The challenges of using digital 3D tools and methodologies across different research disciplines
Stephen Gray, Technical Research Coordinator, University of Bristol
This presentation will focus on emerging standards and good practice in the creation, sharing and preservation of 3D content over the long term. Both born digital and digitised content will be discussed. More and more academic fields now use 3D, from the arts where motion capture is being used to teach choreography, medicine where Augmented Reality grants surgeons’ ‘x-ray vision,’ to engineering where a combination of laser-scanning and rapid prototyping now blurs the boundary between physical and virtual.
Such innovative applications pose real challenges for those responsible for ensuring research data are preserved for future generations and shared as widely as possible. This presentation looks at existing digital preservation advice, developed largely with non-3D content in mind, suggests where existing best practice can be applied and identifies some challenges unique to 3D where further work remains to be done.
Central to this presentation are an examination of file formats, open vs. proprietary standards, the challenge of minimising technological dependencies and metadata for 3D content.
Speaker Biography
Stephen Gray works with digital cultural heritage and research collections. After finishing an MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art he went on to complete a Preventive Conservation MA with Northumbria University, where his focus was on preserving digital media collections. He then achieved an MSc in Library Science at the University of Aberystwyth.
His previous work includes: audiovisual and digital art handler, Tate Liverpool, technical lead for digitising the National Review of Live Arts video archive, multimedia archiving consultant for the JISC Images for Education project and working with the both Oxford and Cambridge libraries to extend existing best practice to multimedia content. His emphasis is on cataloging, standards, interoperability, digital preservation and new ways to deliver digital content. Stephen works with museums, archives, libraries and HE institutions and has just finished a project to create a ‘Digital Heritage Policy’ for the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) Stephen is currently assisting JISC Digital Media as the service expands to support the use of 3D technologies within the HE sector.
