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Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) accomplished much in 2009 to lay the groundwork for a stellar 2010. CHI received prestigious grants, trained many cultural heritage specialists in advanced imaging techniques, and gained support from enthusiastic individuals in the greater heritage community. In 2010, CHI hopes to build on our support and accomplishments with your continuing assistance.

Training & Sharing Knowledge
In 2009, more than 50 conservators, photographers, archaeologists, and other heritage professionals graduated from CHI's reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) workshops and four-day classes. Visit CHI's class schedule on the web to see what's in store for 2010.

Papers Published in 2009
CHI staff delivered important papers at cultural heritage conferences that are now available on the web site.

For the 10th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology, and Cultural Heritage (VAST), CHI president Mark Mudge co-authored the paper, "Illuminating the Past -- State of the Art." 
 
At the Computer Applications in Archaeology (CAA) conference, CHI staff and collaborators presented "Grass-Roots Imaging: A case-study in sustainable heritage imaging at Chersonesos, Ukraine." Review presentation slides and remarks for this paper in CHI's web archive, too.
 
Visit CHI's Events page for updates on CHI's participation in conferences and papers in 2010. 
 
Foundation Grant Support
CHI had a successful year for winning grants with three awards from great foundations and plans to seek additional funding in 2010.

CHI won a grant from the National Park Service's National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) to work with the Smithsonian, the Presidio of San Francisco's Archaeology Program, universities, and government agencies to develop content for "A Comprehensive Training Program For 3D Digital Rock Art Documentation And Preservation."   
 
CHI also received support from The Unbroken Chain Foundation. Unbroken Chain is contributing to CHI's work on the NCPTT project to develop multimedia training content for digital rock art programs. For more information, visit the NCPTT page.
 
The Samuel H. Kress Foundation awarded CHI a $25,000 grant for a pilot project, "Reflectance Transformation Imaging Conservation School Pilot Program" CHI is working with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) to create innovative multimedia content for a digital conservation training program. 
 
Moving Forward In 2010
The CHI team is working hard to complete grant-funded projects and find additional sources of support for new projects. CHI staff documented the NCPTT rock art workshop and other training materials and CHI is completing multimedia content for this grant-funded program.

For the Kress Foundation project, CHI has created storyboards for videos that will include content on determining the value of using Reflectance Transformation Imaging in conservation and FAMSF staff selected several objects to analyze. The story of how the conservators analyze the resulting RTIs of the objects will appear in the new videos. 
 
CHI is also applying for more grants to fund research and development in key research areas. These research initiatives include a Collaborative Algorithmic Rendering Engine (CARE) to digitally document and illustrate material culture and Project Reveal, which will improve CHI's existing technology toolkit with more robust user interfaces and data-management capabilities.
 
We hope you will join CHI by contributing to these exciting programs to save humanity's history. Your support in 2009 helped CHI accomplish so much and we look forward to your support and feedback in 2010. Please visit our Support page and make a donation to move digital cultural heritage forward in 2010. 
 
Cultural Heritage Imaging is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) company. Donations are tax-deductible.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

As 2009 draws to a close, Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) is launching new projects and completing other goals to ensure that 2010 is a noteworthy heritage year. The CHI team looks forward to continued collaboration with you and our other research and support partners.

Heritage Campaign Update
The fundraising campaign we introduced in our November e-newsletter is making progress towards building momentum for CHI’s cultural heritage programs. As promised, we have new assets on our web site, blog, and social media contributed by CHI team members and supporters. We hope you can visit these links soon to share some of the joy we have experienced this year while discovering and promoting ways to digitally preserve our cultural heritage.

Donor Gets Deeply Involved. The latest CHI blog entry comes from a loyal CHI donor who has expanded her contributions by donating her valuable technical skills to the CHI cause. Read about what CHI means to a dedicated specialist who has achieved much in her field.

Excitement On Location. A new CHI Flickr photostream conveys the thrill of working with CHI tools and techniques to digitally document ancient Egyptian treasures at a beloved San Francisco institution. Catch a glimpse behind the scenes with CHI researchers and collaborators.

Inspiring Grant Awards From Great Foundations
CHI received fantastic news from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation -- a $25,000 grant for a pilot project, “RTI Conservation School Pilot Program.” CHI staff will work with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) to create innovative multimedia techniques and content that could help museums with digital conservation projects.

CHI and FAMSF staff will use advanced reflection transformation imaging (RTI) tools and techniques to digitally document and analyze objects in the museums’ collections and create innovative multimedia training content. Visit the Kress grant page for updates and more information.

The Unbroken Chain Foundation is also supporting CHI’s work with a $5,000 grant to help fund programs to develop multimedia training content for digital rock art documentation and preservation. For details, go to the NCPTT page.

Best Wishes For 2010
The CHI team extends warm wishes to you for a wonderful new year. We feel like we have already laid the groundwork for a productive and stimulating 12 months. We hope you will join us for another cycle of innovation, inspiration, and dedication as we continue our work to help save humanity’s heritage. Please visit our Support page and make a donation to give digital cultural heritage a head start for 2010.

Cultural Heritage Imaging is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) company. Donations are tax deductible.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) has launched a campaign to raise funds to build on the momentum we have created in archaeological and heritage communities to use technology tools to document and preserve our precious cultural legacies worldwide.

In this newsletter, we point you to assets on our web site and blog that exemplify what we do and why our actions have helped organizations document and preserve cultural heritage resources in fantastic new ways.

During our campaign, we plan to post blog updates from donors, CHI team members, and CHI workshop participants who will share what CHI means to them and why CHI deserves your support. Please visit CHI's blog for the first installment from a CHI team member who worked with a beloved San Francisco institution to digitally document items in the collection.

The CHI team hopes these stories inspire you to visit our Support page and make a donation before the end of 2009.


Making a Difference Around the World

The CHI team is proud of the workshop we conducted at a major archaeological site in the Ukraine at the National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos. CHI shared tools and technologies with researchers, government agencies, restoration experts, and students.

The knowledge CHI conveyed to a multidisciplinary, international group of heritage specialists got them started on their own short- and long-term projects to document ancient treasures and create interactive digital media to share globally over the Internet.


The Ripple Effect

As CHI shares tools and technologies through workshops and other methods with more and more organizations and individuals, the number of digital heritage projects emerging from these collaborative efforts continues to grow. 

In addition to our workshops, CHI develops and refines the technology needed to create interactive digital media for cultural heritage documentation and preservation efforts. Our methods are now applied in many types of heritage projects, including rock art, field work, museum conservation, and more. The ever-widening circles of people collaborating with us help disseminate our techniques to even more audiences across the planet. 

View some beautiful examples of what CHI has accomplished in a recent Flickr gallery and blog posting about ancient French cave paintings digitally preserved in interactive media created with CHI's techniques.

