V/AR-DHI Project Co-Director Phil Stern, History and Instructor Ed Triplett, Art, Art History & Visual Studies received support from Duke’s Bass Connections and Data+ programs for their vertically integrated project, “Mapping History: Seeing Premodern Cartography through GIS and Game Engines (2020-2021).” They ask:
What if we could climb into historical views of cities and experience the worlds they represent? How could we design digital methods and tools that reconstruct historical images like these in 3D even if they don’t correspond to modern ideas about mathematical perspective or gridded Cartesian space?
This project team aims to do just that: develop a methodology that analyzes these maps and views through the process of clipping, modeling and reassembling them in the Unity Game Engine. This malleable software environment will be the aggregation and exploration point for data we create via image tagging, database building and 3D modeling. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and envision a team that includes students interested in fields as varied as history, art history, computer science, game design, urban studies and many others.
As a means of assessing the variety of city maps, views and panoramas created during the medieval and early modern period, a summer 2020 Data+ project will collect and mark up historical images of the cities of London and Lisbon for further analysis by the 2020-2021 Bass Connections team.
This is an interesting case study example that could be highly instructive to colleagues interested the intersection of GIS with VR and games, and who are interested in collaborative research with students.
Stern and Triplett also received an NEH Digital Humanities Advancement grant to support the larger project, “The Sandcastle Workflow: A Malleable System for Visualizing Pre-Modern Maps and View.” This work builds upon Triplett’s ongoing Book of Fortresses project and Stern’s research on mapping and empire.
