3D visualisations and walkthroughs

The videos below show fly-throughs of the point cloud data captured at Rothwell. The first video shows the result of turning the point cloud data into a solid surface mesh. The second video shows a fly-through of a simplified version of the point cloud data itself.

Learn more about the data capture process

Challenges

The 3D fly-through of the model reveals some of the challenges we faced when creating the 3D ossuary. A difficult data capture process, given the working space and lighting conditions, led to noisy data that is difficult to produce a surface mesh from. The following issues are visible.

Gaps

The 3D scanner can only collect spatial data from surfaces directly in its line of sight. The complex surface of the stacks of bones and the location of the shelves and wooden supports for the stacks all interfered with our ability to generate a complete set of data. Even though we scanned in seventeen different locations, and then merged the resulting data sets, the sheer complexity of the space meant that our model still has gaps.

Shiny surfaces

In the second half of the video (around time 0:53) the camera pans past the south-easternmost set of shelves, stacked with crania. These skulls have rendered very poorly as they are currently inside plastic bags. The shiny surface of the plastic not only prevented the scanner from visualising the bones within, it reflected the laser causing confusing spatial data.

Artificially-smoothed details

The crania on the shelves lining the charnel chapel are not perfectly produced. The scanner we used is designed for large spaces, therefore while it was able to gather a good level of detail of the room it was not possible to capture the details of the skulls at the same time. This means the crania appear oversimplified and artificially smoothed or blended into the surrounding surfaces or each other.