Blasts From the Past

In previous fundraising cycles, your generous donations, along with volunteer efforts, have helped save history in many ways, including:

• Paying for the development of the workshops and training materials CHI uses to teach people revolutionary digital imaging and conservation techniques
• Funding software development so that CHI can help people learn how to process and view data sets that enable the viewing of very fine surface details on objects
• Contributing to the development and refinement of the methodologies the CHI team needs to capture and process advanced digital cultural heritage media and show others how to do so
• Fostering CHI's abilities to create innovative documentation and other resources that help people adopt the technology for their own use.

Step Up to the CHI Challenge

The CHI team and our collaborators have done some amazing things and there is so much more we can do. We need your help to move our projects forward and bring our methods to more cultural heritage groups and sites. Please show us you agree with a donation before 2009 draws to a close. Happy holidays from everyone at CHI.

Cultural Heritage Imaging is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) company. Donations are tax deductible.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

As the holidays approach, the team at Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) pauses to reflect on threatened cultural heritage monuments of the world and new technology for digital conservation that could help these structures and other priceless heritage treasures.  We hope you have time for reflection, too, and that you are inspired to support our work.

Threatened World Monuments

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) recently issued a press release outlining the world's most threatened monuments. The 2010 WMF Watch List includes 93 sites in 47 countries, including nine in the US.

Preserving Paleolithic Material for Future Generations

CHI's co-founders, Carla Schroer and Mark Mudge, traveled to the south of France to shoot RTIs and Photogrammetry of paleolithic cave art and engraved plaquettes that are approximately 12,000 – 14,000 years old.  Time, weather conditions, and graffeti are contributing to the erosion of the cave art. Digital photography techniques like RTI or Photogrammetry might be solutions to preserve the art. Read more about this project at the CHI blog and visit the CHI Flickr collection.

Report From Malta

The CHI team had a big presence at the 10th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology, and Cultural Heritage (VAST) on Malta. CHI president Mark Mudge co-authored "Illuminating the Past -- State of the Art" -- a paper presented at VAST 2009 .
CHI collaborator Michael Ashley co-authored a paper, "Last House on the Hill: Digitally Remediating Data and Media for Preservation and Access," that won the best paper award at VAST.

Visit CHI's blog for postings on the latest equipment suitable for creating interactive cultural heritage media. Read about the new Einstein lighting gear and dream about putting together an awesome digital imaging kit for cultural heritage work.

Please consider supporting CHI and efforts to save humanity“s history with digital preservation techniques. Every donation helps CHI programs dedicated to sharing and documenting cultural heritage knowledge for the future. Visit the Support Us page at www.c-h-i.org to make a donation.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) shares exciting technology developments in this e-newsletter.

Heroes Wanted
UNEP has created the Champions of the Earth Laureates Program to recognize the extraordinary efforts made by dedicated researchers and activists to increase environmental protection and awareness.

CHI has been inspired by the UNEP program to create a Heritage Heroes initiative that appreciates people in the heritage community who have advanced the field in so many ways. UNEP recognition categories include science and innovation, policy, inspiration and action, and entrepreneurial vision. The CHI team can think of numerous cultural heritage workers who deserve recognition in each of these areas and in other categories, too.

However, for our first nominee, we have selected someone who has really led the way in promoting digital techniques to document and preserve cultural heritage. Visit our blog at culturalheritageimaging.wordpress.com to see who the lucky winner is, and add some nominations of your own.

Digital Imaging Workshops
Smithsonian Studies With CHI. Staff at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) Cultural Resources Center (CRC) are now graduates of CHI’s four-day digital imaging workshop, “Reflectance Transformation Imaging: Generating Digital Representations of Cultural Heritage Objects.”

During a four-day training period in June, 14 CRC participants developed interactive, three-dimensional images of fossils, qeros (Andean engraved and inlaid wooden drinking vessels), stone Mayan and Aztec bas relief panels, Olmec and Mayan jade, and ancient copper hair pieces. The NMAI participants had kind words for the workshop -- "amazing technology," "great hands-on training," and "very informative."

Digital Imaging Scholars Welcome. Discover what fascinated the Smithsonian yourself by attending “Reflectance Transformation Imaging: Generating Digital Representations of Cultural Heritage Objects” on July 14-17, August 31-September 3, or October 26-29, 2009. Offered at CHI’s headquarters near downtown San Francisco, these workshops show you all you need to know to handle digital conservation and preservation projects on your own.

If your current schedule or workload does not allow you to take one of these great courses, consider underwriting a scholarship to send a student or fledgling cultural heritage researcher to the class in your place. Find out more about how you can contribute by contacting CHI through the Support page.

Sign Up Now. Take a Workshop. Learn.

CHI's Latest Blog & Flickr Highlights
Blogologists. CHI’s development director Michael Ashley recently posted a lively account of his journey to the Arqueologica 2.0 conference in Spain, the first international congress on virtual archaeology and informatics. Another recent post about CHI collaborator Tom Malzbender and the magic he makes at Hewlett Packard Labs is also ready for your review.

Visit CHI’s blog for the latest updates from the CHI Team about on conferences, training sessions, heritage heroes, and more. Add your own comments to blog entries and tell CHI and the cultural heritage world how you feel about the state of cultural heritage.

Refreshing Flickr Stream. CHI’s Flickr photostream has been updated with amazing images from a CHI expedition to the Presidio of San Francisco. CHI created interactive 3D images of the stone pillars at the Presidio’s massive Arguello Gate, proving that size doesn’t matter when applying digital conservation technique.

Back to the Future. The CHI team returns to the Presidio in July to conduct a workshop funded in part by the National Park Service’s National Center For Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT). The NCPTT project brings together CHI and collaborators to develop “A Comprehensive Training Program For 3D Digital Rock Art Documentation and Preservation.”

Through this program, CHI and groups such as the NMAI, universities, and other agencies share digital cultural heritage techniques with a workshop, video podcasts, do-it-yourself guides, and web-based materials. Stay tuned for the full report on this groundbreaking project.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Please join Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) in celebrating National Preservation Month this May. The National Trust for Historic Preservation selected “This Place Matters” as the theme for the 2009 preservation month. Visit the trust’s preservation month page for more stories and inspiration.

The CHI team has discovered many places that matter all over the US and the world. CHI wants to show everybody how to digitally preserve the places and objects that matter on our planet and share information about these treasured cultural resources so others will understand why they matter so much and why we need to save them.

Blogging With CHI
Visit CHI’s blog for the latest updates on conferences, training sessions, opinions, places that matter, and more. You can post comments about blog entries and let the CHI community know what’s on your mind: culturalheritageimaging.wordpress.com

Other places where you can broadcast your opinions in an interactive online kind of way are on CHI’s Flickr photostream and YouTube pages.

The CHI team would also love it if you added a link to us on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other places where you have an online presence. Visit our home page and other pages on our site to quickly and conveniently add us to your favorite online places with our Bookmark & Share button: www.c-h-i.org


Digital Imaging Workshops
You still have time in 2009 to take an affordable digital imaging workshop with CHI. Here are the upcoming dates for the half-day “Digital Imaging Techniques for Conservation & Education” session: July 1, August 27, and October 15, 2009.

