ChronoPoints Entry on Piney Croft

This blog post is a mix of previous information I presented earlier in my blog. The following blog is what I delivered to be a part of the ChronoPoints website as the Piney Croft Entry.

 Architect and Design

Clifford William Wright is the architect who built the A-framed home at Piney Croft, Maitland. Wright was born in the hamlet of Oceanside in Nassau County, Long Island, New York on April 15, 1933, yet spent most of his childhood in the Winter Park/Maitland area. He received his Bachelor of Architecture in 1955, received his architect's license, then moved across the street from the Meyer family. After getting to know the Meyer family and being inspired by Mrs. Meyer's artistic ideas, he designed a house for them to be completed by the end of 1959.

Orlando Sentinel, 4 October 1959, Sunday, page 155.

        Wright spent two months coming up with the design for the Meyer residence and was pushed by Mrs. Meyer's artistic demands to create the unique A-framed structure. Wright designed the house to be easily cooled despite the 32-foot overhead since the cooler air would collect towards the bottom of the house, however, this property would also make it difficult to heat the house in the winter. Wright overcame this drawback by designing a brick fireplace to help with Florida's short winters. In designing the Meyer family's residence, he was challenged to anchor the tall 32-foot A-framed structured against hurricanes and other strong winds. The answer to ensuring the structure's integrity came from using steel plates to clamp the support beams in the center structure and anchor them into large pieces of concrete buried underneath the ground.

Undated Photo

             The house was of a modern design in 1959 by following the recent trend of A-framed houses started in 1957 by Andrew Geller and was the first A-framed home in the Central Florida area. It was designed with many modern influences including a sunken living room, wall to wall carpet, aluminum construction and newly prefabricated wooden beams, and thirty-two double multicolored glass windows along the two major A-framed walls however, it is not clear if these multicolored glass windows ever made it into the final build over a more traditional choice. Wright balanced the unique structure with two traditional expansions on both sides of the A-frame featuring additional bedrooms and bathrooms on the eastern side and a three-car garage on the western totaling 2600 square feet. Plans for a seamless patio deck and pool extending south of the eastern wing of the house was drawn but, much like the multicolored window panels, there are doubts if there were ever followed through.

Renovations

            The structure underwent renovations circa 1999 at the behest of a previous owner. An additional wing was added to the south side of the residence to the east of the A-frame where the pool would have been built. Interior renovations also took place which involved homogenizing the tile work throughout the house and adding stonework encasing around the original brick fireplace to match the new stonework fireplace in the new wing bringing the total square footage up to 3200.

 

Orange County Property Appraiser Website, https://ocpaweb.ocpafl.org/dashboard.

Processing the Data - Terrestrial Laser Scanning at Piney Croft

 After we captured the data in the field, I returned to the lab a few days later to get hands-on experience in working with the post-processing component of the Lecia RT 360. Both photogrammetry and laser scanning take a considerable amount of processing power and wait time, yet due to the amount of data available from laser scanning, it takes exponentially more. Once the scans were loaded in, a digital site map is available to manipulate with a series of dots representing each scan that we monitored on the iPad in the field complete with each link we made on the ground.

               Each point on the map comes with a spattering of data creating a partial point cloud of everything the scanner was able to see from its location.  Each link that connects two points is essentially pulling each partial point cloud together in one frame, once every point is linked the point cloud should resemble an accurate depiction of what we scanned. The links also serve as the main way to align each partial point cloud, a similar process when dealing with photogrammetry. Once a link is made between two scans, the main workflow involves inspecting each of the two scans to ensure they are aligned properly and if not, then fixing them.

Figure 1

This alignment process is depicted in figure 2 with a top-down view of the site that has an orange depiction, which is one of the partial points clouds, and the teal depiction, which is the currently selected partial point cloud, which is a part of this link. This particular set of scans had a hard time aligning in the field which results in a clustered and confusing point cloud if left alone. The goal is to pivot the teal scan to match the orange so it sits directly on top of the original. Once the top-down view is aligned, we have to switch the viewpoint to be lateral to the site to best align the floor and ceilings from the orange and teal scans to one another. Upon verifying that both the lateral and topdown views are aligned we clicked “join and optimize” in the lower right-hand corner for the link to be created and for the program to see if it can find more potential links on its own.  The rest of the post-processing mainly involves finding scans that could make good links, verifying the alignment on each one, and letting the program attempt to find links on its own. The result looks like what is depicted on the right screen in figure one, a clean and concise scan.

               This leaves us with an accurate point cloud ready to be showcased on the Chronopoints website, yet this data can be further developed for other ends. Everything around the structure including the front and back yards can be cut from the point cloud to reduce the need for unwanted data. Then the remaining structure could be meshed in another program to create a 3D object that could then be 3D printed similar to my previous internship. Texture can also then be applied to that mesh to get a very accurate and eye-catching model that can serve as a great addition to a video game engine like Unreal or for a detailed form of digital storytelling. 

               

Figure 2

Scanning Piney Croft

                 As mentioned previously, this project was delayed into the summer semester due to COVID-19. The face-to-face portion of this internship hinged on meeting together with Dr. Walters, Dr. Michlowitz, and Dr. French at Piney Croft to scan the building using the Lecia RT360 terrestrial laser scanner. Working around some weather delays we were all able to convene on Monday, July 28^th to scan the residence early in the morning to avoid the Florida heat.

