TOC | What CHI Does | The Big Picture | Mission | Contact | Bios | Acknowledgements

Bios

Mark Mudge, President & Board Member


Technology Innovation:

Mark’s recent work involves improving the ease of adoption of digital imaging techniques by cultural heritage professionals, trustworthiness of “born digital” images, the semantic richness of metadata records about digital representations, and easing the burdens of sustainable, long term digital archiving. His efforts focus on the ease of use, cost effectiveness, and self-documentation of digital imaging techniques through new equipment designs and methodology enhancements.

Mark has worked on structured light three-dimensional (3D) scanning technology with engineers from Eyetronics NV and they have licensed his design for a lightweight, fiber optic-structured light projector for 3D scanning. In an ongoing collaboration with senior researchers at Hewlett Packard Laboratories (HP Labs), Mark is developing both new cultural heritage applications for interactively relighted reflection transformation imaging (RTI) images and methods to integrate these images with acquired 3D geometry. In 2004, he designed a low cost, easily transportable RTI acquisition system. In 2005, with the generous assistance of Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) volunteers, he designed the world’s first automatic, fiber optically illuminated, RTI acquisition device, that works well on light-sensitive materials.

In 2006, Mark, in collaboration with Tom Malzbender of HP Labs, invented a simple, inexpensive, easy to learn, method of capturing RTI images of large subjects and small subjects. This new method was first used to document Paleolithic petroglyphs (rock art) at the Côa Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site in Portugal. Research to improve the documentary power of this technique is ongoing.


Archaeological Documentation:

Under the direction of Dr. Patrick Hunt, Mark explored new fieldwork imaging techniques at the Stanford University Alpine Archaeology Project’s ongoing excavations of a first century Roman site at the Grand St. Bernard Pass on the Swiss-Italian border. From 2000 to 2005, he has documented five Alpine Archaeology excavation seasons using digital photography, structured-light 3D scanning, immersive panoramic environments, and object movies.

In 2005, Mark produced the first archaeological RTI data ever acquired on site during an active excavation. In 2006, Mark documented the first rock art using the highlight RTI process. This documentation was done in cooperation with Portuguese Ministry of Culture agencies — Parque Arqueologico do Vale do Côa (PAVC) and Centro Nacional de Arte Rupestre (CNART).

In collaboration with Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Archaeologist Mike Bies, the Wyoming State Parks, and US government researchers Neffra Matthews and Tom Noble from the Branch of Resource Technology, BLM National Science and Technology Center, Mark documented Native American petroglyphs from the Legend Rock State Park site. Mark also captured the first RTI documentation of gilded Byzantine mosaics from the 6th century apse of 'The Church of Our Lady Angeloktisti" at Kiti, Larnaka, Cyprus.


Experience in the Fine Arts and Computer Graphics:

Mark has extensive fine arts experience with an emphasis on sculpture and bronze casting techniques. He is also experienced with other sculptural modeling and fabrication methods as well as a full range of traditional painting and drawing media.

As computer representation of 3D objects matured in the late 1980s, he was among the first artists to explore both laser scanning and the use of digital modeling techniques to aid in the composition, fabrication, and digital representation of sculpture. Mark began using 3D modeling software and laser scanned his first sculpture in 1988. In 1990, he became a certified operator of Cyberware laser scanning systems and has subsequently scanned more than a thousand subjects.

In 1992, Mark established Aesthetic Engineering, a sole proprietorship dedicated to laser scanning and computer modeling of advanced non-uniform rational B-splines (NURBS) topologies with a specialization in building computer models of human forms and geometries to optimize facial animation. In 1994, Mark taught a ground-breaking seminar on the use of computer modeling and laser scanning in the composition of sculpture at the 15th International Sculpture Conference.

Mark taught advanced computer graphic modeling and animation techniques from 1993 to 2001 to more than 800 students in the San Francisco Bay area at both the Academy of Art University and the Expression Center for New Media. His classes focused on the design and construction of complex organic, NURBs-based, parametric surface models.


Education:

B.A., Philosophy, New College of Florida, 1979.
Thesis: “Nietzsche on Art and Interpretation.”


Professional Committee Membership:

	Member: International Council of Museum's (ICOM) Documentation Committee (CIDOC). Role: Active in applying the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM), International Standards Organization (ISO) standard 21127, to improve the trustworthiness of cultural heritage digital representations.
	Member: Recording, Documentation and Information Management (RecorDIM) Task Group 16, sponsored by the Getty Conservation Institute and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). Role: Review standards, codes of practice, and working practices relevant to the field of heritage documentation.

Journal Reviews and International Program Committee Activities:

	Peer Review: IEEE Journal of Computer Graphics and Applications, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
	Eurographics Conference Track on Cultural Heritage, Prague, Czech Republic, 2007.
	The New Heritage Conference, Hong Kong, China, 2006. Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Conference, Fargo, ND, 2006.
	Co-chair: International Program Committee, International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology, and Cultural Heritage (VAST) 2005 Conference, Pisa, Italy The VAST conference is a leading forum for the discussion of virtual reality, archaeology, and cultural heritage research.

Papers and Presentations:

	“New Reflection Transformation Imaging Methods for Rock Art and Multiple Viewpoint Display,” presented at the ICOMOS International Committee for Architectural Photogrammetry (CIPA)/VAST 2006 Conference, Nicosia, Cyprus (October 2006). (more...)
	“3D Data Acquisition with Reflection Transformation Imaging,” presented at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) 2006 Conference, Fargo, ND(April 2006). (more ...)
	“Archiving Technology: Sacred and Profane Treasures of the Alps,” Stanford Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) Lecture Series, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA (March 2006).
	“Reflection Transformation Imaging and Virtual Representations of Coins from the Hospice of the Grand St. Bernard,” presented at VAST 2005, Pisa, Italy (November 2005). (more ..)
	“Documenting the Past in the Digital Age: New Ways to Record and Share Our Cultural Legacy,”  Stanford Chapter of the AIA Lecture Series, Palo Alto, CA (April 2005).
	“From Gutenberg to Galaxy: Accessing Cultural Assets Online," Odysseys in Technology series, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA (February 2005). (more ...)
	“Cultural Heritage and Computer Graphics: What are the Issues?” Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH) 2004 conference (August 2004). (more ...)
	Co-producer, multimedia digital presentation, AIA national meeting. Presented by Dr. Patrick Hunt, Director, Stanford Alpine Archeology Project, Stanford University. Presentation showcased CHI’s digital documentation of Dr. Hunt’s excavation of a first-century Roman site at the Grand St. Bernard Pass, Switzerland (January 2004).

<<<back to Bios