RETOLD News

During the RETOLD conference at Steinzeitpark Dithmarschen (September 2023), XYZ Technical Art Services as part of RETOLD partner Nuwa Digital Ltd continued their series of photogrammetry training sessions for museum partners who want to digitally capture their museum inventory.

During the workshop, volunteers and museum staff gained hands-on experience of taking photos suitable for photogrammetry...

It has been a busy year for the RETOLD project. We work with documenting, digitising and sharing stories of open-air museums. After having met in the ASTRA museum in Sibiu, Romania, in spring 2023, and in Museumsdorf Düppel in Berlin, Germany, in summer, we met in Steinzeitpark Dithmarschen, Germany in early autumn.  But there is much to be done. The six RETOLD partners met in the true north of Germany to discuss progress of our tool which...

EXARC is looking for a few open-air museums willing to test our new app in the coming weeks. The app is to document buildings: you mostly use photos and a sequence of questions for the initial setting up of a house, which then is followed by for example notes on maintenance. In the end, this app is meant to manage a digital documentation of the stories of both archaeological open-air museums and historical, skansen-type, open-air museums. 

In Retold partners develop a method for open-air museums to document, digitise and share their stories. One of the avenues is that we create 3D models of the houses in these museums. These models are then dressed with all kinds of information. Our specialists from Nuwa Ltd have developed most of our approach. Early July, they visited Museumsdorf Düppel in Berlin, Germany for a photogrammetry training...

We constructed an early prototype utilising 3D models as a way of anchoring and annotating observational data of buildings that museums wanted to capture. This solved the problem of creating or procuring 2D drawings, plans or photographs of buildings from all perspectives, and then relating the captured data points to the visuals. Since this feature necessitated museums’ access to 3D models of their inventory...

On Tuesday, March 28th, during meeting at Sibiu, Cordula Hansen and Shay Gilna (NUWA) led a session “Introduction to Photogrammetry”. The aim of the workshop was to introduce participants to accessible, practical ways of documenting buildings, objects and environments as 3D models using current mobile and desktop applications. The exercise will help museum partners develop the skills to prepare data for the - as of yet un-named - RETOLD documentation app...

Early Spring 2023, we spent a short week in Sibiu, to discuss going digital with open-air museums. The Complexul National Muzeal ASTRA is one of the largest of this kind of museums in Central and East Europe, counting over 300 houses. The idea of the museum goes back to the end of the 19 th century. Originally they started with installations like for example wind and water mills.

The RETOLD project is beginning to show its first technological results. Through close collaboration between RETOLD partners UAB and Nuwa Digital Media and under leadership from EXARC, a working prototype of our digital documentation tool for open-air museums is being built. Founded on documentation design by RETOLD partners Museumsdorf Düppel (DE) and Complexul National Muzeal ASTRA (RO) and user experience (UX) research by Nüwa Ltd (IE)...

The research project Putting Life into Late Neolithic Houses is a rather comprehensive research project that aims to understand various aspects of Neolithic life in the Rhine/Meuse delta of the Netherlands. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the project, people with different skills and knowledge are required. Apart from academics, the project needs people skilled in crafts. Our team member Diederik Pomstra is such a craftsperson.

Early March, we had the chance to visit the Steinzeitpark Dithmarschen in Schleswig, Germany. Occasion was the official opening of their new museum building, a project which was at least ten years in the making, but it was an excellent opportunity for preparations of the RETOLD meeting which will take place here in Autumn-Winter 2023. EXARC is the lead partner in this cooperation project....