                My site map that I constructed at the end of the spring semester was not used to direct the location of the scanner, for that we used Dr. Walter’s on the ground direction to ensure the best scan. Instead, what my site map allowed me to do was to compare the scans we took and problems we encountered to what I surveyed a few months prior.  Overall, we took roughly 30 scans of the building’s exterior which is very similar to the number of scans on my site map and the probable difficulties I encountered turned out to be the exact difficulties we encountered later on.

                Vegetation was the largest concern since a few trees and bushes grew close to the residence at the front of the house as well as near the rear of the A-frame structure and other than scanning behind the bushes, there is not much that could be done to scan the obscured portions. One concern I did not foresee came from scanning the house at a distance, since this is a residential area, we could not traipse through neighbors’ yards for the sake of unobscured data that could only be viewed from far away. While these two difficulties presented concerns for the final product, not much could be done, however, this illuminated the limitations present in the field that the articles I read previously in the spring semester echoed. Barring expensive scaffolding and roof access to other buildings, these limitations just have to be accepted and this project gave me a greater appreciation and understanding with these present limitations of terrestrial laser scanning.

                The scanning process itself was not too difficult, the scanner is easy to move around and is connected to an iPad that is running an app that allows us to start the scanner remotely and monitor each scan and link them to one another all while in the field. We enabled the Lecia RT360 to take photos in addition to each scan in order to get color mapped onto the point cloud, while it raises the overall scan time to about 1 minute and 15 seconds, it is still much faster than the older Faro terrestrial laser scanner which takes approximately 15 minutes for scans.

                I was surprised on how easy the process was, trying to replicate the work done with photogrammetry definitely would have been very time-consuming and nowhere near as accurate. The drawback to the laser scanner is its obscenely high cost. The Lecia RT360 costs approximately $80,000 with a proprietary $750 USB stick, when contrasted with low-cost photogrammetry the difference is astounding. This difference will be evaluated later in the internship by comparing the laser-scanned point cloud to that of a photogrammetric point cloud. 

Site Mapping

 

My next task for this project was to construct a site map for Piney Croft before we are scheduled to do the scanning of the site. The goal for this stage of the project was to create two separate site maps with one being done from a distance using only google maps to discern where to scan which is to replicate the scenario of a far away site that we cannot visit before scanning. The second was done with the benefit of living nearby the site in mind by visiting the site physically to plan where the scanner would go.

                The first site map in figure one was completed before I visited Piney Croft with the white markers denoting where the scanner would go. There are a few concepts that influence where I placed the markers which include avoiding or scanning around trees and other obstructions, scanning on corners, scanning at a distance as well as up close, overlapping scans, and scanning underneath or behind columns or overhanging eaves. From a distance a few different problems were already prevalent such as the number of visible vegetation and trees prevalent around the property especially along right-hand side. Some of the problems associated with distanced site mapping include the date of the google maps photography as the topography may be different with new obstructions or the removal of the previous one.

Figure 1

                This past weekend I was able to travel to Piney Croft to create a new site map to get that physical element in understanding it. Figure 2 is the site map that came from this visit. A few differences include the shifting of most scan points, the inclusion of more scan points, as well as the inclusion of scan points for locations that I could not recognize on google maps. The overhanging eaves, columned patio in the back, and bushes lining the front meant that I had to adapt the map to accommodate these formations to construct a more complete scan without the allowance of blind spots to develop. One of the biggest benefits of constructing the site map in person was finding that the vegetation situation was different then I both imagined and could perceive from a distance. Trees prevalent on Google Maps are no longer there, likewise, open areas previously devoid of obstructions now had new trees in their place. Additionally, visiting the site in person allows me to see the vista for each spot I would place the scanner which gave me a better idea of the quality of scan I would be getting.

Figure 2

                Another benefit of visiting the site was meeting Christine French whose name popped up a few times in researching local Maitland and Winter Park history in reference to some of the historical homes in the area as well as the interviews with Clifford Wright. She was able to show me around the house and give some great contextual information that can be incorporated as annotations on the final model to create an immersive experience.

                The next step for this project is to actually conduct the laser scanning and photogrammetry at the end of May and then, work to process the scans into a 3D model that can live on the ChronoPoints website. I already complied a photo profile of a bird bath on site, once the model is built it can be used as a comparison of laser scanning and photogrammetry by the end of the internship.

Looking back into 1950s and 1960s Maitland

 

The Piney Croft A-framed home is located in the historic town of Maitland, Florida. As this project seeks to capture the home in 3D using a variety of scanning techniques, it becomes important to contextualize the town of Maitland to better understand the circumstances of its creation within the town’s historical trends.

Maitland was founded in 1838 as Fort Maitland and was primarily a military outpost for U.S soldiers in the Indian wars yet this military outpost would be later decommissioned. In the 1870s, individuals started to move to Maitland and grow citrus, this was further expanded upon with the completion of the railroad stations cutting from Jacksonville south into the Maitland and the central Florida area. The central Florida area experienced a great freeze in 1894-95 which damaged much of the citrus production, yet the area continued to slowly grow over the next few years.  By 1900 the population of Maitland reached 136 people which expanded to 463 over the next forty years. However, in 1950 the population of Maitland almost doubled to 889 and exploded again in 1960 to 3,570. Businesses like the Martin Marietta Corporation moved into the central Florida area which led to the increase of population and architectural development that ballooned to match the rising population.

