DIGITAL BUILDING HERITAGE GROUP Recreating the past to preserve our future
CONTENTS Imagine the possibilities 3-4 A passion for the past 5-6 Helping to tell your stories 7-8 Case studies 9-12 Study with us 13-14 1 2
IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES If you could take a walk down a Roman street, what would you see? What would it feel like to ride on an Edwardian tram? High fidelity 3D urban modelling for conservation and regeneration Thanks to the Digital Building Heritage Group s amazing digital techniques, museum visitors can experience these moments in time. Just imagine what they could do for you. This expert team is made up of staff and research students from De Montfort University, Leicester. They use the latest techniques including digital visualisations and augmented reality to bring a new way of understanding history. Jewry Wall Roman Baths, Leicester The team has an impressive track record of working effectively with community heritage groups, museums, local authorities, charities and businesses to help these organisations achieve their aims, whether it be reaching new audiences, developing funding proposals or providing technical expertise. The group s expertise in digital technologies combined with scholarship in architectural history and heritage gives them a unique insight into the past. They can analyse, understand and interpret historic buildings and the artefacts associated with them and help bring the past to life. The Vine Street Roman Villa Leicester s Edwardian Tram Depot 3 4
A PASSION FOR THE PAST The Digital Building Heritage Group carries out world-leading, academically rigorous research which brings a fresh understanding of history. Driven by a shared passion for the past, our experts are able to use digital technologies alongside traditional archival work to research, interpret and present heritage in a new way. The team uses sources as diverse as oral archive recordings, historical records and even paintings and surviving photographic fragments as part of the process of researching and investigating each project. Using this archival research, the team can then develop heritage visualisation and interpretation projects. Techniques such as 3D digital modelling, laser scanning of historic artefacts, 3D printing and virtual reality can then be used to help realise the project. The breadth of techniques used can be seen in a project being carried out with the Diseworth Heritage Trust. The trust approached the Digital Building Heritage Group to help to tell the story of their village church, St Michael and All Angels, over the past 1,000 years. The church has been laser scanned to give a detailed architectural survey of the building fabric and help create a 3D model. Photographs have been taken of material surfaces such as walls and floors, as well as specific architectural features, which are used to produce digital textures which can be applied to the digital models, giving them a more realistic appearance. It is particularly important in work such as this, when the changing stonework in the church mirrors the developmental sequence of the building. Capturing the detail of historic buildings and sturctures The data collected from the scanning, photographs and historical records will then be used to build the 3D digital models. The team has been asked to create different models of the church from its earliest Saxon form to its modern-day appearance. It will help explain the history of the church in a book being published by the trust. Whether it is to accompany a book, an exhibition, to aid understanding of an area s heritage or to add another dimension to a museum collection, the work of the Digital Building Heritage Group can bring heritage to life. 5 High resolution scan of Diseworth Parish Church State-of-the-art laser scanning technology 6
HELPING TO TELL YOUR STORIES History is a vital part of who we are and there is no more tangible and immediate aspect of this than the buildings which make up the fabric of a city, town, or village. Giving these buildings and the objects in them a voice to tell their complex and subtle stories is as important a challenge as interpreting and explaining works of literature or art. The Digital Building Heritage Group can help your organization achieve its aims and ambitions using digital technologies to measure, visualize, interpret and communicate your heritage projects, tailored to the audiences who matter to you. Working closely with the Heritage Lottery Fund, other charitable bodies and government agencies, we can help your community heritage group, museum or business to tell your story in a completely new way. The kinds of technologies and expertise we offer include: Detailed surveying and recording of historic buildings and structures in the field. High quality 3D digital modelling. 3D laser scanning of parts of buildings, monuments and historic artifacts. 3D printing of physical models for exhibition and interpretation. Design and fabrication of static and interactive visitor displays. Web design and on-line informatics including mobile enabled websites. Archival research and investigation. Expert witness and report writing. Academic publication of research. Using our technologies and expertise we can assist you to: Engage a wider public and target specific user groups. Increase footfall to your sites and facilities. Optimize visitor engagement before, during and after visits. Increase or optimize applications in membership based organisations. Assist with Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) applications and applications to a range of other government, academic and charitable funding bodies. Unlock and effectively utilize and share dispersed, historical and archived data. Forge collaborative partnerships and Computer animation and real time generate project concepts. Virtual Reality (VR) simulation of 7 3D digital reconstruction of a tudor bay window at Tixall Hall, Staffordshire 8 historic buildings.
