MSc Heritage Visualisation School of Innovation & Technology
Catherine Bellamy
My final research explores the interactions between digital and physical mediums to create engaging and dynamic educational tools. My interest in the conservation of built heritage, as well as traditional craft and skill loss, led me to identify possible ways to bridge this lost knowledge to a more modern context. I am hugely invested in the possibilities digitisation has for physical heritage as well as more intangible aspects of our cultures, such as traditional craft – sustaining and using these skills is key to their continuation. This project explores an innovative approach to educating audiences on how to best care for and conserve historical sites, notably Scottish vernacular buildings.
Using specialist technological capture throughout the masters degree saw me utilise photogrammetry to create a complete digital replica of The Old Dubheads Smithy, a vernacular building in Strathearn, used as a blacksmith and cartwright’s workshop. Alongside this, data from these scans were used to produce 3D printed objects that link to digital content – creating a memorable educational experience that focuses on the historic construction techniques, as well as the present need for correct repair and conservation.
Works
Collaborative Works
The Physical Toolkit Objects
Masters Research Project Summary
This video helps to summarise my masters dissertation research, exploring the data acquisition processes to the creation of physical and digital assets – working in collaboration to create an engaging, hybrid educational toolkit. Aiming to help Scottish vernacular built heritage conservation, and the transmission of traditional craft and skill knowledge.
The Old Dubheads Smithy: Using photogrammetric capture for the creation of hybrid digital-physical tools to aid Scottish vernacular knowledge and skill transfer.
Scotland’s vernacular buildings use site-specific and localised materials in their construction and a decline in the transmission of traditional craft knowledge has put these sites at risk. This research explores new pedagogical approaches and the creation of hybrid educational tools to inform a new generation of vernacular custodians and craftspeople in Scotland. Photogrammetric capture of The Old Dubheads Smithy has led to the development of hybrid tool kits through the creation of 3D printed (3DP) objects and their interactive digital counterparts. The data capture methodologies and workflows developed as a part of this research are outlined, so they may be replicated or built upon, the work is a foundation of creating educational resources to aid vernacular conservation knowledge and principles. Final outcomes include the creation of fourteen physical objects, created from photogrammetric capture data and 3D modelling – each object has a digital resource that includes textured representations of the 3DP objects or interactive media. Digital content includes informative annotations, guidelines, animations and explores the narrative of The Old Dubheads Smithy and the conservation and repair work needed. This work begins to investigate the relevance of blended and engaging learning methodologies to encourage and increase the skilled labour force in Scotland, to ensure vernacular sites receive meaningful and appropriate conservation and care.
The Industrial Heritage of Govan
This group project focused on exploring the pre and post-Industrial periods of Govan, Glasgow. As a team we explored and poured over countless historical accounts and archival resources and discovered the importance of trades and crafts to the people of the 17th and 18th centuries. Using multiple digital capture methods, including photogrammetry and terrestrial LiDAR – we created a rich collection of digitised assets, to create an interpretative and dynamic video.
Reconstructing Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
This extensive project involved the 3D modelling of Kelvingrove’s rear museum entrance. Using 3ds Max, I modelled the structure from scratch, using my own reference images collected from site visits and archival plan and elevations found online. In addition the 3D modelling the entrance, the textures used on my model were created by myself using photography and edited to fit the digital components of the structure. This was a challenging but very rewarding project, and has led me to want to continue creating 3D digital replications of built heritage.
Interactive Audio – Kitchen Synth
Sound produced by the Kitchen Synth can be quite loud and repetitive in the video demonstration - listen with volume caution.
My chosen elective module, Interactive Audio, taught me how to use Max MSP to create interactive sound-based applications. Learning new coding language, and exploring how to make interactive music pieces and sampling my own sounds – this was a brilliant experience that allowed me to experiment and have a lot of fun!
This synth was created using sampled sounds found in my kitchen and day-to-day life of cooking and making food, finding the most obscure sounds I could. These were then put into Max MSP and manipulated using a variety of techniques, including time and pitch distortion as well as experimenting with repetition and distortion. Individual sounds could be layered with each other to create a unique and personalised soundscape, dependent on the user’s preference to make the music they liked.
Kitchen Synth Performance
This video demonstrates the differences in how the sampled sounds can be manipulated and layered. The UI was made in Max MSP too, alongside the code that allows users to manipulate the sound files. Bonus footage of a friend playing their guitar alongside a more ambient synth.
Interactive Game Group Project – Castle Clicker
As a group, we created an interactive, educational game using Unity and 3ds Max, in this game users can interact with objects in the scene – animating the objects, producing sounds as well as revealing facts. This was a really fun brief that was an introduction to using Unity and C# coding language – as well as strengthening 3D modelling skills to create our own scenes and assets to be imported into Unity. The game includes vibrant scenes with multiple levels of interactions to keep young audiences engaged.
Interactive Diorama
Producing an interactive diorama using Unity, C# and 3D modelling assets in 3ds Max – this was my first introduction to using Unity to code interactions and make user interfaces. The scene contains many playful elements, changing lights, a bubbling cauldron, a waving flag and other interactive elements. This brief was a fun introduction to coding and creating applications that audiences can interact with.
Visualising Pre-Industrial Trade in Govan
This was a group project done in Semester 2 by Catherine Bellamy, Lu Hong, Lynsey Mcdougall and Angus Pattison.
Focused on Govan Old Parish Church, the video explores how the landscape has changed over time and its connections to the surrounding areas through local trade. We utilised a range of technologies and visualisation methods such as laser scanning and photogrammetry to showcase Govan Old Parish Church, a range of it’s pre-industrial gravestones and nearby Water Row.
Industrial Trade in Govan
Govan Old Churchyard is a historical site with abundant history. We hope to connect Govan Old Churchyard with Water Row and the River Clyde and create an exceptional Govan that is rooted in its historic and riverside context. Furthermore, to create a positive relationship with its people and attract more visitors. Govan’s archaeological and built heritage has huge potential to contribute to improving the popular image of Govan and to enhancing local pride.
The historic, economic and physical relationship with the river has defined Govan throughout the centuries and with it Water Row, which since ancient times has been a fording point of the River Clyde. We were intrigued about the Water Row bridge development, also the fact that Water Row used to be a natural crossing point in low tide. This got us thinking about how people travelled across the Clyde for work and how that would have changed when the Clyde was dredged.
To show the changes near Govan Church and Water Row from the 18th century to the 21st century, we use two-dimensional and three-dimensional presentation methods. Maps are displayed on a flat surface as an image resource. We hope to achieve the effect of superimposing changes on multiple maps so that the development of the same area can be seen.
We were interested in the Gravestones in the churchyard as they had different symbols carved into them such as shovels, crowns, hammers etc. We researched and found out more information about grave symbolism. Later, we took a laser scan of Water Row and the churchyard to get a detailed map of where everything was. Then we carried out some photogrammetry of the graves and mapped out where they were in relation to the point cloud. We used the model generated by photogrammetry to illustrate the relationship between grave symbolism and trade history of Govan.