At this time, many architects would make their name in the central Florida and greater Florida area. Nils Schweizer, a representative of Frank Lloyd Wright who worked on and expanded Florida Southern College also built modernistic houses in Maitland and in the central Florida area throughout the 1950s including the Orlando International Airport, Loch Haven Park, St. Luke’s Episcopal Cathedral, and Orlando’s downtown library. One of Schweizer’s Maitland homes , 829 Nicoma Trail, was built in 1960 and features similar design points found in Clifford Wright’s Piney Croft home, such as the exterior design, sunken living room, central fireplace, and use of 27 feet of glass to let in natural light. Yet, many of Schweizer’s houses are not limited by this trend and many are unique in their design such as Schweizer’s personal home in Maitland built in 1960, his Goldberg house in 1955, as well as the Goldman House in 1965.

Yet, this central Florida boom in construction was not just limited to the likes of Schweizer, but also the likes of James Gamble Rogers II who designed the Florida Supreme Court building but also many Winter Park residences such as the 160 Glenridge home and Barbour residence. Many other architects threw their architectural designs into the central Florida and Maitland stew that brought the countless homes and churches with many different architectural designs into creation including Clifford Wright’s own Piney Croft.

 

"Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov.

“829 Nicoma Trl, Maitland, FL 32751.” Realtor.com. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021. https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/829-Nicoma-Trl_Maitland_FL_32751_M59326-96020.

“About Maitland.” The City of Maitland. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021. https://www.itsmymaitland.com/339/About-Maitland#:~:text=Maitland%2C%20one%20of%20the%20oldest,1838%20by%20the%20U.S.%20Army.

“James Gamble Rogers.” Casa Feliz Historic Home and Venue: Winter Park’s Community Parlor. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021. https://casafeliz.us/james-gamble-rogers.

“Maitland.” Viva Florida 500: History Happened Here. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021. https://vivafl500.org/cities/maitland/

“Mrs. Nils M. Schweizer and Architect Jerry Uhran Special Guest Speakers At Orlando Remembered, January 2020.” Orlando Memory. February 1, 2020. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021 http://orlandomemory.info/events/mrs-nils-m-schweizer-and-architect-jerry-uhran-special-guest-speakers-at-orlando-remembered-january-2020/.

“This 1960s mid-century modern home in Maitland just hit the market.” Orlando Weekly. June 7, 2020. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021. https://photos.orlandoweekly.com/this-1960s-mid-century-modern-home-in-maitland-just-hit-the-market/?slide=1&2298cede1cdcb493b199bb71548164d2l-m121360711xd-w1020_h770_q80.

Candelaria, Michael. “Maitland Neighborhood Guide.” Orlando Sentinel. June 21, 2018. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/classified/realestate/neighborhood-guide/os-et-maitland-neighborhood-guide-2018-htmlstory.html.

Central Florida Modern. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021. https://www.centralfloridamodern.com/residential.

Larson, Brittni. “Maitland Cheers at its birth.” The Orange Observer. July 8, 2010. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021. https://www.orangeobserver.com/article/maitland-cheers-its-birth.

LeBlanc, Karen and Randy Noles. “60s Chic.” Winter Park Magazine. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021.  https://winterparkmag.com/2019/07/08/60s-chic/.

Shanklin, Mary. “Hidden Treasures of Design.” Orlando Sentinel. December 24, 2000. Retrieved March 12^th, 2021. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2000-12-24-0012220039-story.html.

Clifford Wright - Maitland and Winter Park's local architect

 

    Clifford William Wright was born at in the hamlet of Oceanside in Nassau county, Long Island, New York on April 15, 1933, yet spent most of his childhood in the Winter Park/Maitland area. He received his Bachelor of Architecture in 1955 got his license and moved across the street from the Meyer family where he would then build a house for them completed in the end of 1959. Clifford Wright’s career focused around the Winter Park, Maitland, and larger Florida area with other buildings being the expansion to the Ortronix Plant completed in 1960 in Goldenrod, the Schroeder Warehouses in Winter park in 1959-1960, a shop in Pine castle in 1959, a food store building in Orlando in 1961, an Apartment building in Sarasota in 1961 and the residence of Allan Hickok in Winter Park 1961 as well as condos in the Maitland and Winter park area around the 1960s.

    Wright spent two months coming up with the design for the Meyer residence and was pushed by Mrs. Meyer’s artistic demands to create the unique A-framed structure. Wright designed the house to be easily cooled despite the 32-foot overhead by allows cooler air to collect towards the bottom of the house, however this property would also make it difficult to heat the house in the winter, so Wright designed a brick fire place to help for Florida’s short winters. In designing the Meyer family’s residence, he was challenged to anchor the tall 32-foot A-framed structured against hurricanes and other strong winds. The answer was using steel plates to clamp the support beams in the center structure and anchor them into large pieces of concrete buried underneath the ground.

