Cultural visualisation of a cultural photographic collection in 3D environments - Development of ‘PAV 3D’ (Photographic archive visualisation)

Abstract

This demonstration illustrates the possibilities of new 3D technologies in conveying large scale historical photographic databases in interactive 3D virtual environments. We illustrate the visualization of the State Library of Western Australia (SLWA)’s photographic collection containing over 1 million photographs dating back to the 1850s utilizing Curtin’s Hub for Immersive Visualization and eResearch (HIVE). Our application was intended to explore the possibilities in visualizing cultural data sets on the HIVE’s Cylinder, a 3 m high, eight-meter diameter, and 180° cylindrical projection surface. Our demonstration illustrated the potentials of virtual environments in creating interactive information designs for photographic imagery, which can be explored according location, time-period, creator, and subject.