DRM and Archaeology
In several locations over the past couple of years I have encountered people clustered around a shiny gizmo with a lens mounted on a tripod and connected to a nearby laptop computer. Looking like a bulky theodelite (modern kind), the gizmo appears to move all by itself, rotating slowly on its tripod while the lens moves up and down in a regular pattern.
The device is, in fact, a laser scanner and the earnest techies are scanning the building with a beam of light that accurately records distances down to some amazing fraction of a millimetre. Having completed the scan from one position they then move the device to another location and proceed to do the same process all over again. The result is a series of 3D coordinates that, when worked on by expensive software, can recreate the object scanned with astonishing fidelity.
What is even more astonishing is the size of the objects being scanned. The last one I saw was the Erectheum on top of the Acropolis in Athens, but laser scanners mounted in aeroplanes are being used to scan earth works and hill forts, while statues and cathedrals are commonplace.
Astonishing though the scanning is, it is what can be done with the millions of coordinates that really takes the breath away. Clever software can not only combine it all to produce a 3D image that can be rotated, zoomed and otherwise manipulated, but other bits of software can combine the "cloud" of 3D coordinates with photographs of the site or object so that you get the actual look - as opposed to just the shape - of whatever it is. Wall paintings in cathedrals appear exactly where they should be, grain and striations in a marble statue are reproduced exactly in the 3D model, fields and forests can reclothe the models of the mountains on which they grow.
But that is only the start of it. If a corner has been broken off some artefact or the nose off a statue, a bit of clicking and dragging with the mouse and the software can recreate the missing object. Even better, you can drag the tip of the nose out and in, up and down, till you get the exact shape you want and plain, ugly Jane the serving girl can be turned into the goddess Aphrodite herself!
Then there is historical manipulation. Your cloud of data points may show the foundations of some building and the few fragments of wall which are all that remain, but a bit of tweaking and extrapolation and you can join the fragments of wall, stick in a few doors and windows, add in some architectural details copied from elsewhere on the site and recreate the building as closely as possible to its original appearance.
Or, by using other parts of the data, you can mimic what the building would have looked like at different stages of its construction, building the pillars, adding the arches, finally clothing the whole with curtain walls and hammer-beam ceilings. This isn't just Lego for adults: calculations of weights, stresses and strengths can give us insights into the problems faced by the builders and perhaps suggest reasons why the spire collapsed in 1326 - it was because the builders hadn't realised they needed another bit of scaffolding, perhaps.
However the things that you can do with your data are just the start: the interest comes in what you can do with someone else's data! A professor in America may have a theory he wants to test regarding the Erectheum, but cannot spare the time or the money to travel out to Greece. No problem; he just gets in touch with his colleagues in Athens and they e-mail him a file - a rather huge file, to be sure - and several hours later he is able to view the Erectheum in all its glory on his computer and zoom in on that detail in the corner of the porch that has been puzzling him.
At present museums come to painfully negotiated agreements to lend each other objects for special exhibitions - and then hold their collective breaths as the irreplaceable artefacts are carefully packed in foam-lined boxes, taken down to the airport under guard, and then flown half-way round the world. Meanwhile the insurance companies too are holding their breaths, for one of the major costs of such agreements is the insurance cover while the objects are in transit and on display.
Already it would be possible to send a data file and have the recipient museum stocked with computers that would allow the public to view the objects from all angles and in any desired degree of fidelity. With the growing popularity of 3D television and blockbuster movies such as "Avatar" it will soon be possible for the public to see the objects or buildings in 3D and possibly even walk around inside them - if they are big enough to allow that.
Laser scanning has become so prevalent that organisations such as Britain's "English Heritage", a government body responsible for castles, abbeys and other remains in England, has produced guidance papers which can be downloaded from their website. These papers will take the aspiring curator through the process of 3D data acquisition in a friendly step-by-step guide; if you are a curator of a museum or are considering offering technical advice to such a person, you might like to visit www.heritage3d.org for advice, case studies, and even a list of experts you can contact if the FAQ doesn't answer your questions.
All these things, wonderful as they are, do not take the technology to its limits, however. My son, a teacher of Design and Technology, has recently taken delivery of a new machine in his department. Considering what it does, it is remarkably cheap and he expects that the price will decrease as the machines become more common. Articles I have read in the technical press look forward to the day when one of these machines has a place in every home.