                The house was of a modern design in 1959 by following the recent trend of A-framed houses started in 1957 by Andrew Geller and designed with a sunken living room, wall to wall carpet, aluminum construction and newly prefabricated wooden beams and thirty two double glass windows along the two major A-framed walls. Wright balanced the unique structure with two traditional expansions on both sides of the A-framed featuring additional bedrooms and bathrooms on one side and a three-car garage on the other.

"New Home Will Offer Refreshing Taste in Design; Modern Thought Used in Dramatic A-Frame,” Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 4, 1959, p. 3

Interview and House Tour with Piney Croft Architect Clifford Wright, Sunday, April 29, 2018.

"WRIGHT, CLIFFORD W(ILLIAM). AIA 57. Mid-Florida Chapter." AIA Historical Directory of American Architects.
https://aiahistoricaldirectory.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/AHDAA/pages/20677106/1962+American+Architects+Directory

"Ortronix Inc. Building Storage Space for Overflow." Orlando Evening Star, Feb. 9, 1961, p. 7

"Campus Would Rather be 'Wright'." Miami Herald, Mar. 18, 1973, p. 231

A-Framed Houses

    This past week I investigated the architecture of the A-frame house design. As the house that we are capturing in 3D on Piney Croft lane in Maitland later this summer is an A-frame house, it is worth studying the historical significance of this architectural design.

    A frame houses have been around for quite some time cropping up across the world in places like Japan, Polynesia, and Switzerland, yet the first instance applying this architectural style here in the U.S was done by Rudolph Schindler, a former employee of Frank Lloyd Wright, in 1934 when he built an A-framed house in California. However, it was not until after WWII that the popularity of the A-framed house soared in tandem with a movement to have a second, vacation styled, home. In 1957, however, is when Andrew Geller built an A-frame house along the beach for approximately $7,000 for a client and achieved some acclaim in a New York Times story on May 5th 1957. A-framed houses have since climbed in popularity before falling off in the 1970s with a rise in popularity once again in recent years.     

    It was around the A-frame’s original rise in popularity that Clifford Wright built the A-framed Maitland home in 1959 just two years after the New York Times article featured Geller’s beach project.

    The general structure of an A-frame house features two angled walls that meet together at the top of the house forming a triangle where the ceiling and walls are continuous and lead into the ground where they are generally supported into an anchor. A cross beam cutting the triangle in half horizontally is generally present inside the structure and is used to not only support the household but create additional useable space. A benefit of using A-frames is the unique view points they have as well as the lower construction cost associated with them, and many A-frames use glass facades to not only let in natural light, but maximize the view outdoors.

    Wright’s Piney Croft structure follows a few of these norms by using the cross beams as support for what was described as a master bedroom and using glass to maximize the natural light and views. However, Wright does not limit the space of the house to a traditional A-frame as he expanded on the structure with standard house extensions centered around the tall central A-framed structure. However, Wright’s use of lateral space is different then some of its predecessors or contemporaries. While other A-framed houses are either short in stature or make use of lateral space to support two lofts or an entire second floor, Wright uses the 32-foot height to support a sleeping loft in the front of the house while keeping a high, uninterrupted ceiling in the central and rear portions of the A-frame.

A-frame designed in 1934 by Schindler. https://www.archilovers.com/projects/202445/gisela-bennati-house-in-lake-arrowhead-ca-rudolf-schindler.html

A-framed designed by Geller in 1957. https://www.fieldmag.com/articles/history-of-aframe-house-modern-design

The 1957 Geller house. Notice the cross beams and loft. https://www.fieldmag.com/articles/history-of-aframe-house-modern-design

The 1959 Wright house built in Maitland, FL. Notice the more traditional styled housing extensions. The photo itself is undated.

The design of the 1959 Wright house. “New Home Will Offer Refreshing Taste in Design; Modern Thought Used in Dramatic A-Frame,” Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 4, 1959, p. 3

References:

"Andrew Geller, Modernist Architect, Is Dead at 87." New York Times, December 26, 2011.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/arts/design/andrew-geller-modernist-architect-is-dead-at-87.html

"In the Summertime, Living Becomes Even Easier at New Long Island Beach Cottage." New York Times, May 5, 1957, p. 324. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1957/05/05/90802087.html?pageNumber=324

“New Home Will Offer Refreshing Taste in Design; Modern Thought Used in Dramatic A-Frame,” Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 4, 1959, p. 3

https://archive.curbed.com/2017/9/22/16346810/a-frame-homes-architecture-rudolf-schindler

https://www.archilovers.com/projects/202445/gisela-bennati-house-in-lake-arrowhead-ca-rudolf-schindler.html

https://www.fieldmag.com/articles/history-of-aframe-house-modern-design

https://alastairgordonwalltowall.com/2011/12/26/andrew-geller-architect-of-happiness-1924-2011/

Introductory Readings on Terrestrial Laser Scanning

I read two articles which gave me a more introductory look into terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) which detailed two different projects with goals behind them. The first, completed by Karagianni, detailed the use of TLS and used the project of capturing the façade of a historic house as the justification for advocating for TLS. The second project was a larger multi-disciplinary project spanning multiple organizations with the goal to capture the entire Cologne cathedral.

