Digital Visualisation Laboratory

About

Our Digital Visualisation Lab supports research, teaching, and commercial activities with a broad variety of digital methods and techniques within the Department of Archaeology, across Durham University, and externally. Our facilities enhance the teaching and learning experience of our students, offering them opportunities for practical experience using specialist equipment and software. They promote interdisciplinary research and reinforce the collaborative and international profiles of our archaeological research. Our facilities also support commercial activities, including consultancies, for heritage-related work, including conservation and interpretation.

We also offer digital archaeological services led by our experienced staff. This includes rapid 3D scanning and reconstruction at different resolutions of artefacts, buildings and landscapes, and tailor-made training courses. 

Some of our recent commercial work includes:

• 4D scan (high submillimetric resolution) of the Norman Chapel of Durham Castle, Durham World Heritage Site
• 3D scan (laser scanning, photogrammetry and drones) of the interior and exterior of the St Mary the Less chapel, on the Bailey at the Durham World Heritage Site

St Mary the Less chapel scan. Author: Alexander Jansen

• RTI training courses (tailored, 1-full day) for the School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester, UK, and ERA Arqueología, Lisbon, Portugal

RTI workshop at ERA Arqueología. Photo: Katina Lillios

Projects

The Digital Visualisation Lab supports a wide range of national and international projects with 3D scanning technologies working at multiple scales, from minute artefacts to monuments and rock art, buildings and landscapes. Projects also use our RTI and multispectral drone survey support (including infrared).

Projects include:

• 'Belief in the North-East' (National Lottery Heritage Fund). PI: David Petts.
  
  • At Blanchland Abbey, we made an HD 3D scan of the organ (Sketchfab). In Mitford church, we recorded and 3D scanned old graffiti, to trace back potentially living relatives of soldiers that never returned after being send off to fight in WWII.
• 'Lindisfarne: The search for the heart of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria' (2016-2026). PIs: David Petts and DigVentures. 
  • We conducted a multispectral NDVI drone survey of part of the island, using a drone with 6 cameras, each tuned to a different wavelength of light (including infrared). This allows us to calculate vegetation health, allowing for the detection of crop marks that cannot be seen with the naked eye (or normal ‘visible light’ RGB cameras), in order to gain a better understanding of the landscape of Lindisfarne in the past, and to detect underground architectural remains.
  •  A digitisation project of Lindisfarne sculpture, funded by DU Impact seedcorn funding, was conducted by DigVentures and in collaboration with English Heritage 'Etched in Stone' - a large-scale digitisation of Lindisfarne sculpture.

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of Lindisfarne. Author: Alexander Jansen.

• 'Auckland Castle'. PI: Chris Gerrard.
  • At Auckland Castle, we conducted numerous drone surveys of various archaeological trenches over the years, to record the progress, and to allow us to digitally re-excavate the trenches through their digital twins, even after the real-life trenches were closed up. In the deer park, we conducted a full laser scan of the recently discovered underground ice cellar. At Bishop Auckland, we worked with school children and drones for The Big Dig project.
• 'Digital Technologies, Acheulean Handaxes and the social landscapes of the Lower Palaeolithic' (AHRC, 2023-2026). PI: Prof. Mark White.
  • View 3D model: Structured light scan of a Palaeolithic flint handaxe discovered in the United Kingdom in 1975 (Sketchfab)
• 'The Street Museum' (Museum’s Association / UKRI Digital Innovation and Engagement Fund). Co-PI: Kamal Badreshany. Through a series of workshops, a group of community curators worked with Durham University staff and East Durham Creates to select objects from the Oriental Museum, Museum of Archaeology and Durham Castle which helped to tell the village of Blackhall’s, East Durham, unique story. The chosen objects were scanned and using innovative technology; 3D prints were produced which were then displayed in people’s living room windows, and in local businesses and community centres around the village, forming a unique Street Museum for one week over Easter 2022. Find out more about the objects printed here.
• 'Rock Art, Words and Warriors (RAW) - Hällristningar och maritim interaktion i Atlantiska Europa' (Swedish Research Council, 2019-2023). Co-PI: Marta Díaz-Guardamino.
  • View 3D model: Image-based 3D model of the Castelões #2 Late Bronze Age warrior stela, Chaves, North Portugal (Sketchfab)
• 'Risk and resilience: exploring historic responses to earthquakes in Europe: 1200-1755' (Leverhulme Trust). PI: Chris Gerrard. 
• 'Sabratha Heritage Protection' (Gerda Henkel Stiftung). PI: Anna Leone. 

