Ryan Achten

Virtual Recollection: Artifact Engagement in Three-Dimensional Environments (2015)

The Summer Scholarship project in 2015 with the National Library of New Zealand/Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa revealed that simply making 3D printers available in libraries does not ensure that they will be used in any meaningful way, nor does it necessarily enhance the library’s reason for being as a repository and archive.  Before any potential benefits can be realised, the 3D printer needs to be put into context, or empowered by new systems of making.

As a digital media design student, Ryan Achten brought a special perspective to this proposition. His thesis identifies an opportunity within cultural institutions to extend the practice of digital archiving by representing artefacts in 3D form and space. Current standard practice for digitisation is to scan or photograph items as two-dimensional digital representations. This is adequate for capturing written information and it has also become common for physical artefacts within library and museum collections. But in these instances, only a facet of an object can be represented and the utility of their form is lost altogether

In response, Ryan prototyped a web based interface called Vertice using the game engine Unity 3D. The software allows users to upload either ‘born’ digital objects (such as CAD files, code for gaming, video for animation) or surrogates of 3D objects produced through precision scanning and photogrammetry, for assimilation into a digital archive. By adopting a gaming engine as the software framework for this archive interface, unique forms of engagement are able to emerge, allowing users to inspect, browse, and curate three-dimensional media in ways previously precluded, either as a result of restricted access to the physical object itself or the limitations of the two-dimensional representation. It also opens up the narrative potential in artefacts and their surrounding environment, made possible through three-dimensional representation.