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Software Turns that Cheap Camera into a 3d Scanner

November 24, 2009 Shawn 1 comment

Now: can you think of some archaeological applications? :)

See this post in Wired.

It’s called ProFORMA, or Probabilistic Feature-based On-line Rapid Model Acquisition, but it is way cooler than it sounds. The software, written by a team headed by Qui Pan, a student at the Department of Engineering at Cambridge University in England, turns a regular, cheap webcam into a 3D scanner. Normally, scanning in 3D requires purpose-made gear and time. ProFORMA lets you rotate any object in front of the camera and it scans it in real time, building a fully 3D texture mapped model as fast as you can turn an object. Even more impressive is what happens after the scan: The camera continues to track the objsct in space and matches it’s movement instantly with the on-screen model.

I haven’t found a website for this software yet, and I have no idea when/if it is available, but let’s hope it is soon. Should be a boon to those folks who are creating immersive archaeological simulations of real sites & artefacts (Colleen?)

edit: the website address turns up in the last few seconds of the video at 3.16, http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~qp202

NetherNet Redux? Google Sidewiki

November 24, 2009 Shawn Leave a comment

What always excited my about The Nethernet (nee Pmog) was the ability to annotate websites (refugees from the Nethernet keep the flame burning here).

So over at Ubernoggin, I see that the Googlemonster is allowing folks to annotate websites. There’s potential here.

From Ubernoggin:

I can’t help but be excited about Google Sidewiki. It allows users (with google accounts) to leave comments on any website. So now, rather than signing up for forums and chats to comment or searching through dozens of pages to read customer feedback, you can simply click a button in your browser and see what people are saying.

I could be wrong. I could be overly excited. But I can’t help feeling that this is HUGE. The whole of the web now becomes a social network. Every page can have an unbiases forum tacked on that’s viewable by anyone.

It will be interesting to see how this evolves. What was extremely cool about Nethernet, was how those annotations could be made dynamic (puzzles, explosions, you name it). Google as a game playing platform? Stranger things have happened.

Digital Research Tools Wiki

November 17, 2009 Shawn 1 comment

I came across the DiRT page this morning, run by Lisa Spiro. What an awesome resource! If you know of tools that are useful in your own research, suggest them to Lisa and get them listed on this page. From the front:

This wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively.  Whether you need software to help you manage citations, author a multimedia work, or analyze texts, Digital Research Tools will help you find what you’re looking for. We provide a directory of tools organized by research activity, as well as reviews of select tools in which we not only describe the tool’s features, but also explore how it might be employed most effectively by researchers.

Please provide feedback on DiRT and recommend tools not included here (yet).

If you’re interested in contributing to this wiki, please email Lisa Spiro at lspiro@rice.edu.  Please see Guidelines for Contributors to learn how to add new information to the wiki.

I love how it is organized by asking what it is you want to do.  While focussed on the humanities and social sciences, there is a distinct lack of Agent Modeling or other simulation tools, which I suppose indicates that simulation hasn’t made great inroads amongst the digital humanities set yet.

Some great dynamic map tools though!

 

  • ArcGIS: ”an integrated collection of GIS software products that provides a standards-based platform for spatial analysis, data management, and mapping” (Commercial, Windows)
  • GeoNames: “GeoNames geographical database covers all countries and contains over eight million placenames that are available for download free of charge.” (Free, web-based)
  • Google Earth: “Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share with others.” (Free, with Pro version available; PC/Mac/Linux)
  • Google Maps: allows you to view maps and directions, with practical applications for transportation and diverse viewing options to further specify location (Free, web-based)
  • Open Street Map: “a free, editable map of the whole world…allows you to view, edit and use geographical data in a collaborative way from anywhere on Earth” (Free, web-based)
  • Platial: “the world’s largest social map service…hundreds of thousands of people around the world share and discover all kinds of Places. Anyone can map just about anything including their towns, lives, travels, feeds, files, photos, video and stories in one simple interface…Maps are free and can be embedded on any Web page” (Free, web-based)
  • TimeMap: A Java-based client-server/standalone temporal mapping applet for distributed datasets, developed by the Archaeological Computing Laboratory at the University of Sydney (Open Source or support license)
  • UUorld: a program that “provides an immersive mapping environment, high-quality data, and critical analysis tools” through the production of four-dimensional, interactive maps (Free, with Pro version available; Windows/Mac/Linux)
  • Yahoo! Map Mixer: allows you to create your own basic map, view maps and directions, and search existing maps (Free, web-based)

Resources:

Examples of Usage:

  • PoliMap: Will Riley’s students gathered location data about politicians using a Google spreadsheet and mapped it on a Google Map

 

 

2006 ‘Networks, Agent-Based Modeling, and the Antonine Itineraries’. In The Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 19.1: 45-64.