Also available is the four-day intensive, “Reflectance Transformation Imaging: Generating Digital Representations of Cultural Heritage Objects” on July 14-17, August 31-September 3, or October 26-29, 2009. Take the half-day appetizer to get started, then move on to the full course meal to learn all the details about how to do digital conservation and preservation projects on your own.

Sign Up Now. Take a Workshop. Learn.

Sharing Digital Insights Face-to-Face
CHI has been on the road spreading the word about digital conservation techniques at several prestigious conferences, including The American Institute For Conservation (AIC) of Historic & Artistic Works and the American Rock Art Research Association (ARARA) 2009 conferences. Visit CHI’s Events page for the latest updates. www.c-h-i.org/events/events.html


Tell Us About the Places and Objects That Matter to You
In honor of National Preservation Month, let the CHI community know what cultural heritage means to you and what you think needs to be digitally documented, physically restored, heroically saved, or just better appreciated in general. We look forward to hearing from you via email or in the blogosphere!

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Andrew Curry’s “Climate Change: Sites in Peril” article in the March/April 2009 issue of Archaeology magazine highlights serious hazards facing many of the world’s cultural heritage sites both on the coast and inland. Rising sea levels, receding glaciers, erosion, and shifting desert sands are among the threats archaeological sites face because of climate change.
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The need for emergency site documentation is increasing at many cultural heritage treasures across the planet. Digital tools and techniques disseminated by Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) are a solution for documenting at-risk artifacts and preserving humanity’s heritage. The CHI team continues to launch education and information-sharing efforts to get the word out about digital cultural heritage possibilities.

CHI Enters the Blogosphere
CHI has launched a new blog about topics, issues, and trends in cultural heritage. (culturalheritageimaging.wordpress.com) Visit CHI’s blog for the latest updates on conferences, training sessions, opinions, and more.

A recent post from CHI’s Director of Development Michael Ashley discusses CHI’s participation in the Computer Applications in Archaeology (CAA) conference. Check out “Live From CAA -- Strategies For a Brighter Future."


Legend Rock Petroglyphs & University of California Fossils Appear In CHI’s Flickr Pages
CHI’s expedition to the Legend Rock State Historic Site in Wyoming resulted in stunning images of petroglyphs (rock art) etched into stone slabs. Visit the Flickr photostream to see a slide show of the project.

Also making an appearance is the photo chronicle of CHI's meeting at the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP). The CHI team showed the UCMP director how advanced imaging could enhance research efforts for fossils, dinosaur footprint trackways, and other ancient evidence. Examine all of CHI's photostreams in the Flickr galleries.

Go to CHI’s advanced imaging gallery to experience interactive, three-dimensional images of rock art from a Portuguese World Heritage site.

CHI’s First Digital Imaging Workshops
On March 18 and April 21, 2009 the CHI team put together popular and successful workshops at CHI’s offices in San Francisco. The half-day sessions, “Digital Imaging Techniques for Conservation and Education,” introduced cultural heritage researchers to technologies such as reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) for capturing and analyzing digital details from many types of artifacts.

Four-day classes on “Using Reflectance Transformation Imaging to Digitize Collections” follow in June and August. Read more and register for workshops and classes on CHI’s Training and Workshops page.

You can also read about or apply to participate in CHI's two-day workshop in the Presidio of San Francisco in July. Funded in part by the National Park Service's National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) grant, the workshop covers three-dimensional (3D) digital rock art documentation and preservation techniques. Learn more.

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Digital technology takes a big step forward in February as the broadcast industry begins phasing out analog television. Similar to digital TV technology, digital cultural heritage technology promises to give users more detailed images in higher resolution and with more interactive features.

Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) continues to promote wider use of digital tools and techniques in archaeology, museum studies and conservation, and cultural heritage documentation and preservation. Education is a key element in CHI’s strategy to share knowledge about our digital future. CHI participates in a variety of educational efforts during Spring 2009.

CHI Awarded National Park Service Grant

CHI received great news recently from the National Park Service’s National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT). CHI has been awarded a $25,000 NCPTT technological innovation grant for the project -- “A Comprehensive Training Program For 3D Digital Rock Art Documentation And Preservation.” The grant helps CHI and collaborators share digital cultural heritage techniques through a workshop, video podcasts, do-it-yourself guides, and web-based materials.


CHI Flickr Photostream Adds Ukraine Images

The latest addition to CHI’s lively Flickr photostream is a behind-the-scenes tour of the class held at the National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos in Summer 2008. The intrepid CHI team showed a roomful of Russian-speaking researchers how to use digital techniques to preserve their priceless cultural heritage objects. Read more of the story on CHI’s page about the project.

Visit CHI’s Flickr photostream for a backstage pass to the multi day workshop where significant discoveries occurred in the field of digital cultural heritage. CHI and workshop attendees created interactive, three-dimensional (3D) images of many objects, including unique gravestones and an ancient civic oath of great importance to Ukrainian citizens. Visit the Flickr gallery to see artifact details not visible until CHI showed researchers how to reveal them.

New Digital Imaging Workshop

March 18, 2009 marks the inaugural session in a new workshop program at CHI’s offices in San Francisco. Suitable for cultural heritage workers at all levels, the first session focuses on “Digital Imaging Techniques for Conservation and Education.” The half-day workshop explores how technologies such as reflectance transformation imaging (RTI) help researchers capture and analyze digital details from treasured artifacts. Read more and register for workshops on CHI’s Training and Workshops page.

WebWise 2009 Conference CHI President Mark Mudge participates in the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Grantee Project Demonstrations at WebWise 2009 In Washington, DC in late February. CHI collaborates with University of Southern California researchers on the IMLS project, “Developing Advanced Technologies for the Imaging of Cultural Heritage Objects.”


Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology
The CHI team and collaborators deliver two papers at the March CAA 2009 conference “Reflectance Transformation Imaging: The Next Generation” and “Grass-Roots Imaging: A Case-Study in Sustainable Heritage Imaging at Chersonesos, Ukraine.”

Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), Stanford University Chapter CHI Director and Founder Carla Schroer and CHI President Mark Mudge present “Telling Stories with Advanced Imaging: Ancient Greek Epigraphy, Museum and Library Conservation, Rock Art” on Friday, April 3 at 8:00 p.m. AIA lectures are free and open to the public, although donations are welcome. A reception follows the talk.

We hope to see as many of you as possible at Stanford. The talk takes place in the Meyer Forum (Room 124) in the Meyer Library (northeast corner, lower level) at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. For directions, check out Stanford’s searchable campus map.


Digital Initiatives & Collaborations at CHI
Your continued interest helps CHI maintain momentum on educational, research, and outreach programs to promote widespread adoption of digital cultural heritage concepts and technologies. Please feel free to Contact Us with suggestions and comments. The CHI team welcomes your thoughts on how we can work together to preserve humanity’s history and heritage!

CHI 2008 Achievements

Team CHI realized many goals in 2008 and recruited important staff members to maintain the momentum in 2009. We share a few of our top endeavors below -- read more about CHI’s 2008 work on the Featured Projects and Events pages.