One thing that stood out to me was the wide use of software to achieve the desired results. This is reminiscent of my progress on my previous internship with photogrammetry under the direction of FPAN’s east central office, where I constantly switched to different slicing software for the best tool on a case by case bases. The cathedral project used Z+F LaserControl (v. 6.5), Adobe Photoshop, Leica Cyclone (v. 9.1), Autodesk ReCAP 360 (v.3.1), and ThinkBox Sequoia. All of these were used in the data-processing and visualization segment of the project. Likewise, Karagianni used Erdas Imagine, SCENE, and Pointools Edit. Both projects sought to capture buildings using the same methodology of TLS, but they used different software choices to achieve their results which is interesting that a wide range of software exists and is used for the same process. This make me question if there are certain software choices that bare a high cost, but are considered an industry standard amongst the field?

What is interesting is the limitations present in both works, distance is needed to get a good scan and tight close corridors or alleyways present a problem. Height is also a constant problem as these scanners are traditionally mounted on a tripod and take a few minutes to scan properly. The Karagianni project expressed this limitation and the Cologne cathedral project used scaffolding, extension arms, and the rooftops of nearby buildings to successfully capture most of the complex surfaces of the cathedral and overcome this limitation. This limitation will be present for my internship later on this summer and depending on the location, and scope of the scans, and we may need to explore ways to overcome this problem.

The results of these projects are impressive and scream for visualizations. These two projects helped me understand on how to use different forms of visualizations to make writing about these projects more effective which was something I struggled with in the past regarding my use of photogrammetry. Using a simple visualization like this flow chart helps the reader understand the process of the project in an easy to understand form. Below is screen capture of the flow chart presenting the process of Karagianni’s project.

 

 

The Cologne cathedral project used pictures to help visualize the how regarding the way the limitation of height was overcome to help the reader better understand that project. Below is a screen capture of a few pictures on how they were to visualize their success in overcoming the limitation they encountered.

While the end product of these laser scans, much like photogrammetry, produce eye catching data, visualizations regarding other aspects of these projects are important for contextualizing the process.

 

Karagianni, Aikaterini. “Terrestrial Laser Scanning in Building Documentation.” Civil Engineering and Architecture 5, no. 6 (2017): 215-221.

Pritchard, D., J. Sperner, S. Hoepner, R. Tenschert. “Terrestrial Laser Scanning for Heritage Conservation: The Cologne Cathedral Documentation Project.” ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry 4, no. 2 (2017) 213-220

Continuing Down the Path of 3D Preservation: An Expansion into 3D Laser Scanning

    My name is Trevor Colaneri and I am an MA student pursuing a Public History degree at UCF and my research interest are in preserving artifacts in 3D. This past fall I completed my internship with FPAN’s East Central office where I learned the photogrammetric process and applied this to a set of six unprovenienced artifacts from the Sanford Museum with the goal of not only creating 3D models, but printing these artifacts on FDM and SLA printers to have a comparison between printing processes. I used only low-cost methods in order to achieve these to, in part, enter the field on my own dime, and advocate for the increasing low-cost movement within the field. This internship culminated in my presentation at the virtual SHA conference which was also my first entry into the field of conferences.

    This internship for the spring semester is under the direction of Dr. Lori Walters who focuses on the use of terrestrial laser scanners to preserve buildings in 3D. The skills I hope the gain from this internship include the technical skills required to work with terrestrial laser scanners and process the data that comes from them. There is also the potential to work with a handheld structured light scanner as well. This internship will expand my knowledge on the use of 3D scanning technologies to allow me to expand my toolbox in the field of 3D preservation.

    My initial understanding of scanning technologies is this: photogrammetry is a great all around tool that can capture objects drastically different in size but lacks the accuracy of the other methods, the terrestrial laser scanner excels at the accuracy of its data but can only capture objects around the size of most buildings and is not intended for small objects, and the handled structured light scanner which fits nestled between the two with its ability to capture furniture sized objects. With the wide breadth of this internship’s available tools, a comparative approach is a possible avenue to explore as it will not only help me in having an understanding of each methods output but help others as well.

    The internship has tentatively set out a few different goals to accomplish, the scanning a statue on UCF’s campus as an initial test of photogrammetry and laser scanning, followed up by a scan of a structure here in the greater Orlando area such as church in Altamont, and finally scanning the Sugar Mill in New Smyrna. These goals can change in the coming weeks but their concepts behind the approach remains the same. Something local and easy, followed by a structure in the local area, and smaller location that will flex the capabilities of the different scanning methods.

    This internship will function differently to most traditional internships I have done in the past due to COVID-19 restrictions and is planned to start later in the spring semester and continue into the summer to ensure the safety of all participants and as such the blog posts regarding this project will be on an irregular schedule until later into the semester.

Racing against the Sunset: Shifting the Process to Reaching Deadlines

 

This past week I spent creating these merged and complete models, then realizing there are slight imperfections, or areas that I know I can improve, I went back to take more photos and improve on those areas. I have two of the models completed out of the set of six, while six was the arbitrary goal set at the beginning and is flexible, I am determined to finish the other four this coming weekend in order to meet the December 1^st deadline for the conference.

                A recording of my 15-minute PowerPoint presentation on the project is due on the first of December for the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) conference . I am willing to condense the number of models I will create down from six if need be but I intend to try and meet this initial goal. This implies I finish the rest of the models and accept the small imperfects in each model instead of the slight tweaking I have been doing this past week. I can always go back and tweak them more after the December 1^st deadline or mention them in the limitations of the project.  The goal besides creating these models is to then print them and compare them in relation to the low-cost methods I am using.

