{"id":2617234,"date":"2025-01-30T10:29:24","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T15:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.gsd.harvard.edu\/specialcollections\/?page_id=2617234"},"modified":"2025-03-27T11:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T15:15:11","slug":"rebuilding-cluny-digital-experiments-with-medieval-architecture","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.gsd.harvard.edu\/specialcollections\/envisioning-cluny\/rebuilding-cluny-digital-experiments-with-medieval-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebuilding Cluny: Digital Experiments with Medieval Architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Rebuilding Cluny: Digital Experiments with Medieval Architecture<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Text by Matthew Cook, Digital Scholarship Programs Manager, Widener Library<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the 2022-23 academic year, Harvard Library partnered with Professor Christine Smith to digitize eight full-scale capital facsimiles (casts) representing originals that once encircled the church apse at the medieval monastery at Cluny. Harvard Library Imaging Services utilized the photogrammetric scanning method to produce the models as part of their new 3D scanning-on-demand service, developed to support remote teaching and learning during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photogrammetry itself was developed mid-19th century, for surveying, mapmaking, and military purposes. Contemporary processing techniques stitch multiple, overlapping photographs taken from systematic positions to generate detailed 3D models of objects, landscapes, and architectural features. Remarkably accessible compared to other 3D capture technologies, such as LiDAR or MicroCT scanning, photogrammetry has become a preferred tool for academic departments and cultural institutions on a budget and represent a cornerstone in the democratization of digital preservation and an essential link between the tangible past and the digital future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, requestors must be able to communicate how academically relevant features are spread across three spatial dimensions of their object before Harvard Library will undertake a scanning project. In the case of the Cluny Capitals, justification was clear: In addition to the inherent dimensionality of the individual capitals (each of which features detailed iconography on 4 faces and 4 angles); and surface material qualities that support evaluation across varying viewing distances, angles, and lighting conditions; the 3D scanning allows the 8 capital scans to be re-positioned relative to one another, virtually reproducing the Cluny apse at human scale. Such scientifically rigorous 3D scanning techniques have profound implications. These high-resolution, photorealistic representations of real-world objects allow students and scholars to engage with surrogates as they would with objects in the field; from novel perspectives, but with the added benefit of allowing physically impossible analyses and asynchronous, remote access. Further, immersive (i.e. XR) environments populated with these contents will allow scholars to view objects in context, alongside distributed networks of colleagues and students.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 104.
Photogrammetry technique via hot air balloon by O.B. Adams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 105.
The eight capital casts were staged for scanning in the Graduate School of Design during a period of one week in 2022.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 106.
Shooting Capital 6 for photogrammetric processing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 107.
Lights, diffusers, color references, and flexible imaging specialists all contribute to a successful 3D scan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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3d models of the capitals<\/p>

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