E-Curator
3D colour scans
for remote object identification
and assessment
Sally MacDonald
Yean-Hoon Ong
Mona Hess
Francesca Millar
Dr Ian Brown
Dr Graeme Were
Dr Stuart Robson
UCL Context
• 3 Museums open to the
public, 10 departmental
collections
• Half a million objects and
specimens
• First Arius3D Foundation
Scanner in Europe
providing state of the art
colour artefact scanning
• Interdisciplinary expertise
Research issues
• Need for curators,
conservators etc to have
physical access to objects
for
• object identification/
comparison
• condition monitoring,
within institutions and for
touring exhibitions
• Limitations of the
catalogue entry and the
conservation report
Project Aims
• Develop a traceable methodology for recording surface
detail and colour quality of range of object types and
materials
• Explore potential for producing validated datasets to allow
closer and more scientific examination of groups of
objects, their manufacture and issues of wear and
deterioration
• Examine how resulting datasets could be transmitted,
shared and compared
• Begin to build expertise in use and transmission of 3D
scan data as a curatorial tool
3D Colour Laser Scanning
• 6 pilot object from UCL Museums and Collections to form
the core study
• Scanning with the Arius 3D Foundation Model 150 colour
scanner, accuracy 0.25mm, point spacing 100 x 100
microns, geometric and colour information (XYZ RGB)
Red,
Green and
Blue
Lasers
CCD
Base
Object
Mirror
Lens
3D Colour Laser Scanning
Scan results of the Petrie Quartzite UC55606.
Minute surface features become visible through the
3D scan.
Dissemination – Formative Workshops,
International Conferences, E-curator Website
• Workshops for Curators and Conservators: Opportunity for
Museum specialists to be involved in the project and
produce a detailed specification for the user interface and
review criteria
E-Curator Application (Technology)
• Web-based application
• Server side:
– Storage Resource Broker
(SRB), Java Server Pages
(JSP), servlets, Jargon
• Client side:
– Javascript, AJAX
E-Curator Application (Prototype)
E-Curator Application (Interface)
• Embed 3D scan images
within web pages
• 3DImagePlayer: an ActiveX
control from Arius3D
• Tools are available for users
to tumble, pan, zoom and
rotate the 3D images and to
alter lighting conditions and
colour display
E-Curator Application (Interface)
• Metadata provides
information about artefact
• The GUI facilitates
viewing, comparing and
analysing museums
artefacts
AHRC Studentship: PhD
Anthropology Department
The networked technology of the digital image
• Ethnographic research will explore the production,
visualisation, circulation and consumption of the
image within the framing of the museum
• Different stakeholders mediate the image;
technician, conservator, curator, source
community and museum public
• Transforming museum practice and the museum
space
Issues of concern for the museum framing
• The digital image reforms ideas on aura, authority,
authorship and reality
• In praxis it mediates different sensuous
engagements, material knowledge and
attachments
• Brings into context issues on the rights to the
image, copyright, repatriation and management of
knowledge
Field sites for research
• Extended multi sited ethnographic fieldwork in
London at UCL museums and collections and in
Oxford at the Pitt Rivers museum and Ashmolean.
Further research in Toronto at the Royal Ontario
museum and Arius 3D