The Gregg Museum of Art & Design Explores Virtual Models to Enhance Access to its Collections

Mary Hauser and Debbie Willmschen

For more than 40 years, the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at NC State has worked with professors and classes at NC State University to enhance the educational opportunities available to students using its collections and exhibitions. One class in particular, ADN475 Pre-Industrial World Textiles from the College of Design — conceived and developed by distinguished professor emerita Susan Brandeis — has interacted with the museum’s collections in a variety of ways over the years. From a museum tour during the semester and individual research projects in its

Gregg Museum and DELTA team members capture details to enhance new 3D models developed to facilitate access to collection objects. Courtesy of NC State DELTA 2022. earliest iterations, the class had evolved significantly and now meets weekly in the museum’s archival storage area to view 10-20 textiles pertinent to the class’s topic that session. With the quick shift to mostly virtual instruction in the Spring of 2020, both the museum’s staff and the class instructor needed to examine other methods of showing historic textiles to students.

When preparing for a return to campus and the next occurrence of this course, Kate Greder, assistant teaching professor, and Mary Hauser, associate director and registrar of the Gregg Museum applied for and received an exploratory grant with the Digital Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) department at NC State. The purpose of the grant was to consider the use of photogrammetry and 3D modeling to provide detailed representations of objects

from the Gregg Museum’s collection for students and other museum users to interact with and explore while improving the preservation of objects by reducing handling and wear. Photogrammetry is a process that uses photographs or videos of real-world objects or environments to create digital 3D representations of those objects. It involves capturing many overlapping images of a structure, object or landscape.

The grant facilitated the scanning of objects, including production, post-production and the investigation of delivery methods to aid with classroom-based learning.

The team that worked on this project included Greder and Hauser, as co principal investigators, as well as DELTA team members — assistant director of educational media Donnie Wrights, instructional designer Caitlin McKeown, and multimedia specialist Stephen Waddell. The project kicked off in September 2021, and the team met weekly for a year, including several all day or partial day meetings to test and actually image-capture objects from the Gregg Museum’s collection. After clarifying the goals of the project and exploring some capture methods, the group selected a sample set of objects on which to test the capture process. Test shoots revealed problems with accurately capturing highly reflective surfaces and objects with holes or openings, so the list was revised to present the highest possibility of success.

Objects that could be mounted on a mannequin were videoed while the mannequin turned on an automatic turntable beneath its base. Though there were some issues with movement of parts and small elements of the textiles, especially fringe, this proved to be the most efficient method of capturing images. Flatter objects were laid out on a table beneath a wheeled gantry that held a camera with special modifications, including a custom polarizer. DELTA team members moved the camera across the piece in 3 to 4 inch increments capturing overlapping details of the object in a grid pattern. This capture method was more labor intensive up front but required less post-production work. Detailed images were captured using a probe lens to focus on weave structures and fiber content.

“Our initial goal was to be able to do 3D object analysis in support of the ADN475 hybrid course,” Greder

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said. “We’ve achieved that objective, and now realize that, in some cases, it is possible to get even more detail in the virtual viewer than one can observe in person. The accomplishments of the grant opened up the need to more fully develop a pipeline to be able to image-capture objects on our own, which can expand the ways in which people engage with the Gregg Museum’s collection. That process will also allow us to present a wider array of objects for students enrolled in the Pre-Industrial World Textiles course.”

Working with museum pieces for the project also came with its own special challenges. Because of security and object handling concerns, the image capture equipment needed to be installed either on site at the museum, which presented space and scheduling challenges, or the museum objects needed to be transported elsewhere, which required security, specialized object handling procedures, and post-photography pest management practices (such as freezing or isolation of objects) before they could be returned to collections storage. Post-production proved to be more labor intensive than anticipated and specialized computers were required to process the large amounts of data captured. Video of the garments needed to be broken apart into images and reassembled into models, and some areas had to be reshot or recreated from available images and information where images were incomplete or flawed.

“We are hopeful that as the technology evolves, the process will become more attainable. We want to continue adding 3D photo captured objects to the list of 3D assets developed as part of this project.” Greder added, “It is also possible to some day envision the possibility of downloadable 3D assets of museum objects that would alter how the public is able to engage with museum objects and history in general.”

Working with museum objects, the team encountered parameters that one wouldn’t necessarily encounter when generating new 3D assets such as who could handle the textiles and how. In addition, bringing together

team members from multiple disciplines presented communication challenges at times, but the team was able to work around these issues successfully.

“On the material culture and museum side of the project, the details and information we look for might be different than what someone else might look for,” Greder said. While Greder focused on elements that would illustrate key features to students and Hauser looked for accuracy of color and object placement, the DELTA team considered model fidelity and texture mapping. This meant it was vital to have all members of the team review versions of the model regularly. If data was missing in the image capture process, the team needed to talk about how it would be processed and ultimately noted on the object.”

After exploring several options, it was decided to develop the 3D models in sketchfab and the flat textiles in a smart zoom tool developed by the DELTA team which loads progressively detailed images as one zooms in rather than one very large image that may slow down or freeze the user’s computer. For students in the Pre-Industrial World Textiles class, a Virtual Viewer also developed by DELTA for a previous grant, which highlights models, details, and perspectives for students to explore independently, will be used in the Moodle virtual learning platform. In addition, the models and images are available on the Gregg Museum’s website for anyone interested in experiencing them.

The DELTA Grant team worked together closely to identify the best objects to capture. The team wanted to ensure they supported student success in the course but also provided research and exploration opportunities for the DELTA Educational Media Design and Instructional Media production teams.

“This experience will certainly influence future applications of photogrammetry,” Wrights said. “This team gained a lot of experience with photogrammetry and its educational opportunities. We were able to set a

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Setup for capturing flat textile images including gantry and custom camera mount. Courtesy of NC State DELTA 2022.

strong groundwork for future projects and look forward to exploring this exciting medium much further.”

At the outset, the team had hoped to develop a pipeline for future capture of images and model production of more objects for the class and from the Gregg Museum’s collection, but over the course of the project, it became clear that this would not be attainable given the time and resources available. From object preparation through image capture and model production, the models averaged more than 40 hours of work apiece. The museum and Greder will track how

Detail of Geringsing showing resist dyed yarns in both warp and weft directions. Courtesy of NC State DELTA 2022.

Setup for capturing garments including turntable with weights and modifications to garment to reduce textile movement. Courtesy of NC State DELTA 2022.

many and in what way people interact with the models and images to help guide future development of these types of media for students, groups, and the general public. Already a few drawbacks have been noted, including the difficulty of conveying scale within a virtual space and the lack of smell, sound, and tactility that can enhance the deeper understanding of textiles. “Overall, the biggest successes were the incredible images that were captured for each object,” Greder said. “This was a valuable experience to explore what is possible, and we will use these examples as test cases for the class and for the museum in general.”

3D model of a Chilkat blanket facilitating viewer interaction with the textile. Courtesy of NC State DELTA 2022.