A new cohort of undergraduate researchers has joined the ranks of more than a dozen students who have contributed to virtual Florence, or the “Florence As It Was” (FLAW) project. The project, begun in 2016, combines an interactive map with three-dimensional representations of buildings, designed according to measurements gleaned from the scholarly literature and on-site observation. Woven into these reconstructions will be images of original works of art situated in the places they were located during the Renaissance. “Hot spots” throughout these buildings and images will direct viewers to selected documents, descriptions and interpretations that explain the messages, functions, uses and reception of art and architecture in the past.
George Bent, Sidney Gause Childress Professor of the Arts, and his co-researchers, David Pfaff, senior academic technologist and director of the IQ Center, and Mackenzie Brooks, associate professor and digital humanities librarian, envision a virtual reality tour through the buildings that will enable users to recreate the visual experience of a 15th-century Florentine visitor. Bent said his partnership with Pfaff and the IQ Center consistently yields new approaches to the project. The latest innovation is Reality Capture, a process by which the point clouds are generated with the team’s LIDAR scanner. This remote sensing technology measures distances by illuminating a target with laser light and analyzing the reflected light. Scans are combined with high-resolution photographs, which are then stitched together to form the accurate geometry of the building.
“This allows for the richness in the image’s detail combined with the geometric accuracy of the point cloud,” Bent said.
Kelan Joiner ’27, an engineering major from Social Circle, Georgia, has gained expertise this summer in the Reality Capture process. Joiner has primarily made 3D models of portions of two churches using thousands of photos and laser scans.
“I wanted to get experience using different kinds of software and working with different technology before I start applying for engineering internships,” Joiner said. “This summer was a great opportunity to get into that work on 3D modeling and to work with point clouds.”
Pfaff said that over the years, the team has developed a workflow to get students up to speed quickly on the technological tools needed to continue the project.
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