                I adapted some of my methods over the past week and learned more about the capabilities of Metashape, which continues to surprise me the more I use it. A limitation last week was the processing time for each model, and I decided that due to approaching deadlines, I turned the detail down from “High” to “Medium” which processes in about 5 minutes as opposed to an hour which helped me save a lot of time working on this project. This does mean, however, that the quality of the overall model is lower albeit more than acceptable.  I additionally found that the arrow heads have a unique problem with alignment as the automatic alignment of the different chunks does not really work for these sharp and flat pieces. I learned how to manually align these chunks which is a little more time intensive but was the last step to creating the finish model and overall, was not too difficult.

                I am surprised by the quality of these 3D models since the photos themselves were taken on my phone, which is apart of the low-cost of the project, and I have realized over the course of this project that it is the quality of the input that most drastically affects the output. The greatest impact on these models is the number of photos collected in each profile; the lower the amount of photos the worse and blurrier the final result, while the higher the amount of photos collected results in a crisp high definition model. Incomplete, or missing, sections of certain models already send me back to restart the process again which is only made worse if I rush the picture process as the low resolution sends me back to do it again and correctly. This project has taught me to do my due diligence when taking the first step in the modelling process as building off of a poor photo collection is like building on a shaky foundation, it does not matter how much effort I put in after that point because it will only cause my efforts to be less than ideal.

This is one of the completed models. What was the lower half before the merging process had less photos in its profile and resulted in a blurry product. Once merged together with the higher resolution upper half, this creates a slightly jarring result. I am unsure if this will translate through the resin 3D printing process.

Update: Considering this is the last blog for this internship for the Fall 2020 semester I wanted to update my progress on this project since I wrote the blog a few days ago to showcase the goal I achieved. 

I finished three other models and were able to print them over the weekend and wanted to showcase them here. The scale on some of the models is a bit off but can easily be fixed down the road.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait: a more detailed look into merging 3-D models

The title of this blog sums up this past week pretty well. I work for OCPS as a middle school teacher and only have time at night or on the weekends to work on this project and no longer have the luxury to work whole days on classes as I have done in the past. This is prevalent because the merging processes took around 30-45 minutes each time I ran the process. I created many models this way before I realized an error in what I was doing. I could not separate the points based off of confidence as I learned last week because I rendered all the models with he advanced setting “calculate point confidence” turned off by default. Having this enabled is necessary to making the model clean as I will demonstrate in this weeks blog. This caused me to rerun these merging processes again, however enabling the “calculate point confidence,” caused processing time to increase even more from 30-45 minutes to between an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Once more, if I realize there is an area of the model that is shaky and could use more photos then this waiting process has to start over again. This is why I describe this week as a lot of waiting as a single mistake can cost me a whole evening of just waiting.

                After hours of researching on the internet why I was having such difficulty merging models I discovered that Metashape has an automatic alignment method without the need of finding key points of similarity around the model. It took some time to get the hang of it but this made the process much easier by having the program itself detect the similarities.

                Once the models were merged I realized I forgot to cut away the table portions where the artifact was sitting before I merged the models but I was still able to cut it away after I merged them and it was not too much a problem considering the alternative was another hour of waiting time. I was now able to see the model in a heat map style of view that is organizing all of the points based of off how confident the program is on their placement. Red and orange dots are all those points that the program is unsure of and are therefore clouding the model giving it a dirty or fuzzy appearance. All those models that shift from green to blue are high confidence points where the program is confident in its placement. I was able to filter out the view to separate high and low confidence points and once there I could delete all low confidence points leaving behind a clean model.

This is the confidence map. The key in the lower left helps understand that the colder the color the higher the confidence value is.

The red and orange points are filtered out from the high confidence points and then deleted. These points are what clouds the model and gives it a fuzzy appearance due to their inaccurate location.

Only the high confidence points left behind

The dense point cloud after the confidence cleaning process. Notice how this is cleaner than any other dense point cloud I showcased thus far.

                From here I realized I would need to go back and take even more pictures on the bottom side of the model due to the lip of the conch being undefined and curved as opposed to a strong harsh edge. This artifact was included in the collection to be one of the more difficult model to create and so far it has and will continue to cost me more processing time as I try to get the inner fold of the shell to render but now with this streamlined process of cleaning the model I’m confident that this once will be completed as well.

The above photo shows the end product that is fully textured. This is the cleanest model I have made yet and looks perfect.

This is the problem mentioned in the above paragraph. The inner lip of the conch did not render any points due to a shortage of light and photos.

The Merging process

 

This past week I worked on figuring out how to merge two models together. This process is little longer than I anticipated but does not change my view on it being worth it. I did not encounter this problem earlier because the test models I was capturing were sitting on a base where I did not need to capture and in retrospect it would have probably been best to learn the merging process earlier.