October 9, 2009 Shawn Leave a comment

It occurred to me that some of you might like to read this.

04_Graham

I’ve got some other papers kicking around that I would like to expose to a wider readership; I’ll post those too, once I find them on this machine again… my how cluttered things can get!

I’ve been thinking of doing this for some time, but the kick in the pants I needed was courtesy of http://publishingarchaeology.blogspot.com/2009/06/please-post-your-papers-on-internet.html

Abstract:

This paper presents a way of looking at Roman space from a Roman perspective, and suggests ways in which this point of view might open up new approaches in Roman archaeology. It turns on one conception of Roman space in particular, preserved for us in the Antonine Itineraries. Working from a position that considers the context of the itineraries as movement-through-space, this paper presents an investigation using social network analysis and agent-based simulation to re-animate the itineraries. The itineraries for Iberia, Gaul, Italy, and Britain are considered. The results of the social network analysis suggest structural differences in the way that the itineraries presented space to the reader/traveler. The results of the simulation of information diffusion through these regions following the routes in the itineraries suggest ways that this conception of space affected the cultural and material development of these regions. Suggestions for extending the basic model for more complicated archaeolgoical analyses are presented.

Google Wave & Archaeology

October 9, 2009 Shawn Leave a comment

I’ve been involved with a couple of projects now, where the emails, the documentation, the whiteboards, the databases all morphed into a huge ugly monster. O Google, What Can Thou Doest About This?

From the horse’s mouth. Wired had a very good story about it, but darned if I can find it now. But if it works as well as the video suggests it ought to (a big if)… big collaborative research projects ought to get a whole lot easier…

Perhaps.

Categories: data management

Let’s write a textbook

September 30, 2009 Shawn Leave a comment

I’ve been talking with the folks at Flatworld Knowledge about the kinds of textbooks they’re looking for, and it was suggested that a world history textbook might be just the ticket. These things are typically in two volumes – before and after 1500. Who wants to write a textbook?

To my mind, writing another textbook that does the usual roundup of periods/cultures is not perhaps useful. As the Barenaked Ladies are wont to say, ‘It’s all been done before! ‘ A new medium of producing, distributing a textbook – a medium that allows for the content to be remixed by instructors at the coal-face, to suit their needs (read Flatworld’s material for more on that) it seems to me, needs a new approach. The folks at Grand Text Auto did a blog-based peer review for this book; perhaps a new world history textbook could be written via blog-based posts & peer review? Also, could it be written in such a way as to foreground networks & connections between times, places, and peoples: a 21st century textbook? Horden and Purcell’s volume from a few years back is apposite here; also is Urry’s Sociology beyond Societies

…I’m just thinking out loud. Your thoughts?

70 000 views

September 29, 2009 Shawn Leave a comment

With the birth of my daughter in March, and my new job at about the same time, my blogging pace and output have diminished considerably. But, this morning, according to the wordpress stats thingy, Electric Archaeology broke 70,000 unique views.

[balloons, streamers, fireworks: hurrah!]

Some metadata then:

Top ten posts:

Civilization IV World Builder Manual 7,483
Game Mods 2,561
Moodle + WordPress = Online University 1,986
Historical GIS and various Google Earth 1,405
About Shawn Graham 1,397
History Channel – Roman Battle Game 1,340
Publications & Conferences 929
Language Switcher for WordPress 916
Agent Models 871
Angel versus Moodle 826

These ten posts do capture pretty much what this blog is about.