What is it? A printer.
Indeed, it is as simple a device as an ink-jet printer - and most of my readers will have one of those somewhere to hand. My first inkjet printer cost close to £400 and printed at 400 dots per inch in black; the last one I purchased (for my wife) cost £70, scans, photocopies and prints at close to 2,000 dpi in seven colours to produce the ultimate in photo-realism.
The only difference is that the printer my son has installed doesn't use ink. Instead it uses tiny droplets of melted plastic (if I have understood his description correctly) and in pass after pass it fires these droplets onto the target surface to build up a 3D object. His department uses it for making gears, art objects, and working models of anything the students can dream up. No more messing around with fretsaws, balsa wood and waiting for the glue to set; you design your object using a 3D CAD program, set the printer running and go away to do something more interesting (like hanging around on street corners with your friends and complaining that you are bored, then going out and smashing up a bus shelter to relieve the boredom - maybe there is something to be said for balsa wood and glue after all!)
I look forward to the day when museum shops - on or off line - stock lists of objects you can download and print off. Have you ever wanted to hold a groat of Edward I or a sesterius of Julius Caesar? Would you like the death mask of Tutankhamun exactly 3.7 inches high to fit that space in your display cabinet? Or how about a model of Stonehenge to a scale of 237,003:1 to form a holder for your wife's arrangement of water lilies and Japanese knotweed for the flower festival next month?
No more nail-biting waits as an aging jumbo jet takes off with the only head of Cerealis, bound for that special exhibition in Toronto: you simply send a DVD though the post and tell the curator in Toronto to print one for himself. The gawping Canadians see a perfect replica of dear old Cerealis and meanwhile the irreplaceable original is safe in your museum storeroom, because your own perfect replica is up on display in your own museum.
Even better, those mentally retarded individuals who never feel that they have "seen" something until they have run their sweaty palms all over it, or rubbed it hard to see if the 3,000 year old paint will come off, or picked at that bit with a fingernail to see if it is loose, can have a field day with no glass cases and no security guards. Who cares if the object on display gets damaged? The perfect replica replacement is already being printed off in the museum basement to go on display tomorrow. Do the Greeks want our Elgin Marbles? No problem, old boy; here's the data.
Could this ever happen? Technically, it can be done already (though the printers aren't as high resolution yet as they will doubtless be in the future, neither can they handle objects much bigger than a tennis ball). There are two big obstacles that will stand in the way of this utopian future.
The first is a lack of imagination. Museum curators and those responsible for heritage have never done anything like this before, ergo it cannot be done and probably shouldn't be done. Fortunately museum curators are not as long-lasting as the objects they curate and within twenty years, as the older generation retires and makes way for younger curators more in-tune with modern technology, that problem will naturally disappear.
The second is the more serious: copyright. Far too many museums view themselves as the owners of the objects in their collections rather than guardians of those objects, which belong to the people of the world - and those millions of owners should be helped to access the objects in whatever non-destructive way they want. Faced with the possibility of thousands or even millions of perfect replicas museum curators will not rejoice that the art they value is being placed in as many hands as possible; they will worry that no one will come to view their objects and buy admission tickets.
Actually, this is a genuine problem. If museums are to go on guarding their precious objects, they do have to have money. Although museums should make the objects in their collections freely available, free should mean permission, not cost. It is reasonable and fair that when you print off a perfect copy of Canova's "Three Graces", the Louvre should receive a fee to cover the cost of housing those exquisite damsels. Neither should you be allowed to sell your replica without giving a percentage to the museum.
Exactly how these issues will be solved is puzzling the best brains in Hollywood at this very moment, for reproducing movies digitally is now so simply and easy that even your two-year old - perhaps especially your two-year old - can do it and the movie moghuls are desperate to find a way to allow as many people as possible to watch their movie but at the same time to extract a fee from every watcher. DRM or "Digital Rights Management" is the buzzword in media circles at the moment and Microsoft is busy bringing out updates for their Media Player which, they tell you, offers you an enhanced viewing experience but which really subtly restricts your viewing in some way.
The future is interesting.
© Kendall K. Down 2010
