Haley Singleton and Timothy Pinault
Instructors: Hayley Singleton, head of collections and operations at the College's Beneski Museum of Natural History, and Tim Pinault, digitization coordinator at the Robert Frost Library.

Teaching Objective: Learn the basics of creating 3D digital models that can be experienced virtually, and techniques that have a wide range of uses, including those related to 3D printing, gaming, and the preservation of historical objects and sites.

Project Description: In the Interterm 2020 course Introduction to Photogrammetry,  students learned the basic workflows and methodologies to create 3D digital models of historical objects, such as the dinosaur track specimens on display at the Beneski Museum. Using DSLR cameras, the students took pictures of these objects from different angles, used Adobe Photoshop to process them, and then imported them into the Metashape Pro photogrammetric processing software, which can stitch together multiple photos to construct 3D objects. Students worked collaboratively on their projects.

The resulting 3D models can be experienced with a VR headset, or rotated with a mouse on a 2D computer screen.

Academic Technology Tools: DSLR cameras, Adobe Photoshop, and Agisoft Metashape Pro.

Tim Pinault demonstrating to students the steps in the photogrammetry process.
Tim Pinault kneels in front of a camera and explains to nearby students how to take photographs of adjacent fossil-laden stone slabs from different angles.
3D model of dinosaur tracks at the Beneski Museum (click to visit).
3D model of dinosaur tracks at the Beneski Museum

Here’s a video produced by the Office of Communications describing the course:

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Haley Singleton and Timothy Pinault
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