In my class “3D modelling and reconstruction in Archaeology”, my students created a Virtual Reality experience, from the initial research to the final portation to a game engine. Besides some advice, the students did archieve the end result all by themselves.
The new Assassin’s Creed game takes place in Ancient Egypt. Beside the usual gameplay, where you have to follow a story, collect items and explore the world, you can experience the game totally free from that as a kind of observer in order to learn something about Ancient Egypt. Is this concept ready for the classroom?
For a long time, I did not post anything about the progress of the visualisation project in Cologne-Weiden. Now, we are actually almost finished and I will try to recap some of the steps we were going through. Today’s post topic are the Structure from Motion models of the busts in Cologne-Weiden.
On the 12th to the 13th of October 2018, we will host a symposium at our institute. The symposium (that means there will be wine!) is called “Communicating the Past in the Digital Age – Digital methods for teaching and learning in Archaeology” and the actual Call for Papers is out!
Some time ago, I made a speed video of a Structure from Motion process. It is still a valid and entertaining video.
This is a dialogue between Sophie Schmidt and Sebastian Hageneuer, where we will discuss the advantages and frustrations of free and open source software. We invite you to join the discussion in the comments below.
We completed the second (and last) session of the Structure from Motion documentation of objects from the Egyptology Department of the University of Cologne. The digital Egyptology collection now comprises of seven objects.
In a new project of the Archaeological Insitute of the University of Cologne, we document, reconstruct and gameify a famous burial chamber, that is otherwise difficult to access. The results of this project should be presented at the next AIAC in Cologne/Bonn.
The first Structure from Motion session in the Egyptology Department was a full success and all four objects are online right now. They are composed of a mummy mask and three figurines.
A couple years ago, I was asked to write a guest post on smarthistoryblog.org about Archeoological Reconstructions. It is a bit old, but I still like it and wanted to share. You’ll find the link below the image, that shows one of the first reconstructions done by an archaeologist.
One of my first projects in Archaeoinformatics is the Kölner Dome Project, where I want to develop a RTI Dome based on a very basic prototype, that we build after instructions from the internet. The first part of this project wants to create a new user-friendly and adaptable controlling unit. In this article I write about the first step towards that goal.
A couple weeks ago, I was visiting the department of Egyptology for a photo session of some of their finds in their collection. I took a couple pictures from different objects and am converting them now step-by-step into 3D models. Today, I can present the first result of that work.
The International conference on Computer Applications & Quatitative Methods in Archaeology is the most important conference on Computational Archaeology or Archaeoinformatics worldwide. It is held every year all around the world. Next year, it will take place in Tübingen, Germany.
So, why did I decide to write a blog about Archaeoinformatics, and what is it? In this article I will try to give a very basic definition of the subject and why I decided to write about it.
Structure from Motion progress of a mask of a mummy.
Archaeoinformatics is a relatively new field as a bridge between Archaeology and Computer Sciences, very similar to Bioinformatics or Geoinformatics. It is also called Computational Archaeology, Digital Archaeology or Archaeological Information Systems. It is a subdiscipline to Archaeology and offers computational solutions for archaeological problems.
This site aims to be a collection of news, reports, ideas and general thoughts about the topic. As our knowledge and understanding of Archaeoinformatics grows, this site will also become more comprehensive over time. Besides some basic informations about technologies, we want to present our own projects and the general community of Archaeoinformatics.
You can have a look at the blog section, where we post news and updates about our work, interests and Archaeoinformatics in general. Soon, there will be also a pages section, where we will dedicate several pages explaining various technologies and methods that we use in our work. At the moment, this is work in progress.
You can follow the official Twitter account or SketchFab account of the Archaeoinformatics department of the University of Cologne or contact us via the contact form. We want to stress that, although we work for the university, this page is completly our own and all the opinions rendered on this page are of the respective authors. We hope you enjoy and now let’s start to redefine archaeology!