Author: A Blog About Nothing

I have been working with the 3D objects that we are tasked to work for the James Monroe museum. I have had my ups and downs with it and for those who are wondering whats those are this blog post will explain the issues that I have had with it.

First I would like to talk about the hardware that I was using. When I first saw what tools we had to use in order to scan the objects with I was excited, until I saw how they actually scanned that is. We had the option to pick  between a large platformed scanner, a small platformed scanner and a ipad scanner. The small platformed scanner would be unusable because of it didn’t scan in color and only could scan small objects. The big platform scanner had a bugs that needed to be fixed like, the drivers that would make the software that was need on the computer weren’t working so we weren’t able to use that scanner. So the last option we had was the ipad scanner which did indeed scan and capture the colors of the object.

Since the Ipad scanner was the one we ended up using I had to figure out how to use and figure out any flaws that it might have when scanning an object. I didn’t encounter many problems, but one the main problems had to be the amount of space we had. We needed space to move around the object so that the scanner could render a better scanning of it. The other problem that I had was trying to scan outside. The sun would mess up the camera’s ability to capture certain colors and also made it hard to render the 3D image. With this I could conclude that too much lighting is bad for capturing an object. The last problem that I encountered was capturing a thin object or the musket that I was suppose to scan. The scanner had a little trouble rendering the small details and certain parts of the musket, but in the end I at least captured the shape of the weapon and also the primary color of the object.

Overall I think that 3D printing still has a long way in advancing. The one I used is very good and it captures medium to large items with good color and decent detailing. The technology right now is pretty good and I’m sure if want a better rendered image there is technology out there, but its probably expensive to obtain.

Here an example of the 3D I scanned for the James Monroe Mueseum page that I have been working on with my team:

NC
by James Monroe 3D
on Sketchfab

 

For that past couple weeks the James Monroe Museum group has been working diligently to get our project done as efficiently and quick as possible. One of the obstacle that really stood in our was the learning curve that the technologies that we were using presented to us. When we were told that we could use three different 3D scanners and in the end we found out that only one would work the way that we wanted it to. One of the scanners 3D printed the object but didn’t include the colors of the object, while the other scanner wouldn’t work for us because the plugins that we needed weren’t working. In the end the IPad 3D scanner was the one that would best do the work that we wanted it to do. This learning curve caused the group to fall behind for the scanning stage, but ones that issue was resolved, we were able to swiftly catch up and continue on our planned schedule.

After completing our team contracts, Which had our mission statement and listed all the tools and artifacts that we would be scanning. The contract also included a tentative schedule that we would begin to follow a soon as we finished writing our final draft of the contract. In that schedule we list the weeks prior to writing the contracted and listed what we did. This being said we decided to write out the rest of our schedule, by including what days we would scan items and also say which days we would edit and finish the artifact videos we decided to create. Following this schedule, that same week we met with George Meadows who is in charge of the 3D scanners that we will be using and decided to start getting a handle of how the scanners work,

One of the biggest things that we found to be helpful while navigating through the sites given were the visual appeal and the easy navigation. Font sizes and colors played a big part in being able to understand the content. If we couldn’t read we would skip it. The layout was also important and how spread out the content was on the page for making it easier to use. Some sites would direct us into other pages, while others would be tedious and open several tabs. We also liked how some websites made it so that you could search the content in a historic document, while also being able to see the original documents. Clickable images that linked to the content were also helpful in the navigation. Finally the images and graphics need to have enough information and context to be understandable, but succinct enough for people to read it.