I managed to successfully merge one of the artifacts together while the rest are in different stages of this process. The process involves placing a set of points on each model with the key being to place point 1 in the same location on both models. So point one will be in the same location on the artifact just placed on both models. This process is continued to at least three times, however the more points placed the higher the accuracy is during the merging processes. The purpose for placing these points is to tell the program which points match up across both models so they can align correctly.  The difficulty is in the form of finding a place on the model that is identifiable which is not always easy depending on the model, finding the right ridge on an arrowhead takes time as well as finding multiple points that are identifiable.

                Thankfully I learned that, once merged, Metashape can categorize all of the millions of points in the point cloud and separate these based off of a certainty rating that looks like a heat map. I can then easily remove all points that Metashape created yet was uncertain of its exact location while preserving the majority of points that are slotted into their correct position. This can save me a lot of time cleaning the models and removing the uncertain points by hand. This is an advanced feature I haven’t seen in free modelling programs and the longer I use this program the more I grow to understand more of its complexity.

                I still need to take this process slowly as I double check and review the steps that I am taking to get more used to it but I will go ahead and print a copy of a broken arrowhead that was created with the merged models and one with the blank side filled in by default to best see and compare the differences between them. Perhaps the detail will transfer well into the physical form or perhaps it will be too hard to tell.

A Tale of Two Models: Problems with Merging two 3D models together

This past week I made two models of every artifact that captures both sides of the models and built each model to be textured which is the last step in the process. I am still figuring out how to merge the models into one complete whole that leaves no gaps. There are a few different methods of alignment that I tried and so far I have had no luck with either. The goal moving forward is to find the best alignment method which should not take long to complete once I figure it out, but this will allow me to have complete models for each of the six artifacts that can then be printed.

                Also this past week I decided that the newer models I would create would have a lot more pictures in the profiles then I normally do. The other profiles had on average 50-80 pictures to create the model and I wanted to try capturing more pictures to see what type of difference that would make, so I captured 125 photos for one of the models which drastically increased the detail of the model I was working with but it took much longer to process. On average, to build the dense point cloud for the other models only took 2-5 minutes at the most, however, this conch shell that had 125 photos in it took almost an hour just to build the dense point cloud. Other steps in the process also took longer than normally. This created a scenario where I had to go work on something else while this processed, but I believe that it is worth the wait overall since the detail increased significantly. This is noticed just by looking at the sparse point cloud. Normally the outline of the object was suggested before, but the conch shell is already very prominent. Dense point clouds for all other models ranged between 1 to 1.6 million points while the Conch model had 3.4 million points which explains the processing time.

                This past week I printed a cylinder seal for Dr. Tiffany Spadoni and I also printed one for myself to use in a lesson on Mesopotamia for my 6^th grade classes. The ability to print artifacts like this off a cheap home printer has allowed me and will allow Dr. Spadoni to use these replicas as a teaching tool. I was able to show the students what a cylinder seal not only looks like but also how it works by demonstrating it on playdough. This is part of the benefit of the internship that I am working on, this allows a hands on approach to the past that not only interests students but creates a lasting impression of engagement.

Progress on plastic comparisons and the modelling process

This past week I have been crafting the 3D models based off of each artifact as well as cleaning and comparing the resin and plastic test prints. Over the next week I’ll be finishing some of the models and begin the printing process.

                The digital side of things each model has brought its own difficulties but none have so far proved too difficult. Many of the models need the assistance of playdough to remain upright so I can capture both sides, however this means I am not capturing the piece placed into the playdough. I have two choices; my first option is to leave the blank hole there and solidify the model in another program which would just fill the hole in and make it smooth, or my second option is to flip the model and capture the bottom side and then merge both models together to fill the hole. The second option is preferable but learning how to do this took up a larger portion of my time but I feel it will be worth it due to its accuracy. Additionally the glare on the sharpening tool was not as much of a problem as I anticipated as I could just turn down the lighting in my apartment and use more diffused lighting which allowed me to capture it without having random holes in it due to reflections.

                The plastic to resin comparison is following what I anticipated but new points have been brought to light as I broke the plastic models from their supports. Breaking the supports off of the model caused support marring on the models as anticipated that needs to be cleaned up more accurately either through sanding or with a fine edge tool, however some of the models were difficult to remove from their supports and I actually tore the arrow head into two pieces as I cracked the model cleanly along the layer line as I was trying to move the supports. The supports were fused to the model in some places and those touch points were stronger than the actual model itself. Additional support issues come from the wax seal and lock as there are many small little strands of plastic obscuring the detail that are a slow process to remove as well as the quality of the lock. The lock was printed on resin and FDM using the same digital model yet the plastic version has tiny holes and layer lines that seemed frayed and pulled out of position creating more holes.

Notice that some layers seem pulled out of position and some gaps become visible

This photo is similar to the one displayed last week. Notice that amount of thin strands that need to be cut and pulled off of the model's face. Additionally, the depth of each letter presents a visible difference

Overall, I would rather deal with the resin post processing any day because it is so much easier to not damage the model, preserve its detail, and faster to process. The plastic models, while they printed in a quarter of the time it took to print the resin models, the post processing is rather labor intensive and create a higher risk for damaging the replica. I should note, however, that I have a lot more experience with printing resin models than I do with FDM, especially because I do not place the supports on FDM nor do I control any of the other printing options and there may be ways to adapt the printing process to make the post processing more viable, less damaging, and less labor intensive.

