Costas Papadopoulos from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is one of the project’s principal investigators. With a background in archaeology and 3D visualisation, he digitally reconstructs archaeological remains, including objects and buildings, and uses computer simulations to study how light has historically influenced human actions and experiences. 

His colleague and fellow principal investigator is Susan Schreibman, professor of Digital Arts and Culture. She has used 3D modelling to study the wildly differing estimates of the number of British casualties during the Battle of Mount Street Bridge, Dublin, in 1916. The reconstruction is painstakingly detailed and can rotate fully in every direction, providing researchers with many different vantage points. 

Multiple perspectives thanks to 3D modelling

Schreibman worked with ex-military personnel and historians. “We followed guided tours around the site in Dublin. Some of the scholars had been working on the battle for years; most existing accounts were biased by political sensibilities. Any narrative only ever explains one of the many things going on at the same time. The sense of 3D spatiality adds something that no amount of archive material can.” The 3D reconstruction also revealed how the street would have looked at the time, with much younger trees, no cars and different buildings. 

“These models are really useful in answering key questions because they give you many perspectives and can simulate various parameters,” Papadopoulos says. “It takes a lot of time and effort to create them. And yet, the journal that published the article based on this research doesn’t have the infrastructure to display it. The 3D model as a dynamic, interactive thing is lost to the public.” This is where PURE3D comes in—preserving such models and making them accessible for future reference and research. 

Preserving scholarship and cultural heritage

But PURE3D also has more to offer. “3D modelling isn’t yet appreciated as research output, but it has great scientific value and outreach potential,” Papadopoulos says. He mentions Recognition & Rewards, the national initiative for diversifying the factors used to evaluate academic performance. He and Schreibman hope the PURE3D platform will help 3D modelling to be valued just as much as more traditional formats. They are also working on a sister platform with mechanisms and workflows that would allow for peer reviewing of scholarly 3D models. 

Ultimately, PURE3D could be a key to the preservation of cultural heritage. A European Commission directive stipulates that all of Europe’s cultural heritage at risk of degradation or destruction be digitised by 2030, as well as 50% of the most frequently visited heritage monuments. This means creating digital ‘twins’ of objects and monuments using scanning and modelling technologies originally developed for other fields, such as medicine and engineering.