Visualising the past

By on 1 December, 2006 in 3D, Archaeology, Ramblings

One of the 3D animations I’ve been working on at Wessex Archaeology is now available online with an introduction to the project. It’s been along time in the making, and like any archaeological reconstruction/visualisation, it’ll never be perfect.

So click the movie above (hosted on the rather excellent blip.tv) and delve back in time 8000 years ago into a Mesolithic landscape that’s now 8 miles off the southern coast of the UK, and up to 30 metres under the sea.

Link: Visualising the past in 3D: The River Arun (Wessex Archaeology)

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5 Responses to Visualising the past

  1. Kelvin Wilson 17 December, 2006 at 8:10 pm #

    I saw a preview over a year ago, at a conference in Amsterdam I helped organise, and then- already- knew this was the one, well, ‘step forward’ to watch out for…
    It is not mean feat, I can tell, how you have made this, Tom- and no mean feat, I’ll tell you, to have impressed mé so much.

    Very, very good indeed :-)

    Best wishes– Kelvin Wilson, archaeological reconstruction artist working in the Netherlands

    Reply
  2. Tom 17 December, 2006 at 9:49 pm #

    Thankyou Kelvin! It’s an accolade indeed coming from a reconstruction artist of your caliber :-)

    If you would like to know any precise details, please do email me.

    Cheers,

    Tom

    Reply
  3. Henrik 5 January, 2007 at 10:53 am #

    Hi Tom
    Lot’s of nice ‘hidden’ details there, the fowl, berries; a furry pig and most notably the different kinds of plants. It is nice for once to see that someone has actually taken the pain to get the trees and plants right. Bet it’s been a lot of hours modelling the woods, eh? I like the way the commentary makes the thing come alive and I very much enjoyed the film!

    Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Arun Visualisation image featured by E-On Software at Past Thinking - 8 January, 2007

    [...] One of the stills I produced as part of the Arun Visualisation has been used by E-On Software to showcase their excellent EcoSystems Generation II instancing feature. Vue was used extensively for the animation, as well as 3ds Max, AutoCAD, XFrog, and numerous GIS and imaging packages. [...]
  2. Computing, GIS and Archaeology in the UK » CAA UK 2007 Day Two - 26 January, 2007

    [...] Briefly, we also had talks on a 3D online catalogue of medieval timber building joints, and creating realistic 3D representations of past environments, including realistic lighting and particulates in the air (both vital to getting a proper impression of life inside a dark smoky hovel). Tom Goskar has been busy recreating the now submerged prehistoric landscape, complete with accurate representations of trees and animals, and another paper discussed whether we should include some measure of uncertainty in our reconstructions so that it is clear what is known and what is conjecture. [...]

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