CASE STUDIES Greyfriars Priory Roman Leicester The discovery of the body of Richard III in Leicester earlier this year made headlines around the world. DMU s Digital Building Heritage Group is helping to support new research to understand the city s history and tell the story of the final days of the last Plantagenet king. The way in which the work of The DBHG can revolutionise the museum experience is demonstrated by its Virtual Romans project. The team was called in by Leicester City Council Arts and Museums Service to develop an ipad app to help visitors understand the city s Jewry Wall Museum. PhD student Asem Al Bunni has produced a design of what Greyfriars Church, where Richard III was buried, may have looked like more than 500 years after it was destroyed during the Reformation. Using a variety of sources, including studying historian John Ashdown-Hill s book, Last Days of Richard III, plus examples of the remains of other Franciscan priories such as Lichfield, he was able to digitally re-construct the nave, choir and steeple. Critical discussion and further research work is now being carried out on what other parts of the friary may have looked like such as the great cloister, guest house, chapter house and dormitories. Dr Douglas Cawthorne of the DBHG, believes this is an important step in helping to tell the Greyfriars story. In this respect one of the initial things that strikes you about the building is its size. This was not a small church. It would have towered over the contemporary medieval buildings in the area in a way which is perhaps underappreciated and would also dominate those adjacent to it today. It s a fascinating architectural piece in the historical mosaic of an important part of English history. Dr Douglas Cawthorne The museum grounds contain the Jewry Wall, part of the Roman town s public baths and thought to be one of the tallest surviving pieces of Roman masonry in the country. The DBH team has helped bring back to life what Roman Leicester would have looked like, from its temples and marketplaces to its streets and bath-houses. They have also been able to produce 3D images of artefacts from archaeological finds which are on display in the museum. The ipad app not only features text, photographs and maps, it has an augmented reality function. Hold up the ipad and you will see as if through a window in time a 3D virtually-reconstructed Roman city. It breaks new ground in architectural and archaeological visualization of artefacts and buildings. These buildings will appear super-imposed on the real scene and are so realistic they even come with a warning to viewers against tripping or falling. You can also zoom in and explore virtual Roman artefacts as you read about them. It will be fantastic for our visitors to have access to this app, as it is very hard to imagine these things. Even when you are walking round the Jewry Wall site it is difficult to know how it would have looked and worked. The Digital Building Heritage project will really bring these places to life. Leicester City Museums 9 10
CASE STUDIES Swannington Incline In 1833, the Swannington Incline opened in west Leicestershire, a mile-long cable operated railway which transferred coal from a pithead up a hill on its journey to fuel the homes and industries of Leicester. Now, nearly 200 years later, the Digital Building Heritage Group is helping to create a digital reconstruction of the buildings and engineering structures which made up the include. It has been called in by the Swannington Heritage Trust, which has a wealth of unique photographs, drawings and documents which it has passed on to the group to help in its work. The Trust is especially interested in re-creating the Engine House, which sat at the top of the hill and provided the power used to haul wagons packed with coal up the 1 in 17 gradient slope. Its large single-cylinder steam winding engine designed by Robert Stephenson is now in the National Railway Museum in York and all the remains at the Swannington site are the foundations. As there is so little to see at the site, it is only by working closely with the Swannington Heritage Trust that the Digital Building Heritage Group was able to digitally visualise how the machinery and buildings operated Very little of these structures remain which makes the project ideal for digital reconstruction and animation and will allow the trust to communicate the importance of this site to a very much wider audience Dr Douglas Cawthorne Taking a tram ride through history It is not just static buildings which can be recreated using the technology at the disposal of the Digital Building Heritage Group. The DBHG has been commissioned by the Leicester Transport Heritage Trust to provide digital content as part of a project to open a new transport museum in Leicester. It will be based in a restored Tram Depot, which was built in 1905, and will house a collection of historic public transport vehicles. The DBHG is not only producing a 3D visualization of what the building would have looked like in its heyday, but has made a video which aims to give viewers some idea of what it was like to ride on the upper deck of an Edwardian open-topped tram. These technically-demanding projects will not only help the Trust to promote its redevelopment plans and support its efforts to open the museum, but they will help add value to the visitor experience. 11 The group hopes to re-create not only the Engine House, but the rails, bridges and switches which make up this very early piece of steam railway heritage in the East Midlands. 12
STUDY WITH US De Montfort University offers a range of study programmes at postgraduate level (MA, MSc, PhD) where there is the opportunity to work with acknowledged experts in the Digital Building Heritage Group on their projects. 3D printing By working with us, you can be part of collaborative work with leading national and international organisations and will learn how to use the latest advanced digital heritage technologies. Studying with us provides the opportunity to work with a broad range of historians, heritage professionals and visualisation technologists in the Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities. Research and study subjects are wide ranging. As well as scholarly research in aspects of architectural history, the Digital Building Heritage Group has a large number of innovative heritage visualisation and interpretation projects which involve historic building survey and 3D digital modelling, laser scanning of historic artefacts, 3D printing of large scale architectural models for museums and exhibitions, digital museum and exhibition display design and video and Virtual Reality (VR) heritage applications using games engines. The physical facilities available are state-ofthe-art and include a digital heritage computer suite, a 3D printing lab and motion-capture and green-screen video and editing suites and a fine library with an excellent architectural history collection. 13 14
Digital Building Heritage Group Faculty of Art, Design & Humanities De Montfort University The Gateway Leicester, UK LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) 116 257 7442 E: DCawthorne@dmu.ac.uk W: dmu.ac.uk/dbh