Top referrers (I’ve deleted some that are obviously private reader software:

stoa.org 273
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANGEL_Learning 212
emshort.wordpress.com 156
thepiratesrealm.com/Captain%20Kidd.ht… 125
Mediterraneanworld.typepad.com/the_ar… 109
middlesavagery.wordpress.com 108
edugamesblog.wordpress.com/2007/12/08… 99
netvibes.com 97
WordPress Dashboard 96
egyptology.blogspot.com 91

80
mediterraneanworld.typepad.com 77
ancientworldbloggers.blogspot.com 73

And finally, what does wordle have to say about this blog? Strangely – and sadly – I don’t see the word ‘archaeology’ anywhere, anymore…

Wordle: Electric Archaeology

Categories: data management

The Ancient History Encyclopedia

September 8, 2009 Shawn 3 comments

Jan van der Crabben is a name you might be familiar with if you’ve played any of the mods or other community-built content for Civilization IV. Jan has a new project under way, called ‘The Ancient History Encyclopedia‘, and he’s looking for content and editors. And, in a lovely twist not often seen, he’s willing to pay contributors. His note is below:

The goal is to become the number one source of information on ancient history — for students, academics, enthusiasts, and the general public alike.

I believe that this is achievable due to our unique way of presenting information: The website is centered around tags (which are essentially the entries in a printed encyclopedia), with each tag having a definition, articles, a timeline, illustrations, and external links / book references displayed. Like this, one finds several different kinds of information at the same time, in a modern format. When you visit the website, you will be able to see this organization best on the “Babylon” page, simply because it is the page with the most content at the moment.

The website address is http://www.ancientopedia.com and I would be happy if you could visit it and have a look. Please be aware that it’s far from complete! There isn’t very much content yet, we clearly need a lot more content to make this website a success. Also, you are among the first people to be using this website, so there might still be bugs. If something doesn’t work, or doesn’t work as you would expect, please email me what you were doing, what happened, and why it’s not what you expected.

Please register at the website (the “Register” link is at the top), and start adding content wherever you can! Content is submitted through the website, using the existing online forms. You can add/edit a definition, an article, or an illustration. You can also contribute timeline entries. Look for the “Add”, “Edit”, and “Upload” buttons in the relevant sections of the site (generally on the right of the section headline).

You can choose what you want to write about… We need definitions, articles, and illustrations. Please be careful not to infringe on any copyright, so only submit your own work. Of course you are allowed to submit work that you’ve already written, as long as you hold the copyright to it (this might be a grey area if it’s published in an academic publication, for example). You can also submit work that falls under a Creative Commons or GFDL license (such as images from Wikipedia), as long as it is attributed and licensed correctly. Please do not copy & paste any text from Wikipedia or other websites, only images are fine to copy under a CC or GFDL license.

All content that you submit is reviewed and possibly edited. Before the review process is complete and your content has been approved it will not show up on the website. So if you don’t see something you’ve written, be patient. If it doesn’t show up within a few days, please contact me. There will be a more formal system that allows the contributors and editors to communicate through the website in the future.

The website makes money through book sales (via Amazon, we get a commission), as well as advertisements (which aren’t online yet). As I’ve mentioned before, the 100 first contributions will be paid at a rate of US $10 per article and US $5 per definition. For definitions, only new definitions are paid, edits do not count. You will be paid when the initial paid submission period is over and we’ve got 100 contributions. Payment will be conducted via PayPal. After the initial paid phase, you will be able to earn advertising revenue on your content using Google AdSense and possibly other revenue sources.

There are no deadlines: You can submit work at any time, on any subject you choose (subject to review). The more you submit, the more money will you receive. :-)

I did ask him how he feels this will differ from Wikipedia, which is pretty solid on many things ancient. He responds that it is in the backend, and in how the information is served up with the ancillary materials. I’ve explored a bit, and I like that for any given article you can see who authored it; a little difference there with the big W; perhaps some sort of reputation-tracking mechanism would be useful. One thing I noticed is the feed from Amazon will serve up ‘pyramidiot’ and other nonsense they classify as ‘ancient history’ – 2012 anyone?  I don’t know how well those materials can be filtered before they’re displayed.

Check it out. I’m always ready to applaud new initiatives that make our subject better known to the wider world – good on you, Jan!