Disseminating Knowledge. More than 50 cultural heritage workers attended CHI workshops to learn about new affordable ways to document and save their cultural heritage collections. More than 20 professionals from a variety of cultural heritage fields studied with CHI to learn tools and techniques for capturing and creating interactive, 3D digital images that preserve artifacts in great detail.

New Staff at CHI. The CHI team welcomed two new collaborators in the challenge to promote digital techniques for preserving humanity’s cultural heritage. CHI board member Michael Ashley, Ph.D., became CHI’s Director of Development in 2008. Michael earned his doctorate in archaeology from the University of California–Berkeley where he worked on digital conservation in the Office of the Chief Information Officer. He also holds prominent titles at the World Archaeological Congress and the Society for Historical Archaeology and has launched influential digital initiatives.

CHI’s new Executive Director Debra Dooley migrated to the nonprofit world from a leadership position at Sun Microsystems where she managed operations for an 850-person business unit and worked on leading-edge technologies in the smart card, mobile, and desktop computing industries. Debra joined CHI to help save history for future generations by finding adaptable software solutions. For more about CHI staff, visit the About Us page.

New Technology Briefing

This newsletter contains the first of CHI’s new technology briefings for our supporters. Future issues will feature other new technologies that CHI is sharing with the cultural heritage community.

Discover the interactive, 3D technology that CHI and other researchers use to digitally preserve cultural heritage objects. Known as reflectance transformation imaging (RTI), this amazing technology originated at Hewlett Packard Laboratories. Savvy scholars use RTI to document artifacts, reveal in-depth details never before visible, and preserve and share digital data globally.

Contributions from CHI supporters help fund research into refining and expanding RTI technology in cultural heritage preservation efforts worldwide. Go to CHI’s Digital Technologies page for more insights into the digital heritage world.

Digital Cultural Heritage Strategies

CHI collaborator and University of California–Berkeley researcher Cinzia Perlingieri chaired a vital workshop at the 2008 VAST Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology, and Cultural Heritage. Her tutorial, “Digital Resources and Integrated Services for the World CH Community: Strategies for a Brighter Future,” brought together cultural heritage researchers from around the world.

CHI board member and VAST 2008 co-chair Michael Ashley and CHI president Mark Mudge participated in the workshop to share their experiences, research methods, and best practices with the global cultural heritage community.

Go to the CHI events page to learn more about Vast 2008.

CHI World Headquarters Opens in San Francisco

The nerve center for CHI operations is up and running in a fantastic new space near the University of California’s science and technology campus in San Francisco’s Mission Bay district. CHI’s office serves as headquarters for it's international research and development collaborations as well as providing space for training of individuals or groups exploring CHI’s digital cultural heritage techniques.

The CHI team thanks all of you for supporting the new space with donations of items on the wish list or tips on where such items might be obtained. We still need a few important supplies and tools – if you wish to donate an item that you think might be useful to our work, please contact us.

November 2008

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Autumn is upon us with cool, clear days and longer nights. Cultural Heritage Imaging celebrates the season with a harvest of great news and accomplishments.

Boosting Cultural Heritage Practices

Ukrainian Days. In summer 2008, CHI worked with the University of Texas’ Institute of Classical Archaeology and the National Preserve of Tauric Chersonesos to create interactive 3D images of ancient cultural treasures, including an important civic oath inscribed in marble. Many scholars and preserve staff learned the imaging techniques and plan to use them on future projects. Read more about CHI’s time on the Black Sea and see images and examples.

Portuguese CHI. In July, the CHI team presented a well-attended workshop for museum curators, archaeologists, and curators in Braga, Portugal. Close to 40 cultural heritage specialists from institutions in northern Portugal participated in the “Scientifically Reliable Digital Imaging for Documentation, Public Access and Conservation.” (650kb poster)

World Archaeological Congress. In early July the CHI team participated in the sixth World Archaeological Congress presenting a paper a workshop and co-leading a session. Michael Ashley was also the co-chair of the theme Archaeology in the Digital Age 2.0. The conference was extremely well attended with over 1800 participants from all over the world. Photos from the event, posted by participants, can be found here

New on our web site. We have redesigned our home page and added new pages and stories about our work. Check out the Training and Workshops page or the Digital Technologies Page for new stories and content.

CHI Finds a New Home in San Francisco

CHI has found fantastic new office space in the American Industrial Center (AIC) on Third Street near San Francisco’s downtown and Potrero Hill districts. The AIC facility is easy to access via public transit on the new Third Street light rail T-Line. CHI’s office is quite close to the University of California’s new science and technology campus at Mission Bay. The new space allows CHI to offer more training and research opportunities. Visit www.aicproperties.com for a glimpse of the new CHI location.

Upcoming Cultural Heritage Presentations

Museum Computer Network (MCN). CHI Executive Director Carla Schroer participates in an expert panel entitled “Opening It Up, Using Open Source Software” at the MCN conference in mid-November.

QCon Community Conference. Also in November, CHI’s Director of Development and board member Michael Ashley conducts a session and one presentation at the QCon enterprise software development conference in San Francisco. His session is appropriately named “Open Standards Development: Opportunity or Constraint?”. His presentation is named “Standards Best Practices in Digital Preservation."

Virtual Reality, Archaeology & Cultural Heritage (VAST 2008). The CHI team finishes the year at the VAST 2008 conference in Portugal in December. Michael Ashley is conference co-chair while CHI President Mark Mudge is part of a roundtable presentation, “Digital Resources and Integrated Services for the World CH Community: Strategies for a Brighter Future.”

Visit the Events page for the latest conference, paper, and presentation updates. CHI’s Featured Publications page has more information on CHI’s research and projects.

Thank You From Everyone at CHI

CHI extends best wishes to all of our supporters and everyone with an interest in saving our cultural heritage. Please join us in our work to develop and refine digital cultural heritage preservation technology. Visit the Support Us page at www.c-h-i.org to discover more ways you can help save our cultural heritage.

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June 2008,

Dear Friends and Supporters,

As summer arrives, Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) staff are working on a variety of projects to help preserve cultural heritage and share knowledge globally.

Leading the Way in Best Practices

Stay in touch with the busy CHI team by visiting the events page for the latest conference, paper, and presentation updates. CHI’s Featured Publications page is another great source of information on recent CHI research and accomplishments.

Open Source Archaeology. CHI Executive Director Carla Schroer delivered her workshop, “Open Archaeology: Fundamentals of Intellectual Property and Open Source,” at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology conference (CAA 2008).

View presentation slides and references on the Featured Publication page. Carla also presents this workshop at the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) in July.

Eurographics Tutorial Shines. A fantastic cultural heritage and natural sciences tutorial compiled by CHI President Mark Mudge and an international panel of experts captured strong interest at Eurographics 2008.

Learn more about the tutorial, “Image-Based Empirical Information Acquisition, Scientific Reliability, and Long-Term Digital Preservation for the Natural Sciences and Cultural Heritage,” on the Featured Publication page.


Spreading the Word

Project Concludes With a WAM!The CHI team completed a successful training program in digital cultural heritage techniques at the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) in Massachusetts in May.

