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Ashes2Art: Modeling the Past in 3D
2/13/2008
An art history project focusing on the ancient Greek site of Delphi has students themselves using three-dimensional modeling software to create exact renderings of ancient structures. The project is part of a collaboration between two universities called Ashes2Art, in which students use computer modeling software to recreate and study ancient ruins.Using a range of software including Google's SketchUp Pro, which is free to academics, undergraduate art students in Alyson Gill's art history class at Arkansas State University are creating computerized 3D models themselves of the famed Greek sanctuary at Delphi. While it's become more and more common to have professionals create virtual models of ancient sites, Gill said she thinks that having students do the modeling themselves is a rarity.
The Ashes2Art project first was developed at Coastal Carolina University and originally studied Renaissance period architecture in Florence, Italy. The project has since grown to include Arkansas State University and the Digital Delphi project.
Building the Past with Technology
The innovative Ashes2Art project combines art history, archaeology, 3D animation, and digital photography to allow art students to re-create exact renderings of ancient monuments online. Research by faculty and students includes site visits to shoot high-resolution digital panorama-view photos, and extensively research to ensure the end products are accurate. The idea, Gill said, is that "you can learn a lot more by building a building, than by sitting passively in a classroom and having digital images flash in front of you."
The stable of tools used to create the 3D models includes Easypano's Panoweaver, and Tourweaver; Autodesk 3DS Max; Adobe Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Director; Google Earth and SketchUp; Maxon Cinema 4D; RealViz Stitcher; and Nemetschek VectorWorks.
Perhaps the most popular tool of all, Gill said, is Google Sketchup Pro. That's because the program has proved to be easy to use--some of the other modeling programs have steep learning curves--and can be put on students' home computers as well as school. Another value to SketchUp, Gill explained, is that models can be created in that program then exported to others for finishing or for other uses.
Funding the Project
The project received fresh funding in 2007 when Gill and an Ashes2Art colleague at Coastal Carolina University, Arne Flaten, who launched the program in 2005 with a colleague at Coastal Carolina, received a Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant from the
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