Case Study: The Visionary Cross - Towards a 3D Scholarly Edition

3D Scholarly Edition of the Visionary Cross. http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/cross/ (click to enlarge)

As you may have already realised the production of 3D models is a very time consuming process that requires careful planning and organisation. However, despite the time and effort invested in the creation of 3D, the publishing options currently available are limited, with models used primarily for the production of static images and animations. General online warehouses (e.g., SketchFab, 3D Warehouse , Thingiverse , and Turbosquid ) and academically focused digital libraries (e.g., Europeana , CyArk , and 3D Icons), some of which you have seen in this unit, host and provide access to 3D content in a variety of formats, but do not include the critical apparatus required for academic work. Therefore, 3D models are often presented online with very little information in the form of short descriptions and brief annotations (if any) that do not adequately provide enough context so the models can serve not only illustrative purposes but also work as primary sources used in academic research. 

In the last few years, there have been several attempts to rethink how 3D models could function as scholarship in their own right. For example, Papadopoulos & Schreibman (2019a, 2019b), have come up with the concept of 3D Scholarly Editions. These provide well-researched and sourced explanations of historic material culture and their context through deep annotations, and provide reliable metadata and paradata about each document or source used in the presentation of that object or environment. Therefore, not only represent material culture, but they also operate as knowledge sites for the historic 3D object or environment. They can also function as a research tool and also operate as fora for scholarly debate and argumentation.

This case study presents an example of such an edition; the Visionary Cross project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada), the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the University of Lethbridge under the direction of Prof. Daniel Paul O'Donnell. The goal of this project is to produce a mixed-media 3D edition for a series of artefacts belonging to the Anglo-Saxon tradition of the 'Visionary Cross'. These include the eighth-century Ruthwell and Bewcastle standing stone crosses, the tenth-century Vercelli Book dream of the Rood poem, and the eleventh century Brussels Reliquary Cross (O'Donnell et al. 2007). For example, the Ruthwell Cross is 5-meter high erected near a former Roman military site in Dumfriesshire in Scotland. It bears a runic inscription of the oldest know Anglo-Saxon vernacular poem. You can interact with the 3D edition of the Ruthwell Cross here: http://vcg.isti.cnr.it/cross/

In the video below, Dan O'Donnell talks about the Visionary Cross project and the benefits that such online 3D editions bring.

Dan O'Donnell, Prof. of English at the University of Lethbridge, speaks about the Visionary Cross Project (YouTube)

Exercise: The Potential of 3D Scholarly Editions

After having watched the above video and consulted the bibliography below write down the elements of 3D editions that have the potential to change the established nature of 3D scholarship. This can be an entry to your reflective diary or in the form of a blog post.

When you are done, try to find another cultural heritage example (that is already in 3D or has not been yet digitised) that could benefit from such an approach. The following questions will help you structure your thoughts:

1) What is the cultural heritage example you have chosen?
2) Is it already digitised? If so, in which platform is it published and what contextual information does it include? 
3) If it has not been yet digitised, why do you think that it could benefit from a 3D digitisation?
4) What would a 3D scholarly edition offer to the selected object?
5) How would such a 3D scholarly edition look?

To respond to this you can create a wireframe. if you are not familiar with wireframes check the following link: https://www.experienceux.co.uk/faqs/what-is-wireframing/. You can develop your wireframe on a piece of paper or use a wireframing software. A very easy, drag and drop, software that you could start with is Balsamiq. You can download a trial or if you are a student or educator to request a free version.  



References

• O'Donnell, D. P., Karkov, C., Graham, J., Osborn, W. and Del Turco, R. R. (2007). The Visionary Cross: An Experiment in the Multimedia. Digital Humanities 2007, 143.
• Schreibman, S. and Papadopoulos, C. (2019a). Textuality in 3D: three-dimensional (re)constructions as digital scholarly editions. International Journal for Digit Humanities 1, 221–233. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42803-019-00024-6
  
• Papadopoulos, C. and Schreibman, S. (2019b). Towards 3D Scholarly Editions: The Battle of Mount Street Bridge. Digital Humanities Quarterly 13, no. 1. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/13/1/000415/000415.html