Be the first to see the elegant sculptural lines of WAM’s new CHI-constructed lighting array in the photo gallery. CHI and WAM staff used the new gear to show fine surface details of paintings, paper, jade and other objects.

National Treasure 3: Library of Congress. CHI specialists met in May with experts from the US Library of Congress’ Preservation Research and Testing Division to discuss imaging possibilities at the library.

The Power of Portugal. In July, CHI participates in an illuminating workshop for museum staff and archaeologists, in Braga, Portugal, entitled “Scientifically Reliable Digital Imaging for Documentation, Public Access and Conservation”.

Summer in the Ukraine. Later this summer, CHI joins forces with the University of Texas, Institute of Classical Archaeology to document an ancient Greek colony on the Crimean peninsula using the latest digital cultural heritage imaging techniques. During a two-week visit, CHI, plans to document artifacts and inscriptions at the Chersonesos site, while training the local Ukrainian team in the techniques.

Supporting CHI This Summer


The CHI team appreciates how much you have helped us to develop and deploy the solutions and training that are helping cultural heritage workers around the world save history. Any support you can give goes directly to developing tools that preserve, document and share humanity’s legacy and getting those tools into hands that can use them. Please visit our Support Us page at www.c-h-i.org and click on the link that inspires you the most.

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April, 2008

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Spring signifies new beginnings and more energy for growth and renewal. The team at Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) springs into action — participating in global heritage conferences and sharing knowledge in other ways. In addition to delivering papers, CHI experts are conducting workshops at prestigious institutions around the world.

Cultivating A Global Presence

The European Union is the place to be with CHI in the months leading up to Summer 2008. Visit the CHI events page for more information and to read abstracts of the papers and presentations. CHI also plans to post the papers on the Featured Publications page.

Budapest is the Best. The CHI team heads to Hungary in early April to present a paper and workshop at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology conference (CAA 2008). CHI Executive Director Carla Schroer conducts the CAA workshop, “Open Archaeology: Fundamentals of Intellectual Property and Open Source.” Also at CAA, Carla and co-authors Mark Mudge (CHI President) and Michael Ashley (CHI board member) deliver their paper, “Not All Content is ‘Born Archival:’ Empirical Acquisition, Scientific Reliability, and Long-Term Digital Preservation.”

The Cretan Connection. Shortly after CAA winds down, the intrepid CHI researchers travel to the Greek island of Crete for Eurographics 2008. For this essential conference, CHI assembles a truly international gathering of experts who co-present a daylong tutorial on “Image-Based Empirical Information Acquisition, Scientific Reliability, and Long-Term Digital Preservation for the Natural Sciences and Cultural Heritage.”

Authorities from four US cultural heritage institutions and Greece, Portugal, Italy, and the UK collaborated on this groundbreaking tutorial. CHI’s special tutorial page provides more information and biographies of the tutorial team and will be updated with course notes and presentations after the conference.

Assisting East Coast Scholars. In a brief free interval during CHI’s busy conference schedule, the team conducts a weeklong training program in digital cultural heritage techniques for conservation staff at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts in May.

Next Stop — Switzerland. Mark co-authored a paper with John Redman of Hewlett Packard, which John will present at the Society for Imaging Science & Technology’s Archiving 2008 conference in Switzerland. The paper is entitled “Color Accurate Photography Using Unmodified Digital Cameras and Theatrical Filters.”

On to the Emerald Isle. In late June, CHI specialists visit Ireland for the World Archaeological Congress (WAC). Mark co-leads a session, “Capturing and Visualizing the Past,” with Alan Chalmers of the Warwick Digital Laboratory, while Carla reprises her open archaeology, intellectual property, and open source workshop previously conducted at CAA. Mark and Carla also present two papers co-authored with CHI Imaging Director Marlin Lum entitled “Democratization and Adoption of Digital Technology.,” and “Robust Image-based Rock Art Documentation.”

Ongoing Projects

Best Practices in Cultural Heritage. The CHI team continues its collaboration with the University of Southern California (USC) on “Developing Advanced Technologies for the Imaging of Cultural Heritage Objects,” a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grant. CHI has trained USC students and researchers in advanced digital imaging techniques for ancient coins, cuneiform tablets, and cylinder seal impressions. CHI has also helped USC develop special imaging equipment for future projects.

To help with the next phase of the IMLS project, CHI has recruited experts in knowledge management — leading-edge technologies and practices that facilitate cultural heritage research. Stay tuned for exciting new developments and check the IMLS project page for updates.

Rock Art & More. CHI also contributes expertise to multiple projects in diverse fields, such as the Legend Rock petroglyph site in Wyoming and several University of California–Berkeley natural history museums.

Your Support Means So Much.

The CHI team invites you to join us in preserving our cultural heritage for future generations. Your support in the past has been a great help for our projects.

Please continue to show your interest through the Support Us page at www.c-h-i.org. Let us know what you think about cultural heritage issues — we look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes for a fantastic summer in 2008!

The CHI Team

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December 2007,

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Thank you for supporting Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI) through your continued interest and contributions. CHI is wrapping up 2007 in style with new web site content, publications in peer-reviewed journals, and new natural history and paleontology projects. The CHI Team is also poised to spread the word about advances in imaging technologies and processes at a series of prestigious conferences in 2008.

New Web Site Extras

New Publications Page. The CHI team has assembled all of our papers into a one-stop web listing on the new Featured Publications page. Visit this page to view abstracts and download full-color .PDF files of papers and presentations. Read about the latest techniques for documenting many types of cultural heritage objects – from Byzantine mosaics to ancient coins and rock art.

Updated Photo Galleries. CHI has added more photos to illustrate a number of our projects on the Featured Projects page. These virtual galleries take you into the field with the CHI team as they capture interactive three-dimensional (3D) images of objects and artifacts. Look for the camera and tripod icon to access these repositories of visual information.

Adventures in Empirical Provenance. CHI is the champion of a new concept in cultural heritage – empirical provenance (EP). Discover how EP is revolutionizing the field by reviewing CHI’s article on the Empirical Provenance page. The new EP article is a companion piece to an earlier CHI effort, “The Big Picture,” which explains how digital imaging and empirical provenance preserve cultural heritage for future generations.

Expanding Into Natural History

The natural sciences can also benefit from CHI’s techniques and the team is exploring how this could happen in a series of “proof of concept” projects at two natural history museums at the University of California–Berkeley (UCB). Stay tuned for more developments from CHI at the University of California Museum of Paleontology and the Essig Museum of Entomology.

Spreading the Word About CHI

The new year is almost here and CHI is lining up an impressive list of conference appearances to share knowledge about cultural heritage documentation. Recently, CHI also conducted an informative workshop at the UCB Archaeological Research Facility.

2008 Conference Participation. CHI presents a full-day tutorial, “Image-Based Empirical Information Acquisition, Scientific Reliability, and Long-Term Digital Preservation for the Natural Sciences and Cultural Heritage,” at Eurographics on the Greek island of Crete in April.

