Pat.JPG

St. Patrick's Bell Shrine Replica

St. Patrick's Shrine Replica

 
 
Pat.JPG

More information about CEMEC can be found here. Object Description BELL SHRINE. Dublin, 1902-03; mark of Edmond Johnson, Jun.; silver-gilt. A replica of the Shrine of St Patrick's Bell. The original shrine was made c.1100 and is inscribed with a prayer for its makers, Condulig Ua hinmainen and his sons.

 

This replica was built for a project investigating how to record and reproduce shiny/metallic objects. The shrine was recorded using photogrammetry and a custom lighting setup. We encountered issues while recording where any areas were not entirely surrounded by white card or diffused, white light. These areas caused large, dark reflections distorting the results. It became clear that we needed bright ambient light along with the soft boxes and matte white card surrounding in order to create stable lighting. 

Each face was also recorded using RTI photography to provide detailed normal and specular maps. 

Further challenges arose along the curved, silver borders. These areas reflected their surrounding, distorting the end model. This is where it was decided that photogrammetry alone would not create a viable end product. 

From here the object was segmented in to the separate faces, the round borders, the core reference model including the handle, and the interior near-mirror surface. The existing round borders were removed and used only as a reference to reconstruct them as a new model. The gems and mirrored intererior were also rebuilt as the originals had the same issue as the rounded borders. The detailed flat faces had the gems removed and the flat faces retopologised. They were then UV unwrapped and the normal, specular and diffuse maps were transferred to them to recreate the detail of the originals. 

The core model, detailed faces, mirrored interior, and gems were then placed together, using the original model as a reference for positions, and uploaded to sketchfab.