Hands-on Experience at the Hunt Museum Heritage Week 2018

3D model of Torc part of the Limerick 3D Project, a hands-on experience at the Hunt Museum Heritage Week 2018

Hands-on Experience at the Hunt Museum Heritage Week 2018

Get your hands working for heritage. Learn 3D Digitising with the Hunt Museum Collection

“Sometimes the eye doesn’t see an object’s detail but working with it digitally on a computer screen reveals so much”
Volunteer at Training Session for Limerick 3D Project

advertisement

advertisement

advertisement

Hunt Museum Heritage Week 2018. Jennifer Burgess and her granddaughter Ciara Foley, with Sarah Foley, Hunt Museum Friends Council.

When you look at a Grecian urn or a Bronze Age statue you would like to know what it feels like, does it have anything on the back or underneath, or inside? For instance, the Hunt Museum’s Gold Pomander/Momento Mori opens up on a hinge to show tiny compartments for spices and herbs, but most people only get to see one facet of it and from behind a glass case. 3D digitisation allows everyone to virtually get inside the object.

Thanks to one of the Heritage Council, European Year of Cultural Heritage grants and support from Limerick City and County Council, the Hunt Museum is undertaking the Limerick 3D Project together with Digital Heritage Age.

Gary Dempsey, from Digital Heritage Age, who leads training said: “the idea that we can make the amazing Hunt Museum objects accessible as 3D online is very exciting”

The project gives an intensive programme of training in photogrammetry. A number of full-day sessions have been held to train the trainers. This approach will multiply the numbers of people able to learn this form of 3D digitisation. Photogrammetry is a process that uses photography to record objects and special software to process them and generate the 3D models. Several 3D models of Hunt Museum collection objects have already been generated and can be explored on the ‘Limerick 3D project’ Sketchfab page.

As well as delivering digital versions of the objects in the Hunt Museum, which will go online via Sketchfab.com, the project is cross-generational and trains local people in digital skills.

For Heritage Week 2018, visitors to the museum can have a very hands-on experience or just look at the results so far. Hands-on means learning how to use the technology involved and even handle some of the original objects that are being digitised. A very rare opportunity to touch and share history.

 Dr Ros O Maolduin of the Irish Prehistoric Field School will also be giving a talk on the use of 3D modelling in archaeology to record landscapes, sites, and finds. He will present 3D models of ancient burial sites he has recently excavated in the Burren including the wedge tombs and barrows at Fanore.

Heritage Week @Hunt Museum. All events are free. ‘Limerick 3D project’ Hands-on – using digitising technology and handling objects will take place on Thursday 23rd and Saturday 25th August from 11 am to 1 pm. Dr Ros O Maoldúin’s illustrated talk will take place on Thursday 23rd August, 7 pm to 8 pm. For further information please contact Maria Cagney, Curator of Education and Outreach on 061 312833 or [email protected].

For more stories on Heritage Week go here.

For more information on the Hunt Museum events go here.