The Waterford Kite Brooch

This project was an exploration…

An exploration in photogrammetrically recording and reproducing an object of a much smaller scale that we had previously succeeded in doing.

A process known as “stacked photography” was combined with traditional photogrammetry to record the Waterford Kite Brooch. The process of capturing stacked photography is interesting in itself. It involves combining images of the same object, taken with different, very shallow focal depths. The result is a stack of images, each with a section of the object shown in incredibly crisp detail. These stacked images are then processed and combined to create one incredibly high definition image of the object from a single perspective. This process is then repeated at ten thirty six degree intervals, at 3 or 4 different angles. The two processes combined result in hundreds of images. Once the stacks of images are combined you pass the resulting high resolution images through your SFM program of choice to produce an SFM model.

These models can then be retopologised, UV unwrapped, and have the relevant material maps reapplied to recreate the object for any 3D platform.

The results of the model seen below are interesting, however, I think we could have pushed them further. We used 4 different focal depths for each stack. I think had we doubled that number and focused on smaller bands of the Brooch we would have been able to recreate the Brooch with truly crisp detail. In this project we succeeded in surpassing the results of previous recording attempts. I think given another chance we could show better results. I look forward to one day getting the chance to test that theory.