Key publications

• Díaz-Guardamino, M. (in press) Gender in Digital Archaeology in Europe and North America. In Matić et al. (eds.). Current Archaeological Debates from the Perspective of Gender Archaeology. New York: Springer.
• Díaz-Guardamino, M. (2023). Rock art technology, Reflectance Transformation Imaging and experimental archaeology: recent research on Iberian Late Bronze Age warrior stelae. Complutum, 34(Especial), 145-162.
• Díaz-Guardamino, M., & Morgan, C. (2019). Human, Transhuman, Posthuman Digital Archaeologies: An Introduction. European Journal of Archaeology, 22(3), 320-323.
• Forlin, P., Valente, R., & Kázmér, M. (2018). Assessing earthquake effects on archaeological sites using photogrammetry and 3D model analysis. Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, 9, e00073. 
• Garcia-Molsosa, A., Orengo, H. A., Lawrence, D., Philip, G., Hopper, K., & Petrie, C. (2021). Potential of deep learning segmentation for the extraction of archaeological features from historical map series. Archaeological Prospection, 28(2), 187-199.
• Gaudio D., Di Giancamillo M., Gibelli D., Galassi A., Cattaneo C. (2013) Does Cone Beam CT actually ameliorate stab wound analysis in bone? International Journal of Legal Medicine, 128(1):151-9.
• Geyer, B., Braemer, F, Davtian, G & Philip, G. (2019) A geo-archaeological approach to the study of hydro-agricultural systems in arid areas of Western Syria. Journal of Arid Environments 163: 99-113.
• Göttlich, F., Schmitt, A., Kilian, A., Gries, H. and Badreshany, K. (2021) A New Method for the Large-Scale Documentation of Pottery Sherds Through Simultaneous Multiple 3D Model Capture Using Structure from Motion: Phoenician Carinated-Shoulder Amphorae from Tell el-Burak (Lebanon) as a Case Study. Open Archaeology, 7(1): 256-272.
• Jansen, A.C. (2020). Revisiting old data with new techniques: A re-evaluation of insulae V ii and IV ii in Ostia through the eyes of space syntax. In H. Kamermans, & L. van der Meer (Eds.), Designating Place: Archaeological Perspectives on Built Environments in Ostia and Pompeii (135-152). Leiden University Press.
• Lawrence, D., Altaweel, M., & Philip, G. (Eds.). (2020). New Agendas in Remote Sensing and Landscape Archaeology in the Near East: Studies in Honour of Tony J. Wilkinson. Oxford: Archaeopress.
• Papadopoulos, C., Hamilakis, Y., Kyparissi-Apostolika, N., & Díaz-Guardamino, M. (2019). Digital Sensoriality: The Neolithic Figurines from Koutroulou Magoula, Greece. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 29(4), 625-652. 
• Rayne, L., Bradbury, J. Mattingly, D M, Philip, G., Bewley, R & Wilson, A. (2017) From Above and on the Ground: Geospatial Methods for Recording Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa. Geosciences 7(4), 100.
• Villa C., Gaudio D., Cattaneo C., Buckberry J., Wilson A.S., Lynnerup N. (2015) Surface curvature of pelvic joints from three laser scanners: separating anatomy from measurement error. Journal of Forensic Science, 60(2):374-81.
• White, M. (2023) A Global History of the Earlier Palaeolithic: Assembling the Acheulean World, 1673-2020s. Routledge.
• Winterbottom, T., Leone, A. & Al Moubayed, N. (2022) A deep learning approach to fight illicit trafficking of antiquities using artefact instance classification. Scientific Reports, 12, 13468. 

