Team Members: Zach Ventura, Jack Centurelli, Tyler Mastronardi, Stefan Pavlovich
For this week’s project, our group worked on documenting the Nobedan Path in Carleton’s Japanese Garden using different 3D modeling techniques. The Nobedan Path is a stone-paved walkway in the garden, and our goal was to see how different technologies could capture its appearance and allow people to explore it digitally.
Our group divided up the work between Polycam, Scaniverse, and Agisoft MetaShape. Jack took photographs of the path and worked on creating a 360-degree panorama using Polycam. Stefan and Tyler used Scaniverse to capture the path as a 3D mesh. Zach worked with the photographs Jack collected to create another model using MetaShape.
One thing that stood out to us was how much more closely we examined the path while trying to capture it. Normally, we might walk past the stones without paying much attention to their individual shapes or textures. However, photographing and scanning the path made us think about how the stones fit together and how different angles affected the final models.
Jack: I focused on photographing the Nobedan Path and capturing a 360-degree panorama using Polycam. I also collected the photographs that we used to create our MetaShape model. One thing I noticed was how important it was to capture the path from different perspectives to document the individual stones.
Stefan: I worked with Tyler to scan the Nobedan Path using Scaniverse. We captured the path from different angles to create a 3D mesh model. I thought it was interesting how quickly the app could turn a physical feature into something we could explore digitally.
Tyler: I worked with Stefan on creating our Scaniverse model. We moved around the path to capture its shape and details. I liked how straightforward the process was and how we could immediately see the results of our scan.
Zach: I focused on building the MetaShape model using Jack’s photographs. I imported and aligned the images, generated the model, and applied textures. I was happy with the result, although I think taking more photographs from different angles would have improved its quality. I also found it interesting to compare the more involved MetaShape process with the simpler Scaniverse approach.
Overall, this project gave us a better understanding of how different digital tools can be used to document the Japanese Garden. It also encouraged us to pay closer attention to a feature of campus that we might otherwise overlook.
I enjoyed reading about your group’s work documenting the Nobedan Path with multiple 3D modeling techniques. It was interesting how the project encouraged you to notice details that are often overlooked. The comparison between Polycam, Scaniverse, and MetaShape provided valuable insights into each tool’s strengths and challenges in digital preservation.