Slowing things down

Goals for this week

My main goal for last week was to start on my model of the South Bay Yacht Club, and I was able to get some work done. Most notably, I’ll be able to spend this week using drones to map it out. However, I want to slow things down going forward, as I believe that doing some more research to back up my methodology will ultimately lead to better results.

Methodology(framework)

Both my advisors have advised me(so creative I know) to connect the dots between my literature review and my methodology, and looking at my past blogs, I’ve realized that said connection is my number one priority. Hopefully, my endless methodology saga can finally end this week.

In “Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision,” which is my primary theoretical source regarding the use of computers in historical reconstruction, the authors lay out the limiting factors of complete digital reconstruction. First, it was extremely complicated and time consuming to turn 2d images into 3d models using the technology of their time(for reference, the book was published in 2004), as it required the implementation of complex algorithms fairly unaccessible to the general public. Second, there was simply no way to make high quality models of buildings in their past state, as simply using a building’s old picture would lead to very sloppy models.

As the years progressed, many researchers began coming up with solutions to these two main problems. For starters, new and improved softwares such as Lumion and Blender were created with the specific purpose of creating 3d models out of 2d images. As these softwares improved, they became much more accessible to the general public, which essentially solved the first problem. However, the second problem was far more tricky. Teams that reconstructed the Hawaiian town of Lahaina after the 2023 wildfires had access to fairly recent photos of the town before it was destroyed, allowing them to simply use those pictures to create the model. As for those in charge of digitally reconstructing the Notre Dame Cathedral, they were able to end up with high quality models due to utilizing portions of already existing digital models of the cathedral, such as the one found in the video game series Assassins Creed.

Where I come into this equation is my use of Artlist, an AI model specifically made to combine images together. This will allow me to use far older images and make up for their lack of detail by combining them with newer images. My use of Photoshop also serves as a bridge between Artlist and Blender, the software that I will be 3d modeling with.

The South Bay Yacht Club

Again, I am using this section about “ethics” to dump some historical knowledge. The South Bay Yacht Club itself is a very interesting building to model, as it was originally built in 1903 before floods forced its members to move it up a hill where it stands today. As a result, I will not only have to deal with the building, but its surroundings as well. Whether or not I can accurately depict the clubhouse’s original surroundings is a question I am very eager to answer

Goals for next week

• Map out South Bay Yacht Club