Teaching

The lab is also connected to our teaching, modules, and regular support to research in teaching.

Modules

• 'Digital Visualisation: Applications for the Study of Prehistoric Art' (ARCH2221_2022 Advanced Skills in Archaeology).
• '3D Imaging' (ARCH42315_2022, Practical Research and Study Skills).
• ARCH43115, 'Data Science Applications in Archaeology and Heritage'.

Photo: Alexander Jansen

Example of Undergraduate Dissertation

• "Methods for interpreting the production of Iberian Late Bronze Age Stelae with particular reference to the stela of Bodonal de la Sierra and the Stela of Cañaveral de Léon: An examination of the intersection of creativity, experimental archaeology, and digital technology", by Amelia Holden. Supervisor: Marta Díaz-Guardamino.

Examples of Postgraduate (Taught) Dissertations

• "3D Optical Profilometer: A new tool for analyzing peri-mortem trauma and post-mortem breakage", by Eloise Potter. Supervisors: Daniel Gaudio and Marta Díaz-Guardamino.

3-D Topographic Map of a post-mortem fracture on a femur. Image: Eloise Potter, 2022.

• "Digital Archaeology as a Tool of Engaging Public with Local Heritage: A Case Study of the Hero-Stones in Maharashtra", by Manasi Patil. Supervisor: Marta Díaz-Guardamino.
• "Beyond the Cutting Edge: A comparative study of imaging techniques on Romano-British decapitation", by Euan Johns. Supervisors: Daniel Gaudio and Kori Lea Filípek
• "Fingerprints on medieval cockspurs: An interdisciplinary approach to fingerprint analysis". Supervisor: Daniel Gaudio.
• "Can Virtual spaces create engaging visitor experiences? An analytical approach". Supervisor: Mary Brooks.

PhD Dissertations

• 2023, “Embodied Markings: Defining the embodied, liminal, and sensory character of the earliest Palaeolithic cave markings”, by Barbara Oosterwijk, supervised by Paul Pettitt, with the application of 3D modelling and decorrelation stretch.

El Castillo cave, small disks on drapery, Pilar Elefante. 3D model created with decorrelated images. Author: Barbara Oosterwijk.

• 2022, “The Origins of Visual Culture? Psychological Foundations of Upper Palaeolithic Figurative Cave Art in Northern Spain”, by Izzy Wisher, supervised by Paul Pettitt, with the application of 3D modelling and VR.

Other activities

Workshops

• Community archaeology 3D scanning workshops by Alexander Jansen ('Belief in the North-East' project)
• RTI Workshop by Marta Díaz-Guardamino (MaVis RIG)
• Photography workshops by Alexander Jansen (for staff and PDRA)
• Photogrammetry workshops by Alexander Jansen (for staff and PDRA)

Sessions organised at conferences

• CAA 2023 Amsterdam session 43: 'Synergies in 3D Spatial Analysis', by Alexander Jansen
• CAA 2022 Oxford session 18: 'Exploring further the possibilities of 3D Spatial Analysis', by Alexander Jansen
• CAA 2021 Cyprus session 25: 'Exploring the possibilities of 3D Spatial Analysis', by Alexander Jansen
• EAA 2018, Barcelona, 'Human, Posthuman, Transhuman Digital Archaeologies', by Marta Diaz-Guardamino, Colleen Morgan, and Catherine Frieman

Digital Collections

• Durham Archaeology - Skeletal Elements (Sketchfab)
• Durham University - Department of Archaeology (Sketchfab)
• Alexander C.Q. Jansen (Sketchfab)
• Marta Diaz-Guardamino (Sketchfab)
• Etched in Stone - Lindisfarne Sculpture

Collections of student projects

• Advanced Skills (Sketchfab)
• Blanchland Abbey (Sketchfab)
• PRSS 2022/23 (Sketchfab)
• Other years (selection) (Sketchfab)

For further enquiries contact: archaeology.digvislab@durham.ac.uk