Atoms to Bits and back again

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There have been sessions at past THATCamps that have explored the use of 3D design to envision historical sites or perhaps to demonstrate relationships of words in a concordance or index. In those cases the examples in most cases were a transference of Atoms (papers, manuscripts, notes from conversations) to bits (program design, programming, data entry, user interfaces). For this session I would like to explore your ideas and mine about the impact of Making, Tinkering, Physical Innovation to create 3 Dimensional Objects in the Digital Humanities.

One quick example: 1) Analog — a historian discovers description, perhaps with an illustration of a piece of table ware or furniture. She notes that it has certain qualities that she’d like to explore more. This is where the project moves into 2) Digital space. The object is sketched, then rendered into a 3D representation. Then that file is may need to be translated into a format that can be used by a 3D printer. The object can be scaled down or up to fit the 3D printer that will be used to “print” the object. Once the object is “printed” it has returned to an 1) Analog object. Now the object can be closely observed to better understand those curious qualities. There are many variations on this theme. Let’s share some of them.

A true story. At the San Diego Super Computer Center at UC-San Diego there was a Laminated Object Modeling (LOM) lab. Their printer used thin paper layers pasted then cut with lasers. They created a small model of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains in the same scale. They were small, hand held objects. A ninth grade class on tour was shown the models and asked what did they learn from seeing these two objects. A young woman was the first to raise her hand. Her answer, “The Appalachians are older than the Rockies because they are worn down and smoother than the Rockies.” She was correct.

So, how could 3D tools and resources for Making or Tinkering be applied to ideas, questions, or the work in the Humanities you are doing?

7 Responses to Atoms to Bits and back again

  1. This is a really interesting proposal. Could this work (with or without 3D printing) to show how archaeological sites are found when first excavated since they will never be the same post-excavation? This would allow future historians to spatially re-analyze sites.

  2. Michelle,
    What a great idea. Too often we focus on the project and forget to document how we got from today to those artifacts or locatios of the past. I’m sure there are other similar examples. Jeremy’s Workshops will deal with physical; why dont we spend time exploring possibilities? And precedences, analogs, metaphors, and consequences.

  4. This past Saturday I attended aSmithsonian conference, “The Future is Here”. A paleontologist presented a talk about using 3D scanners and other data collectors in Chile. They had located remains of more than 40 fossilized whales, but only 30 days on site. They didn’t scan all, but were able to preserve them. Meanwhile the scanned one can be printed to scale from 100% to as small as 10% or less which are easier to schlepp around for talks and pitreach or research.

  5. We have talked about incorporating 3D printing at our museum, but haven’t done it. Like you mention, I question how one represents ideas like liberty and freedom in a physical object. It could make for some very creative programming, I imagine.