In late June-early July, CHI President Mark Mudge co-leads a session at the World Archaeological Congress (WAC) in Ireland. Mark’s session, “Capturing and Visualizing the Past,” Will be part of the conference theme, Archaeology in the Digital Age 2.0. CHI Executive Director Carla Schroer presents a WAC workshop, “Open Archaeology: Fundamentals of Intellectual Property and Open Source.”

UC–Berkeley Workshop. In December 2007, the CHI team gave a workshop on imaging methods that reveal surface details of rock art and other cultural heritage objects at UCB’s Archaeological Research Facility.

Visit the Events page on CHI’s web site for future updates about CHI’s conference and workshop participation in 2008.


Best Wishes To Our Friends and Supporters


CHI thanks all of our supporters for their generous contributions of money, time, advice, and collaboration. We couldn’t work on all these projects without your much-appreciated assistance!

CHI extends our gratitude to many of you on our Acknowledgements page.

Please continue to support us and show your interest through the Support Us page at www.c-h-i.org.

Happy holidays to all and here’s to a fantastic 2008!

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July 2007

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Thank you for your interest in Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI). The CHI team is on the fast track for the rest of 2007 with much activity, including conferences, workshops, papers, and more.

New Ways to Study the Past
CHI Imaging Director Marlin Lum contributed his photographic expertise to assist CHI board member Dr. Michael Ashley in teaching an exciting new course in the San Francisco Presidio Archaeology Lab. Michael and his colleagues trained students at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) summer session class, "Digital Documentation and Representation in Archaeology: Managing Cultural Heritage at the San Francisco Presidio."

Go to the UCB Multimedia Authoring Center for Teaching in Anthropology (MACTiA) site to read more about the class and watch a YouTube video.

Ongoing Projects
The CHI team continues to work on a variety of vital cultural heritage projects. Read more about these efforts on the Featured Project page.

Sharing Knowledge Globally and Locally
CHI researchers continue to share knowledge globally and locally with appearances at events all over the world and in the San Francisco Bay Area. See the Events page for the latest updates.

Coming Soon. Look for CHI at upcoming technology and cultural heritage conferences such as the Electronic Information, the Visual Arts, and Beyond (EVA) 2007 conference in London. Dr. Alan Chalmers of the University of Warwick and Eva Zanyi of the University of Bristol present a paper co-authored with CHI president Mark Mudge and executive director Carla Schroer, "Lighting and Byzantine Glass Tesserae." Read more about this project to document fantastic Byzantine glass mosaics in this press release.

ARARA 2007. Mark and Carla recently discussed "Simple, Low-Cost Reflection Transformation Imaging Documentation Techniques for Rock Art" at the American Rock Art Association (ARARA) 2007 event in Montana.

Archiving 2007. Mark traveled to the DC area to present "The Simultaneous Capture of Spectral and Textural Information" with co-author John Redman of Hewlett Packard at the Society for Imaging Science and Technology Archiving 2007 conference.

CAA 2007. Mark, Carla, and Michael made a big impression in Berlin at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) 2007 conference. Mark and Carla delivered their research paper, "Simple, Low-Cost Reflection Information Capture and Reflection Transformation Imaging Techniques," to great acclaim.

Mark and Carla also contributed a project paper, "Fast, Accurate, Simple to Use, Textured Point Cloud Generation for Cultural Heritage Documentation," co-authored with Neffra Mathews and Tom Noble of the US Bureau of Land Management Science and Technology Center and Jason Birch of the Australian company ADAM Technology.

Mark, Michael, and Stephen Stead of Paveprime Ltd. conducted a key workshop at CAA 2007: "Standards of Best Practice: Best Practice for Standards."

US/ICOMOS Symposium. Barely 2 weeks after CAA 2007, the CHI team and Michael participated in the International Council on Monuments and Sites US/ICOMOS Symposium in the San Francisco Presidio. CHI's US/ICOMOS conference poster, "Empirical Provenance: A New Paradigm for Imaging Authenticity," is available.

Michael helped lead an US/ICOMOS off-site mobile workshop at Fort Winfield Scott in the Presidio. The CHI team provided content for the workshop: "High Definition Documentation for Heritage Management and Tourism."

The Big Picture
Visit Why CHI Exists on the CHI website for an illuminating position paper, "The Big Picture: Digital Imaging and Cultural Heritage in Context."

Thanks To Our Supporters
CHI appreciates your interest in our work and your support for our ongoing projects. CHI makes a difference by working with a broad range of institutions, experts, materials, and sites to develop practical applications for the latest imaging technologies. Please continue to support us and show your interest by
making a donation.

Have a wonderful summer 2007!

The CHI Team

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March 29, 2007

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Thank you for your interest in Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI). We've been quite busy in the first months of 2007 — welcoming new board members, preparing for conferences, launching education efforts, working on research projects, and adding new content to www.chi.org.

Welcome New Board Members
CHI is happy to announce two prestigious additions to our board of directors. Please join us in welcoming board members Scott Verges and Dr. Michael Ashley.

Scott Verges is a prominent San Francisco Bay Area attorney with strong interests in arts and culture, including independent films.

Michael Ashley earned his Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) Among his many roles, Michael manages New Program Development for the Open Knowledge and the Public Interest (OKAPI) team, a project at UCB’s Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Conference Presentations, Workshops, and Papers
CHI President Mark Mudge, executive director Carla Schroer, and board member Michael Ashley travel to Berlin in April for the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) 2007 conference. CHI will be presenting in 3 different forums at the conference.  Stephen Stead of Paveprime Ltd. joins them in conducting “Standards of Best Practice: Best Practice for Standards.” Mark and Carla will present a research paper, "Simple, Low-Cost Reflection Information Capture and Reflection Transformation Imaging Techniques" and a project paper " Fast, Accurate, Simple to Use, Textured Point Cloud Generation for Cultural Heritage Documentation” co-authored with Neffra Mathews and Tom Noble of the US Bureau of Land Management and Jason Birch of the Australian company Adamtech.

Shortly after the CAA event, the CHI team and Dr. Ashley participate in the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) US/ICOMOS Symposium in the Presidio of San Francisco. CHI has an accepted poster at the conference. Dr. Ashley co-leads an off-site mobile workshop at Fort Scott in the Presidio. The CHI team presents at the workshop: “High Definition Documentation for Heritage Management and Tourism.”

Cutting-Edge CHI Web Site Content
Behind the scenes with CHI. The CHI web site team recently created exciting illustrated stories about CHI expeditions and projects in the Featured Projects section. Visit this section to read about CHI’s adventures in Switzerland and Portugal. View world-class Portuguese rock art and Swiss treasures in the galleries showcasing CHI’s new imaging technology.

Follow the news on CHI appearances.
The CHI team updates the Events page on a regular basis with CHI’s latest conferences, workshops, and more. Go to the Events page to see what CHI is doing around the world.

The CHI perspective.
Visit the Why CHI Exists and the What CHI Does sections of the web site for new insights and observations about the state of cultural heritage research and documentation. Why CHI Exists includes a new position paper, “The Big Picture: Digital Imaging and Cultural Heritage in Context.

