UNews - digital photography

Building a real-time digital reliquary

trevor.kenney — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:00:58 +0000

Written in Old English by an anonymous poet, The Dream of the Rood is recognized as one of the oldest poems in the English language and among the most beautiful religious works. What many don't know is that much of the poem is carved in runes (ancient symbols) on a 17-ft high stone cross in a Scottish church.

The 8th century Ruthwell Cross is historically linked to two other crosses: the 11th century Brussels Cross, made of oak and thought in the Middle Ages to contain a relic of the "True Cross" from Christ's crucifixion, and the 8th century Bewcastle Cross in England, which is carved of stone. All three bear elements that are thematically related to The Dream of the Rood poem.

In the past, Anglo-Saxon historians were required to travel to Belgium and Great Britain to study these artifacts in all three dimensions. Despite the gains of modern digital photography, the crosses are difficult to capture photographically because of their condition and inconvenient locations. Additionally, even a very high-resolution image cannot capture subtle details, like the techniques used to carve the cross.

"It's not 100 per cent clear whether or not the poem was carved when the Ruthwell Cross was carved," explains U of L English professor Dr. Daniel O'Donnell. Being able to examine the crosses in all three dimensions is the only way for researchers to assess this and many other questions.

To improve access to the objects, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge team is co-ordinating an international effort to create a high-tech alternative. O'Donnell, a medieval literature specialist, is collaborating with U of L professors James Graham (New Media) and Dr. Wendy Osborn (Mathematics and Computing Sciences), computer programmer and U of L graduate Joel Rigby, and researchers from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Leeds and the Università degli studi di Torino, to create an online environment that will allow researchers to view and interact with the crosses virtually, in real-time and in three dimensions.

"After examining the multitude of available new media technologies used by humanities researchers and wanting to create an innovative online system that would significantly improve the standard of interactivity, visual accuracy and authenticity-of-experience, we settled on developing a proprietary digital information retrieval system that would work in combination with a collection of next-generation video game technologies," Graham explains. "We felt that the third dimension was the next logical direction for hypermedia-based research to go, as it allows users to see and intuitively interact with virtual representations of objects they wish to know more about."

To render the crosses in 3-D, high-tech laser scanners will be used to capture every detail of the historic artifacts. The digital scan files will then be converted from the 3-D x,y,z data into a highly efficient texture files – called normal maps – that will then be applied to the surface of the 3-D cross models.

The Visionary Cross research group is also completing an innovative system that will allow researchers to interface directly with external online databases while navigating within the 3-D game environment. Students and researchers examining the relics within the virtual game environment will be able to directly access specific online database information – and even add to that database – simply by clicking on the relevant location on the 3-D virtual object.

Not surprisingly, the project will need heavy-duty technological infrastructure. That's why Osborn, who is the director of the Southern Alberta Digital Library and an expert in data management, is examining the best ways to store the data involved to make its retrieval efficient.

"We're still working on proof-of-concept, so we don't have huge amounts of data yet, but when we go online and people start to add their own data, it could be terabytes of data that come into this," she explains.

To put this in perspective: 1 terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes (GB), and your personal computer probably has about between 1-5 GB of memory. In addition to the massive volume of information, the project will also involve many different kinds of data, which also presents a tremendous challenge, Osborn says.

The Visionary Cross Project is being funded by a two-year, $23,000 grant that Graham, O'Donnell and Osborn received from the U of L Community of Research Excellence Development Opportunities (CREDO) program. The researchers have also applied to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for funding for the next stages of the project.

While the Visionary Cross Project may seem like a radical diversion from most humanities research, O'Donnell explains that humanities researchers have relied on computers since the middle of the 20th century for things like statistical analysis and library cataloguing. But humanities researchers haven't just been the benefactors of technology – they've also created it.

"For example, an awful lot of what allows XML to work essentially comes out of work done in humanities computing," O'Donnell says.