Visualisation in Archaeology

August 21, 2009 Shawn Leave a comment

An interesting project hosted by Southampton in the UK and English Heritage – see the full website here. They’re hosting what looks to be a fascinating wee conference in October:

Visualisation In Context:
An Interplay of Practice and Theory

22 – 23 October 2009
Hosted by the University of Southampton

The 2009 VIA Workshop is designed to probe the intersections between theory (which might traditionally be represented in terms of critique – linear and written) and practice (which might increasingly be expressed in terms of production – non-linear and visual) within the field of archaeology as well as other disciplines from the humanities and the sciences.

Check out the VIA  showcase:

Online Research Showcase
Centred on the visualisation of data in both archaeology and the wider fields of the social sciences, arts, and science and technology studies. Like the bibliography, these summaries aim to link practitioners across disciplines, highlight innovative visual projects, and offer a platform for future planning and discussion of best practices around archaeological visual method and theory.
Click to view full entry and abstract... Archaeology and Community Museology: Ancient Egyptian Daily Life Scenes in Museums
Gemma Tully
University of Southampton
Click to view full entry and abstract... Choreographic Morphologies: Interdisciplinary Crossovers in the Use of Digital Visualisation Methods in Dance and Archaeology
Helen Bailey, Stuart Dunn, James Hewison, Martin Turner
King’s College London
University of Bedfordshire
University of Manchester
Click to view full entry and abstract... Fractured Media: Challenging the Dimensions of Archaeology’s Typical Visual Modes of Engagement
Sara Perry
University of Southampton
Click to view full entry and abstract... Framing Machu Picchu: Science, Photography and the Making of Patrimony
Amy Cox
University of Florida
Click to view full entry and abstract... Imag(in)ing the Other at Dura-Europos
Jennifer Baird
Birkbeck College, University of London
Click to view full entry and abstract... Institutionalising Images: Early Visualisation Networks in Aegean Archaeology
Deborah Harlan
University of Sheffield
Click to view full entry and abstract... Interactive Panoramas and 3D Modelling Based on Panoramas
Karol Kwiatek, Martin Woolner, Simon Standing, Jes Martens
University of Plymouth, Institute of Creative and Cultural Industries
University of Oslo, Norway, Museum of Cultural History
Click to view full entry and abstract... OKAPI Island in Second Life
Ruth Tringham, Noah Wittman, Colleen Morgan
University of California, Berkeley
Click to view full entry and abstract... Pervasive Gaming, Education, and Cultural Heritage: Emplaced Interpretive Games at the Presidio of San Francisco
Ruth Tringham, Colleen Morgan
University of California, Berkeley
The Presidio Archaeology Lab
Click to view full entry and abstract... Reflexive Representations: The Partibility of Archaeology
Andrew Cochrane, Ian Russell
Cardiff University
University College Dublin
Click to view full entry and abstract... Representing Prehistory: The Biographies of the Robenhausen Lake Dwelling Collections at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (2008-2009)
Katherine Cooper
University of Cambridge
Click to view full entry and abstract... SahulTime: Rethinking Archaeological Representation in the Digital Age
Matthew Coller
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Click to view full entry and abstract... Scandalous Artefacts
Alessandro Zambelli
Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London
Click to view full entry and abstract... Strategies of Visualisation in German Archaeology, 19th-20th C
Stefanie Klamm
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
Humboldt University, Berlin
Click to view full entry and abstract... The Archaeological Eye: Visualisation and the Disciplinary Foundations of British Archaeology
Sara Perry
University of Southampton
Click to view full entry and abstract... The Gateway to Sarup
Niels H. Andersen, Maria Isenbecker, Camilla Bjarnø, Jan Solheim
Moesgård Museum, DenmarkSamsøgades Skole, Denmark
Supported by the Danish Ministry of Culture and the Danish Ministry of Education
Click to view full entry and abstract... The Remediated Places Project
Ruth Tringham, Michael Ashley, Steve Mills, Eric Blind, Jason Quinlan, Colleen Morgan
University of California, Berkeley

Historical Maps, GIS, and Second Life

August 13, 2009 Shawn 3 comments

I’ve just come across a presentation (in three parts) given by David Rumsey, over a year ago. Worth a view!

“A talk given by David Rumsey at the March 6, 2008 launch of his historical map library and exhibition in the virtual world of Second Life. The talk was delivered at the Rumsey Map Islands in Second Life. All of the maps in the talk can also be seen and downloaded from Rumsey’s free online map library at www.davidrumsey.com

Part I

Part II

Part III