Plastic Comparisons and Artifacts for Project

This past week I met up with Emma Dietrich from FPAN and talked about fixing the low-resolution problem I was having last week. Emma also brought the plastic replicas from the original test set so I could compare them to resin, as well as the actual artifacts that I will capture in 3D and print.

The plastic models were left on their support structure to help me better understand the post processing that goes into cleaning the models after they print while also having another aspect that I could compare between the two printing methods. Once I properly clean the support structures off I will be able to compare the two sets more fully, however initially the plastic prints look much better than I anticipated and do not bare strong layer lines which is traditionally associated with FDM prints. The plastic prints are also lighter and printed in a fourth of the time it takes to print their resin counter parts. While I will wait until I can compare them more fully next week, there was already an initial problem with the tip of the arrowhead pictured below. The plastic tip seems to be thinned, hallowed, and appears as if it isn’t complete. This could be a problem during the printing process, a limitation of FDM, or perhaps damage the model sustained after printing. Ill be sure to reach out to see if holding sharp points on FDM is normally an issue.

                I received six artifacts in total to preserve with two of them being purposefully selected to be more complex and difficult to capture and print. The first four models I will focus on are the easiest to capture and are three arrow heads and a fishing weight for a net. All are straightforward matte objects which will help me start this project off by working out any remaining kinks as I start from the beginning of the process and progress all the way to printing the model off and cleaning off support structures. The two other artifacts are a sharpening tool that has a slight gloss finish and a conch that was used as a hammer. The sharpening tool provides an additional challenge due to its gloss finish which reflects light back at the camera and creates blanks spots In the model as Metashape cannot place dots in these areas because it cannot detect what is supposed to be in that spot. The conch shell provides a challenge because of its overhang but also its size. A model like this will require support structures throughout the overhang and will overall require more care throughout the printing and post process.  

    I went ahead and started capturing one of the arrow heads and by the time of writing this blog I realized a mistake I made that I will go ahead and display here. So far the model looked great but I failed to take enough pictures on a particular side of the model and it left a dead space of data. This tells me that I need to go back and capture more photos from this angle to fix this problem. However, getting the model to this point did not take long at all due to the time I spent previously working in the program.

A Successful Test Run

 

One of difficulties of this internship is finding a time when two full-time workers can meet in a COVID-19 world. The story the past few weeks has been one of scheduling conflicts, whenever my supervisor was free to meet one night, I had an obligation for work and vice versa. Emma and myself have slotted another Face-to-Face meeting for Tuesday, October 13 where I can hopefully start the work on the deliverable part of the internship.

I have gotten a good grip on all the software and hardware used in this process from taking the photos to create the image profiles, to using Metashape to render the 3D model, then to Meshmixer to make the model watertight and solid, and finally to load it into a slicer and actually print the model and handle and cure it properly. I am confident that this process will not take long once I get the artifacts to print as the longest amount of time was figuring out how to use all these programs and hardware. Emma has also reassured me that the FDM test models were printed. A potential future problem could be the turn around time on the FDM prints for the five artifacts. I would have to complete each 3D render and send if off to FPAN for printing, then meet in person once again to exchange the artifacts and FDM replicas in time to start writing the conference paper so my goal is to have a quicker turnaround time after Tuesday’s meeting.

The final step in the 3D modelling process that I spent the last week working on was taking the fully rendered model in Metashape and exporting it into Meshmixer which is a free, basic, modelling platform. I previously mentioned Blender which is a free, yet highly advanced program but ditched the effort as it was overkill and difficult to understand with the time frame and scope of the project. From here I took the model and separated many of the stray islands of data found inside the hollow model and deleted them so only one single continuous model remained. Then, with Meshmixer, I was able to make the model solid and close any gaps or holes on the surface of the model. From here, I exported the model into the 3D printing slicers and the model was good to print.

I did not print this test model because I have printed hundreds of models at this stage to know how it will turn out physically so there is no need to waste the resin considering there was a problem with the resolution. the final product lacked a lot of detail on the surface which was disappointing and this problem could have a lot of causes which makes it difficult to pin down. Could this be a limitation of low-cost photogrammetry and an issue with the resolution of the images? Could this be a limitation of the model itself that I choose, being that it is at a 32mm scale with a lot of detail? Could this be a limitation of Meshmixer or the exporting process? Or could this problem stem from a small step that I missed, such as exporting the texture of the model separately and working with that? These questions will have to be answered when I work with the actual artifacts because this model I choose is a very small and complex figure with lots of thin pieces, fine details, and sharp edges.

This is the final, yet low-resolution model. Notice the lack of detail all around the model.

This is the actual model itself that I chose as a test model because of its small size yet high detail.

This was the model finished in Metashape which bears more resemblance to the original than to the printable version which is what gives me so many questions.

Overall, I am happy with this internship so far. The first half of it I spent learning the software and hardware associated with it and these skills can all directly translate as usable skills for what I want my thesis to be on which saves me the time in the future with figuring it all out. Many people outside the history department hear the project that I am doing and glaze over it as they do with any conversation relating to graduate research, however, when I show the three test prints I have done previously they light up and become interested and want to handle and touch the replicas. This internship, and the concept of replication as a whole makes me excited because it is taking the past and making it a tangible experience for some where the deliverable is a product that can be held in hand which has even brought smiles to a few faces.