Final Project Assignment: Project Update

Progress Update:

• This far into the project, the main progress made has been laying the groundwork so the rest of the project can be completed efficiently. The necessary technology, conversations, and logistics such as group roles and how work will be divided have all been decided. We have gathered relevant basic information on most of the objects already, including date ranges, locations, and potential artists, and are in the process of gathering more information about the significance and historical context of the artifacts. This is especially so for the handful of artifacts that do not have any date ranges associated with them, and have a tentative classification as Greek. Last class, we met with Teresa, the Perlman museum representative working with us on the project to discuss the goals of the project and the expectations we have for each other. Through this conversation, we fleshed out more of the process of conducting our project in terms of how we will get the necessary photographs and what we can and can’t do with the artifacts while touching on how the result of the project can benefit the community. It was decided that the photographs we take and models we create through MetaShape will be made available to the museum for use in their online collections to fill in some of the missing images and possibly create a more interactive collection. Additionally, the design of the webpage we will host our final project on is practically complete, so we can now focus on gathering the pictures and creating the models to achieve our goal of modeling this collection. 

Problems (and proposed solutions)

• What issues have you run into?
  • Our main challenges so far have been a lack of information on some of the objects. For example, there are a couple in the collection of unknown origins, some without images depicting what they are, and still others that are missing important metadata that we will need to properly display the artifacts. We plan to communicate further with those at the Perlman to fill in any missing information using what they already know about the object from their research so we can create a more impactful digital collection.
  • We are also slightly behind the timeline we had originally planned, as we are not able to visit the Perlman to photograph the objects until Tuesday. Initially, we had hoped to have all our photography completed by the end of this week (week 8), but as this was not possible, we will just need to be slightly faster in the construction of the 3D models themselves. Given that the web base for our final project is largely already designed, this will also help with keeping on track for the remainder of the project. 
• Have they forced you to change your initial plan?
  • The initial plan has not changed but rather has gained a new goal in creating models and getting images that can be used to improve the Perlman’s existing digital collection, at least for the Greek section.
• Do you have a proposed solution or do you need help formulating one?
  • We do not anticipate our plan changing such that we need a new or altered approach to the project; we just have a clearer focus on what we want the project to achieve and how much time we have in which to accomplish that. 

Tools and techniques

• What applications/languages/frameworks have you selected and how are you going to implement them?
  • We are using metashape to create models, and a custom HTML/BootStrap site to host the final project.
  • To photograph the objects, we will use a Canon RebelT7 ​​camera and a lighting set up, the latter of which is provided by the Perlman Museum. 

Deliverables

• An updated timeline of deliverables
  • All of our photos will be taken by the Tuesday of week 9 (¾) and we can start the modeling process as soon as that day. 
• Is your project still on track?
  • The project timeline has had to be shifted quite significantly, however, it is still very doable in the remaining timeframe. As we will be able to take all our photographs in one session, we hope to be able to stick to the rest of the timeline we had originally planned (completed by the end of 9th week: all 3D models of objects; completed by March 10: draft of web page hosting the models, metadata, and context; completed by March 18: final version of the project)

Remember to include citations and/or links to any resources, tools, or information that you reference.

Personal messages:

Each team member should add a brief message outlining your personal work on the project, referencing the roles decided in the team charter.

Simon: So far the main way I’ve contributed to the project has been through publishing the collaborative blogs for the group. Other than that, I’ve been helping here and there with proofreading and helping write deliverables. We haven’t been able to begin taking pictures yet, but once we do, that will be my main focus.

Joella: My primary work thus far on our project has been gathering information on the artifacts that we will be working with, particularly for the source documentation project. I have also helped write the Team Charter, and done some communicative work with staff at the Perlman. My main focus and contribution for the project will be some contextual research on the artifacts and creating models, which I will be able to begin in earnest next week as we photograph the objects.

Conrado: Along with proofreading and discussing how the pictures will be attained through my camera and how we could set it up, my main contribution has been the design of the website, I created a functioning Figma Prototype for the preliminary design of the website, that way we can all as a team explore it and see if we would like to make any changes. At the moment I am exploring options for a bootstrap template that we could use for this and plan on implementing it by thursday at the latest.

Sam: I primarily have been concerned with doing some of the preliminary historical research on the objects. I started with an object titled “Untitled, Ewer” and have narrowed it down to a time period and perhaps an individual workshop. It is an Attic Black Figure Lekythos potentially from the workshop of a vase painter called the “Beldam Painter”. I also was looking at a shallow bowl that ended up being quite confusing. The pattern looks like it belongs to a certain period but the shape of the vessel is really odd for Greece in general, so I’m still digging on that one. The other objects have a bit more context with them, so I anticipate an easier time with those objects.