archieclement
Colonel
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2011
- Location
- mo
I was surprised to see it used crudely at the New Philadelphia site I visited earlier this year. It was the first time I had experienced it at any type of site.
Geo mapping could be used to accurately locate unmapped earthworks. It would be nice if topological maps could be incorporated also.
I thought augmented reality was a common thing, it’s being used at quite a few historic sites throughout the world, historic sites like the pyramids, Stonehenge and quite a few places in London use AR
Not sure whether this is the kind of thing you're thinking of as geo-mapping, but one of the projects I've been working on is to locate the 1863 earthworks on the modern landscape here in Raleigh, NC. (It was a 4-5 mile ring around the entire city at the time.) The engineer who designed and built them drew a good map that still exists, and locations of some houses, buildings, etc. haven't changed since the war, which provides anchor points for taking off the map onto the ground today. I've made a Google Maps version of the 1863 original, which is interactive in that you can zoom in on any portion and see explanations and photos taken along the track of the entrenchments. But I wonder whether you mean something more sophisticated by the term geo-mapping? Here's a link to the current version of the map:
Raleigh Earthworks, 1863 - Google My Maps
This map is a correlation between the modern landscape and the 1863 Henry T. Guion map of Civil War earthworks constructed around Raleigh, NC, at the request of Gov. Zebulon B. Vance. I have confirmed several anchor points between the 1863 and modern landscapes, all with variances between 26 and...www.google.com
Roy B.
Some have made reproduction earthworks. Have you heard of Shoupades?
An interesting shape. What you might call a "lunette." I'm guessing these were connected by entrenchments? It's really cool that someone had the remnants of one of these in their side yard -- and not at all cool that it was going to be razed to build more houses! Here's an example of a similar form here at Raleigh, from the 1863 Henry T. Guion map:
View attachment 375192
Roy B.
A "lunette" would be more of a half moon shaped defense (as far as I know).
25 years ago, one of my children had a book with pictures of ancient sites as they appear now, and each page had a plastic sheet with a picture filling in the missing details and covering the modern intrusions. I guess you'd call that the analog version... It was cool though.
@A. RoyAnyway, @Bill Grubbs, I guess we got off-topic from augmented reality, didn't we? I just saw a piece about an AR Gettysburg mobile app that looks interesting:
Mixed Reality App Immerses You In The Historic Battle Of Gettysburg - VRScout
Share TweetScott Eastwood narrates this educational AR 360-degree experience from QuantumERA. This Wednesday marks the historic 157th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, a gruesome three-day conflict fought in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during the American Civil War...vrscout.com
This quick video includes some clips from the app, and comments from one of the actors involved:
Roy B.
I did get us off topic and I apologize.
I subscribed to QuantumERA. It looks like they are just getting started.
I did the simpler thing of overlaying modern aerial images with engineering drawings in a couple of places where the locations of historic fabric were not obvious. At Fort Adams, Newport, RI, I recreated the line of the covert way, then physically climbed around the area trying to find remnants. I did the same, quite successfully, at Fort Hancock on the Sandy Hook of New Jersey. Simply for demonstration purposes, and for signage, I overlaid the dual-moat design of Fort Pike, defenses of New Orleans, over the existing landscape.Today on its Facebook page, the American Battlefield Trust posted an interesting video of an augmented reality (AR) application that imposes a Civil War battle scene onto the modern landscape:
I'm wondering whether folks here are seeing this kind of effort being done to recreate battlegrounds and historic sites, especially in areas where preservation is difficult. I've been working on a book about the ring of CW defenses that was built here in Raleigh NC. Practically nothing remains today, but the engineer's map still exists, and it's possible to use that to trace the track of the entrenchments. The city is developing fast, which will likely make historic preservation difficult. But what if it were possible to create an augmented-reality model of the fortifications, so that you could walk around the city with your phone or tablet, and see where the redans and entrenchments were, and what they looked like?
I'd be interested in knowing what others have heard about this idea, and especially what kinds of applications might exist for developing this kind of AR presentation.
I've also just read about an effort like this in Charleston, SC:
"Students from Clemson University and the College of Charleston will use ground penetrating radar in downtown Charleston’s Marion Square to find exactly where the fortification called the Hornwork was built, the American Battlefield Trust said...
"The work by students over February and March will be used to create an augmented reality program that allows visitors to see the Hornwork, Jim Lighthizer, president of the American Battlefield Trust, said in a statement."
Roy B.
As an example, here is a screen shot from the American Battlefield Trust's video. What they've manage to do is to superimpose an animated battle scene on the modern-day remains of the battlefield (plus some modern-day guy who managed to insert himself into the video). What I would propose doing in Raleigh is less ambitious -- simply to overlay something like CAD (computer-aided drawing) images over a map of the modern-day landscape, to show where the fortifications were and what they basically looked like. And I suggest this, not just for the Raleigh project, but for any location where there is a desire to educate people about the Civil War history of the area. The implementation doesn't have to be as sophisticated as this type of animation.
View attachment 347923
Roy B.
At Fort Adams, Newport, RI, I recreated the line of the covert way, then physically climbed around the area trying to find remnants. I did the same, quite successfully, at Fort Hancock on the Sandy Hook of New Jersey. Simply for demonstration purposes, and for signage, I overlaid the dual-moat design of Fort Pike, defenses of New Orleans, over the existing landscape.
Yes! I used prints of the overlay for displays for the 200th Anniversary of the building of the fort. The fort is closed to the public, but I left the prints of all my graphics - I did about a dozen sign boards - with the Friends group so that they could use them any time the fort was opened. I still have all the digital files, of course, so if they can go the next step to permanent signs, I can provide the digital files to whomever creates them. The ones I created are photo prints mounted on Foamcore, then waterproofed with clear Contact paper. That's a technique I've used at other locations. Since I do all this as a volunteer, I have to keep the cost down and this seems to be a pretty good compromise between durability and cost.Interesting. Did you make this publicly available somehow, so visitors could use it when they visited the sites?
For my project here in Raleigh, I did a kind of basic AR implementation using GoogleMyMaps. I took off the line of CW entrenchments from the 1863 engineer's survey and laid them out on the modern map, so you can follow the lines all around the city and see where you are using the GPS capability of a mobile phone. Here's a link to it:
Raleigh Earthworks, 1863 - Google My Maps
This map is a correlation between the modern landscape and the 1863 Henry T. Guion map of Civil War earthworks constructed around Raleigh, NC, at the request of Gov. Zebulon B. Vance. I have confirmed several anchor points between the 1863 and modern landscapes, all with variances between 26 and...www.google.com
This is kind of a preliminary effort -- think I could do better the second time around. I estimate it's accurate in most locations within about 100 feet.
Roy B.