Digitising artefacts for heritage and cultural organisations

This one-day workshop focusses on the process of digitising the form of a physical object, the technologies that can be used, and the process needed to clean the data and create a usable digital model for Museums, Heritage Organisations and other collections.

Course Description

Museums, Galleries, heritage organisations and other collections that contain physical objects are in a process of considering how digital object scanning can aid the discoverability and accessibility of their collections, as well as a playing a key role in preservation. This one-day workshop considers the process of capturing the form of a physical object, the technologies that can be used, and the process needed to clean the data and create a usable digital model.  This course is suitable for Curators, Museum and Gallery Specialists, Archaeologists, Students and anyone else with an interest in capturing physical objects in a digital format.

The day will consider different types of technologies, including photogrammetry, laser scanning, and low-cost scanning using mobile phones. We'll discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each form of technology to help you reach an informed decision about what could work best for your collections.

During this course you will develop an overall understanding of the current software and hardware, best practices and techniques, data formats and the end to end process around object capture. You will also learn how to prepare your digital object for use in multiple scenarios such as VR or XR applications, the web, and screen-based content.   The Course will draw on the expertise of CCI-XR studios and encompass photogrammetry, LIDAR scanning, and low-cost mobile phone-based approaches.

 Learning outcomes:
- Understand the core principles of object scanning, and the process and decisions involved.
- Be able to appropriately identify and discriminate between different scanning techniques and tools, in the context of specific usage scenarios.
- Identify opportunities for scanning within your organisation as well as the routes to success.