In the News.
The CHI team appears in a January 8, 2007 USC Today article on the University of Southern California web site. Bill Dotson wrote the news feature, “Research Project Garners $600,000 Grant: The Institute of Museum and Library Services helps USC collaborators preserve the digital fingerprints of ancient scribes.”

CHI Reaches Out.
CHI continues its tradition of educating students of all ages about the merits of cultural heritage documentation.

The next generation. CHI Executive Director Carla Schroer visited the Ocean Palms Elementary School in Ponte Vedre, FL to show fifth graders how much fun cultural heritage can be. Judging by the lively response, the next generation is ready for the challenge to learn about and protect our cultural heritage.

Cultural heritage professionals. In February, CHI participated in a workshop held at the SF Presidio with Dr. Julian Richards, Director of the Archaeology Data Service, the national digital data archive for archaeological research in the UK. The workshop provided an informative discussion about Cultural Heritage and Digital Preservation.

CHI Thanks You for Your Support and Interest!
CHI needs your support to help with our ongoing work. We are making a difference by working with a broad range of institutions, experts, materials, and sites to develop and make practical the latest imaging techniques. Our pilot projects show promising results for documenting and disseminating important cultural heritage material. Even small amounts of money make a big difference to a start up organization like CHI. In addition to helping us pay our expenses, individual donors show there is support for and interest in our work. Please consider making a donation today.

The CHI Team

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November 28 , 2006

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Thank you for your interest in Cultural Heritage Imaging (CHI). As 2006 draws to a close, we are sending some exciting year-end updates from the CHI team.

Recent Recognition

Mark Mudge and Carla Schroer traveled to Cyprus in early November to deliver their paper, "New Reflection Transformation Imaging Methods for Rock Art and Multiple Viewpoint Display," at the 2006 International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology, and Cultural Heritage (VAST). CHI Imaging Director Marlin Lum and Tom Malzbender of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories (HP Labs) co-authored the paper, which won the "Best Paper" award at the conference. The 2006 VAST event was a joint effort unifying four conferences "for the exchange and sharing of know-how in the areas of Cultural Heritage (CH) and Information Technology (IT) focusing on e-documentation and computer graphics." The paper and the presentation slides are both available on CHI's events page.

Major Grant Award

In late September, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced the recipients of the IMLS National Leadership Grants. The University of Southern California (USC), in partnership with CHI, received a $600,000 IMLS grant for a joint project: "Developing Advanced Technologies for the Imaging of Cultural Heritage Objects." USC and CHI will "develop technology that is capable of providing a three-dimensional (3D), multi-view representation of cultural objects that will be downloadable and available over the Internet." IMLS leadership grants require matching funds and encourage innovation and public service at US museums and libraries.

New Project Details on CHI Website

Lions and Rabbits and Birds -- Oh My! CHI has published more results from the extensive work we did for our Switzerland 2005 project. In 16 days we documented 114 artifacts from three Swiss collections. We've added new 3D Reflection Transformation Images (RTIs). Click and drag anywhere on these interactive RTIs to change the light source and highlight different aspects of ancient artwork, including Celtic lion and rabbit jars and a stylish Celtic bird. On some artifact pages, we have both Quicktime object movies and RTIs available, as well as archaeological information. View centuries-old treasures in entirely new ways in CHI's Switzerland 2005 gallery.

Preview of Coming Attractions: Art That Rocks. As a special thank you for our faithful email list subscribers, we're offering a "sneak peek" at petroglyphs from the Foz Coa Paleolithic rock art site in Portugal. CHI embarked on this multi-year project in June 2006. We are keeping the Portugal 2006 gallery under wraps by not adding links to these pages from our main site until we finish writing descriptions for all the featured rock art images. However, you can visit this great work in progress and view fine details from these amazing carved masterpieces created 12,000 to 14,000 years ago.

Getting the Word Out: CHI Outreach

CHI staff members have been busy giving talks and meeting new people interested in cultural heritage preservation and innovation. Here are highlights from mid-2006:

School Daze. Choruses of "Cool!" and "I didn't know coins were that old!" followed Carla Schroer's presentation at the Sedgwick Elementary School "Discovery Day" in Cupertino, CA in April 2006. Carla showed four classes of enthusiastic fourth and fifth graders ancient objects from the Switzerland 2005 project. The aspiring students of archaeology particularly enjoyed images of ancient coins and document seals.

New Frontiers in Fargo. Mark Mudge and Carla Schroer contributed their expertise to the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology Conference in Fargo, ND in April 2006. The CHI talk, "3D Data Acquisition with Reflection Transformation Imaging," was well received at an event dedicated to "Digital Discovery: Exploring New Frontiers in Human Heritage." The conference gave CHI the chance to discuss the documentation needs of many cultural heritage projects, as well as to see first hand what work is underway.

College Covers CHI. A prominent feature on CHI appeared in the Summer 2006 NIMBUS, the alumni newspaper for New College, the Florida school Mark Mudge and Carla Schroer attended. S. Lawrence Paulson wrote the article on CHI, "How alums Mark Mudge and Carla Schroer are saving civilization, image by image."

New Technology Directions

CHI is working with researchers at HP Labs and other groups to devise new ways to use Reflection Transformation Imaging (RTI) technology for cultural heritage projects. CHI and HP Labs are developing multiple-view RTIs of the same object. An experimental viewer is in the works. Scholars at the Italian National Research Council, ISTI at Pisa, the University of California-Santa Cruz, Princeton University, and the Universidade de Minho in Portugal are helping CHI refine the new technologies.

CHI and HP Labs are also developing a technique to capture RTIs of larger objects in the field without the need for a lighting dome to suspend light sources around the objects. CHI performed initial tests of the experimental dome-free technique at the Foz Coa Paleolithic rock art site in Portugal and also at the Legend Rock petroglyph site in Wyoming. CHI's most recent paper describes the new methods used in both of these projects.

CHI Appreciates Your Continuing Support!

CHI needs your support to help with our ongoing work. We are making a difference by working with a broad range of institutions, experts, materials, and sites to develop the latest imaging techniques and make them easier to use. Our pilot projects show promising results for documenting and disseminating important cultural heritage material. Even small amounts of money make a big difference to a start up organization like CHI. In addition to helping us pay our expenses, individual donors show there is support for and interest in our work. Please consider making a donation today.

Thank you and happy holidays from CHI! Here's to more progress and good news in 2007!

The CHI Team

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March 1, 2006

Dear friends and supporters,
 
Thank you for your interest in Cultural Heritage Imaging. Here are a few quick announcements.

Upcoming Events:

A reminder for those of you in the Bay Area, Mark Mudge and Carla Schroer will give a talk entitled "Archiving Technology: Sacred and Profane Treasures of the Alps" on Friday March 3 at 8pm In the Annenberg Auditorium at Stanford. The talk is part of the Stanford Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America lecture series and is free and open to the public. More details can be found on the events page on the CHI web site

New Material on the website:.