Probing beneath the surface

trevor.kenney — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:10:28 +0000

While you cannot see individual waves of light, they collectively compose a spectrum that allows our eyes to perceive emerald hills and brilliant blue oceans.

Digital photography has opened up ways of capturing light and colour far beyond what the human eye detects, but traditional formatting methods (like JPG) have limited the information the camera preserves to keep files small, explains ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge alumnus Christopher Myhr (BFA '08).

This changed several years ago with the emergence of RAW: a format that captures unadulterated digital images in still photography. The result? Greater editing options and the ability to shoot images that were previously too difficult or expensive.

While professionals jumped on board, academia and the art community has been slow to explore RAW's full range of possibilities. Myhr has been working to fill this void. As an undergraduate student in the Department of Art, he systematically explored the tool's technical possibilities, largely by incorporating new techniques in his own works. His accomplishments earned him the J. Armand Bombadier CGS Masters Award.

This fall he'll start his master's degree at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where he hopes to examine RAW's impact on society and the art world.

"Essentially, digital technology is now ubiquitous – it's everywhere. I'm interested in looking at how tools like RAW are affecting people and the history of photography," he says.

Like Myhr, Craig Wheaton has focused his studies on an often overlooked subject: the creation of biodegradable plastic.

Wheaton, a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is working to develop catalysts – chemicals that trigger particular reactions – involved in the creation of polylactide polymer.

Derived from renewable resources like wheat and corn, the plastic is currently on the market (it can be found in certain kinds of food packaging), but there's a need to create cheaper, more efficient ways of producing it. A better chemical catalyst can make this happen, says Wheaton, who recently earned a doctoral scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

"I really believe in the development of plastics made from renewable resources - this is a sustainable way of developing materials. I'm really quite interested in environmental issues, and I would like to do a little bit to make a difference if I can."

Wheaton, who published six times as an undergraduate and master's student, chose doctoral studies at the U of L over larger institutions. "It has a good balance between the resources of a large school and the atmosphere and learning environment of a small school."

Ambra Gullacher has also aligned her academic career with a strong drive to make a difference. The undergraduate health sciences student is gearing up for a career in nursing and says recent research experience has changed her view of the profession.

Gullacher has been participating in an interdisciplinary, international research study of the impact of wildfires on rural communities. Led by nursing researcher Dr. Judith Kulig, the research team represents a wide range of disciplines and locations (Canada, the U.S. and Australia).

"What we're looking at, on a community collective scale, is what has t

he community's response to the fire been both immediately and in the aftermath?" says Gullacher. Gullacher has been working as an undergraduate project leader on a program examining two communities which experienced wildfires in the last decade: La Ronge, Sask., and Barriere, B.C. In 2003, Barriere was evacuated for a month when forest fires ripped through BC's interior. La Ronge was affected by forest fires in 1999, though the impact has been long-lasting. "Some people talk about it as if it happened yesterday," she says.

While the SSHRC-funded research is ongoing, some themes have already emerged.

"A lot of people have identified a sense of community as a factor in resiliency," she says. "When you live in a community that's smaller and is farther away from the city or other services, you're more dependent on each other. And because of that dependence, there's a bond there."

She's been amazed to discover that in some ways, the fires ben

efited the communities.

In Barriere, a mill where most of the community worked was slated to be shut down before the fire, and property values were expected to plummet.

When the fire destroyed the mill, it didn't re-open, but ex-employees received insurance and relief money from the loss of their homes, and were able to either relocate or rebuild.

"There's been a bit of a rejuvenation – a reclaiming of the community's sense of pride and spirit – whereas before there was a sense that things were going downhill."

Gullacher's work has earned her a Canadian Institutes for Health Research Health Professional Student Research Award and an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Summer Studentship Award. It's also taught her that health isn't just a matter of physical well-being; it's impacted greatly by how a community affects people emotionally and socially.

"Being able to see how a community works together, and how it acts as its own little organism gives me a better perspective."

UNews - digital photography

Building a real-time digital reliquary

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Probing beneath the surface

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