of an integrated research asset that addresses social value and engages communities with transformative digital technologies.
ACCORD will create a permanently archived open-access dataset of community co-produced 3D digital models of archaeological sites and monuments, integrated with expressions of social value and contextual documentation. The project will actively engage community groups that have ongoing relationships to heritage places in the process of creating 3D records and models of those places. With the support of visualisation technologists, community engagement practitioners, and experts in social value, each community group will design, direct and produce their own 3D objects. The use of digital technologies to enhance and generate forms of social significance will be an important outcome, adding distinctive value to existing heritage assets and our understandings of them. Community groups will be able to draw on the resulting digital datasets for various purposes, such as public presentation, education, and tourism initiatives. The records and models resulting from the project will also provide important research resources for community groups, heritage managers and academic researchers.
Evaluation will be an integral aspect of ACCORD project, examining the relationships between community groups, digital heritage professionals and the outputs they have created. This will include a review of the transformative aspects of the process, investigating changes in attitudes to 3D recording technologies during the life of the project, as well as the forms of significance, authenticity and value acquired by the resulting 3D objects. Ultimately, through the co-production of an open-access dataset, and the creation of a ‘community of communities’ engaged in sharing skills and experiences,ACCORD seeks to broaden capacity for the creation and reuse of digital visualisation technologies in community heritage activities and research.
ACCORD is one of eleven projects across the UK to be awarded funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s £4million “Digital Transformations in Community Research Co-Production” programme. Led by the Digital Design Studio of the Glasgow School of Art, the project it is being delivered in partnership with the University of Manchester Department of Archaeology, Archaeology Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.
ACCORD 