About

I am currently undertaking doctoral research at the Institute of Archaeology of University College London. Dead Men’s Eyes is a project that i have started to investigate the use of Augmented Reality within Archaeological Practice. The name is inspired by a short story by M.R. James ‘Dead Men’s Eyes’ (or A View From The Hill) in which a man uses a pair of old binoculars to view grisly episodes from ages past.

  1. Hi Stu – thanks for the headsup. I’ve tweeted about your work! I look forward to seeing what you get up to – and am v. jealous that you’ll be working with the folks at CASA!

    Shawn

    • Josh Allen

    Stu,

    I was given the link to your blog by a friend of mine who came across it, she sent it my way as I have been working with some similar concepts as far as using game engines and archaeological data to bring sites to life. I presented a paper in January at the SHA’s talking about how to use this technology as a research tool as well as its more obvious uses as a “people pleaser”. I have been using Cryengine 3 because of its more advanced capabilities, although you are using Unity this program might be worth checking out, it is free as well. I have had great success with this and other programs when re constructing a POW camp located in Manitoba Canada, although far from the Bronze age I used many of the same concepts, I was not, however, able to have GIS data correspond accurately with the models, which is a big step. All in all I like your work and wish you the best of luck with your dissertation

    Josh Allen

    • stuarteve

    @Josh Allen
    Dear Josh,

    Thanks for the comment and sorry for taking so long to respond.CryEngine 3 looks great (I used CryEngine 2 to do some experimenting with Verulamium a few years back – https://vimeo.com/dataanarchist/videos – its a beautiful system… but unfortunately no one has made the move to enable an AR view of the engine. That is the main reason I am using Unity – because it has great AR integration.

    In terms of getting the GIS data to overlay properly I have been quite a bit of work on that recently (in Unity at least) and will be putting up a post on it very soon – so watch this space.

    I would love to see some of your stuff – do you have any links to it anywhere?

    • Joe Evans

    Hi Stu!

    Wow, so we seem to be doing almost the exact same dissertation work (Integrated active AR in Archaeology, rather than passive) over a world away (my site is in Mexico). Your “Augmented Reality, a New Horizon in Archaeology” article literally hits on all the major points I was shooing for, while using the same software! I guess great minds think alike and we both saw the digital data horizon/layer (I’m calling it the Digital Heritage Horizon or DH^2) as an integrative platform. It’s truly an amazing tool with applications not only for live, active archaeologists, but it segues the content we generate from data collection to public, user aspects almost seamlessly.

    With that being said I’m also looking at using the CryE3 (haha) in a custom Heritage AR app in addition to mixing some kernals I’ve been lucky enough to use. I’m really excited about your solutions to GIS data overlay because I’ve had to use some round about methods to get my data to stick. Anyway I’m glad I found your blog, I’ll stalk it frequently to see what’s happening on your side of the pond and help where I can. Who knows, maybe we could collaborate on something.

    Technoarchaeologists unite.

    • Gary Hall

    Hi. A consultant I am using directed me to your video “Augmenting a Roman Fort” because I have just taken on the responsibility for running a Roman Fort in Coventry. The consultant is helping me with a Feasibility Study to develop the site and, in conjunction with their work, I am currently planning to hold a hackathon in September at the site.

    Your work looks exactly the sort of thing I am looking for. Would you be interested in having a chat and maybe getting involved?

    Gary