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Where is the “Porcelanowiec”, at what depth does the “Głazik” lie and where are the most archaeological sites on the Baltic Sea? The Virtual Wreck Museum, the newest “branch” of the National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk, is now open.
The Virtual Wreck Heritage Park, the first project of its kind in Poland, is a website (www.wsw.nmm.pl) which invites visitors to an interactive tour of the wrecks located in the Gulf of Gdansk. The creation of the website is part of a two-year scientific and research project entitled “The Virtual Wreck Heritage Park of the Gulf of Gdansk. Inventory of underwater archaeological heritage”, which is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
“The main assumption and goal of the project is to make photogrammetric, three-dimensional documentation of wooden shipwrecks from the Gulf of Gdansk,” – says Dr Tomasz Bednarz, underwater archaeologist at the NMM, who is leading the work on the project.
Members of the research team taking part in the 3D photogrammetric documentation are also: Janusz Różycki, Wojciech Joński and Zbigniew Jarocki. Preparations for the launch of the virtual open-air museum project lasted over a year. During this time, over 60 thousand photographs of underwater objects were taken, which made it possible to present them in three-dimensional form.
“We have been developing the method of underwater documentation, which is connected with making photogrammetric 3D models of wrecks, at the NMM for more than two years now and we are, in a way, experts in this field. Several thousand photograms are taken for each object, which are then assembled by the computer into a detailed 3D model,” adds Tomasz Bednarz. – “The result of our work is a virtual open-air museum, i.e. a place on the Internet where you can ‘visit’ the most important shipwrecks resting at the bottom of the Gulf of Gdańsk”
The presented models of wrecks are a faithful reproduction of the real appearance of these objects lying on the bottom of the Gulf of Gdańsk. This is how underwater archaeologists see them during their work – with the difference that low water transparency does not allow to see further than 2 – 3 metres, while on the “Virtual Wreck Heritage Park” one can see the whole wreck. Until the end of this year the National Maritime Museum is planning to place 13 wrecks from the Gulf of Gdańsk in the “Virtual Open Air Museum” and in the following years systematically enrich the site with new archaeological sites.
“Today’s museums want to digitise, to enter new forms of media and the latest technologies. This is an important trend,” explains Szymon Kulas, deputy director of the NMM, “One of the objectives of any contemporary cultural institution is to promote monuments in multimedia form. This, in turn, entails modernising and making the offer more attractive. The Virtual Open Air Museum of Wrecks project is part of the metamorphosis we are undergoing as a museum. Our main mission is to present the exhibits and to protect them, but we are increasingly using laser and optical scanners, 3D printers and augmented reality, ” adds Szymon Kulas.
Models of underwater objects placed in the Virtual Wreck Museum can be viewed in smartphones using virtual reality devices such as Google Cardboard or Oculus DK1 and DK2. This additionally enhances the feeling of three-dimensionality and spatiality of the presented underwater sites. The museum plans to implement a special stationary version of the Virtual Wreck Museum for the latest version of Oculus and other Virtual Reality goggles. This will allow for a virtual “full immersion” in the waters of the Gdansk Bay for people watching the wrecks and moving around the site of the Open-air Museum of Wrecks being all the time in the virtual underwater world.
The task entitled: “Virtual Wreck Museum of the Gulf of Gdansk. Registration and inventory of underwater archaeological heritage” is implemented in 2015 – 2016. The task is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Source: National Maritime Museum
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