We have posted new object movies, to the Switzerland project page The object movies are of Celtic ceramics excavated by the monks of the Grand St. Bernard in a grave near Martigny in 1891. Also included in this set is a bronze age torque with incised geometric designs. We will be showing this material and much more at the Stanford lecture on Friday.

Help spread the word about CHI

One of our goals for 2006 is to make more people aware of our work. You can help us by passing on this announcement to people you think would be interested. Encourage your friends to sign up for our email announcement list, either by visiting the sign up page or simply sending an email to us

Thanks for your support!
 
The CHI Team

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February 8 , 2006

Dear friends and supporters,
 
Thank you for your interest in Cultural Heritage Imaging.  Here are a few updates on our recent work and plans.
 
Upcoming Events:

For those of you in the Bay Area, Mark Mudge and Carla Schroer will give a talk entitled "Archiving Technology: Sacred and Profane Treasures of the Alps" on Friday March 3 at 8pm In the Annenberg Auditorium at Stanford.  The talk is part of the Stanford Chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America lecture series and is free and open to the public. More details can be found on the events page on the CHI web site
 
Switzerland and Italy Update:.
 
Our projects in Switzerland went very well. We were able to capture approximately 200 PTMs of ancient coins, wax and lead document seals on medieval documents, an 18th century oil painting, sculptures, ceramic epigraphy, and a 3700 year old bronze age torque. We also shot object movies, video and photographs. We have just begun a project page for this work on our website.  We will post more material there as we process it. Many examples from this project will be presented at the March 3rd talk at Stanford.
 
Our paper, "Reflection Transformation Imaging and Virtual Representations of Coins from the Hospice of the Grand St. Bernard," presented to the VAST conference in Pisa was well received. We had an opportunity to meet with many interesting folks at the conference, and saw some exciting new work in computer graphics and cultural heritage.
 
Technology:
 
The fiber optic PTM capture dome, we completed in the fall, worked very well in Switzerland.  You can see some pictures of it in action on the project page. The fiber optic dome can be precisely wavelength controlled, limiting photonic damage, so that very fragile objects like ancient paper, papyri, and textiles may be photographed. We are working on modifications to the dome that would allow us to use LED lights for situations where light damage is less of an issues, such as sculptures, ceramics and coins.  The LED lights are brighter and will allow us to use shorter exposures which will speed up capture times. 
 
Help spread the word about CHI
 
One of our goals for 2006 is to make more people aware of our work.  You can help us by passing on this announcement to people you think would be interested.
 
Encourage your friends to sign up for our email announcement list, either by visiting the sign up page or simply sending an email to us 
 
Thanks for your support!
 
The CHI Team

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October 4, 2005

Dear friends and supporters,
 
Included are a few more updates from the CHI team on our current work and fall plans.
 
Upcoming Projects
 
The CHI team is heading to Switzerland in the middle of October for three weeks of documenting ancient artifacts. Take a look at some of the material we will be working with, it's fantastic!  document seals from  the Monastery of St. Bernard. (This page is in French, but the images are wonderful, and require no translation) We will also be documenting coins from three collections in the region.
 
When we finish the documentation work, we will drive to Pisa for the VAST conference. Our president, Mark Mudge, is one of the program committee co-chairs for the conference, and we  will be presenting a paper entitled  "Reflection Transformation Imaging and Virtual Representations of Coins from the Hospice of the Grand St. Bernard" (424 kb pdf download)
 
Technology
 
We've been working hard on our automatic fiber optic dome for capturing  PTMs of coins, document seals, and other small material.We've had an enormous amount of help from volunteer Michael Hyde, and board member Tim Lindholm in creating this piece of equipment, and we want to give them big thanks. We're pretty excited about our ability to document much more material in an efficient and automated way. The new rig has some special features for working with ancient documents, mainly that all UV and IR light is filtered and we only let light through between 520 and 750 nm. So, the spectrum that is most harmful to paper doesn't come through.
 
Mark Mudge and Carla Schroer attended the SIGGRAPH conference in LA in August, and saw breakthrough research in a number of areas.  We are in discussions with several researchers about possible collaboration, and testing some of the new methods. For you geeks on the list here are a couple of papers we thought were particularly interesting.
 
Efficiently Combining Positions and Normals for Precise 3D Geometry
 
Performance Geometry Capture for Spatially Varying Relighting
 
Carved Visual Hulls for High-Accuracy Image-Based Modeling
 
Supporting CHI
 
CHI needs your support!  Many of you have donated money and/or volunteered your time to help CHI.  We appreciate everything you've done, and can't survive without your support.  We can always put donations to good use.  Even small donations make a big difference to a start up organization like CHI, because, in addition to the money, they show potential granting agencies that there is broad support for this work.  You can donate securely using your credit card online or you can mail us a check.
 
A great way to help CHI is to tell your friends and colleagues about us, and ask them to subscribe to receive announcements 
 
We also have volunteer opportunities, just drop us a line, and we can discuss your skills, what we need, and what you want to do.
 
Thank you for your continued interest and support!
 
The CHI Team

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July 19, 2005

Dear friends and supporters,
 
You haven't heard from the CHI team in a while, and we wanted to update you about the many things that are happening.
 
New on the Website:
 
We've created a new gallery of ancient glass beads, photographed as object movies.
 

Upcoming Projects:
 
The CHI team will return to the Swiss Alps in late August/early September to document more material from the Monastery of Saint Bernard, as well as treasures from the Abbe of St. Maurice and the Monastery of Simplon.  In addition to coins, we will be photographing wax and lead document seals, using the PTM technique. Some of our work from last year is available on our website, and also in French on the website of the monastery.
 
Chanoine Jean-Pierre Voutaz, Archivist of the Congregation of the Grand St. Bernard says this about CHI's work: "To date, various animations of objects and photographs of coins taken with the PTM technique, which you [CHI] carried out and transmitted to us, were made available online on our web site to allow people to consult some seminal objects of our civilization. On several occasions I also presented these techniques, either to members of the congregation, or to groups of young people to explain to them that they are part of a long chain of human beings which crossed the Alps going back millennia." (translated from French)
 
We are looking forward to returning to the Alps and expanding our work there.
 

Other News:
 
We are developing a new, portable, automatic PTM rig which we will take to the Alps.  This will bring enormous improvements in the efficiency of capturing coins and document seals
 
Mark Mudge, our president, was named co-chair of the International Program Committee for the  VAST symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage to take place in Pisa, Italy in November.
 

New Fund raising Campaign: 
 
CHI needs your support to continue our work. We have launched a campaign to obtain 200 individual donations by the end of 2005. Your support helps us to continue to publish material to the website, develop new techniques and equipment, and work with cultural heritage professionals to document collections and archives. Your donations also show foundations and corporations that people are interested in and supportive of CHI's work. This is a critical measure applied to start-up organizations like CHI. Any amount is appreciated and will be put to good use directly funding our programs. You can make donations online with a credit card or mail us a check.
 
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, and all donations are tax deductible in the U.S.
 
If donating to CHI doesn't fit in your budget right now, there are other ways to help us fulfill our mission. Please conatct us
 
Thank you for your continued interest in our work.
The CHI Team