Graphics and Archaeology: Interpreting the Past

Snowbird, Utah
20-23 May 2000

 

Panel:

Computer Graphics and Archaeology - Issues of Funding

Presenters:

  • Lon Addison
  • David Arnold
  • Ruth Tringham

Summary:

  • Lon Addison
    • Where does funding come from?
      • global bodies - UNESCO WHC (Paris), ICOMOS/ICROM,...
      • trusts/non-profits - WMF, Mellon, Gulbekian, ARCH, PBS/BBC,...
      • museums - Getty, Guggenheim, AAM, AMICO,...
      • government bodies - NSF, NEA, EUDG,..., National Park Service HABS, WorldBank
      • associations - SIGGRAPH, EG, VSMM, VirtualHeritage.net
      • corporations - (TV, Tech, Web, Entertainment,...)
      • universities/educational bodies
    • Potential discussion issues
      • limited funds
      • high-profile projects get majority of funding
      • lack of cooperation = waste on overlap
      • poor quality / issues of interpretation in early work scared off some
      • lack of technical understanding limits and budgetary appreciation
      • corporate misunderstanding of ad [advertising] versus project support
      • quality versus distribution [trading off historical accuracy versus broad availability]
        • Lon shows an example of a low-res Notre Dame on commercial-grade games accelerator/environment
  • Ruth Tringham
    • What is the role of the archaeologist in these collaborations
      • how does an archaeologist participate in the building of these types of products?
      • who are we building it for?
      • why are we building it?
      • what is the type of distribution?
      • spectrum - high-cost projects all the way down to low-cost projects
      • do I become a content provider only?
      • will technologists do the rest?
    • I'm interested in the democratization of low-end technology
  • David Arnold
    • Collaboration with the archaeologists
      • today - there's a danger where simplicity of the technology may be difficult to merge with the needs of archaeologists

Discussion

  • How can we achieve the consortium necessary for all of this?
    • Sharing of project technologies and best practices will help achieve more rapidly prototyped platforms/presentations.
    • WorldHeritage sites - possible to do low cost surveys, but the prep work to even get under way was huge - coordination, permissions, managing volunteers, etc. - a big challenge was for professionals to understand I could only pay their expenses, not their time
  • Myanmar, Baga (old Burma) - 40,000 structures (2,000 left on this plain)
    • technology could help save these, but the Internet is banned there - what do we do?
  • Archaeologists are used to low-budgets
    • funding is a double-edged sword because high-tech becomes the focus of scientists to producing attractive results rather than answering the base questions - money can draw attention away from the work
    • linking proper use of funds with assistance of other economic problems in a locality can help influence the overall project
    • establishing rules of how it needs to be applied
  • Are there better, low-end packages that we can take into the field with us?
    • perhaps, but you need to understand what type of data you want to collect

Conclusions / Issues:

  • There is a delicate balance - often times commercial perspectives on a project will turn off interest by the research side
  • Often times there are multiple models of the same site created - they duplicate efforts and there is no sharing
  • Technical understanding can be a barrier to understanding and ultimately funding.
  • Need to be sensitive to "technology imperialism" - countries from outside a nation are coming, doing the work, and then not sharing the work back with the host country. [It was noted that this is not new from "trowel and pencil" days, but it is an important matter - Peru now requires reports to be filed]
    • researchers are interested in pushing the limits of technology, not necessarily the issues of recording history
    • archaeologists should consider the approach of physicists - to produce a unified front to achieve their funding needs
  • We need broader representation at forums like this one
  • We've done coordinated training workshops for people to attempt to document a site with low-end digital tools (laptops, digital cameras, etc.) - allowing locals to participate in these heritage projects
    • still, there needs to be more collaboration of expertise in these projects to properly share the work - otherwise, you end up having to be expert in modeling, animation, managing, etc. that distracts from your focus
    • you need to understand how and why you are using technology onsite

 

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