How your pictures can help reclaim lost history | Chance Coughenour

78,686 views ・ 2017-09-14

TED


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Translator: Carolina Casado Parras
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Why do people deliberately destroy cultural heritage?
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By doing so,
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do they believe they're erasing our history?
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Our cultural memory?
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It's true that we are losing cultural heritage to erosion
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and natural disasters,
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but this is something that is simply difficult to avoid.
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I'm here to show you today how we can use pictures --
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your pictures --
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to reclaim the history that is being lost
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using innovative technology
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and the effort of volunteers.
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In the early 20th century,
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archaeologists discovered hundreds of statues and artifacts
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at the ancient city of Hatra,
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in northern Iraq.
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Statues like this one were found in fragments,
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some of them missing their heads or arms,
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yet the clothing that they are wearing
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and their pose
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can still tell us their story.
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For example,
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we believe that by wearing a knee-length tunic
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and open bare feet,
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this was representative of a priest.
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However, with a closer look at this particular piece,
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we can see that this tunic being worn was elaborately decorated,
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which has led many researchers to believe
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this was actually a statue of a king performing his religious functions.
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When the Mosul Cultural Museum opened in 1952 in northern Iraq,
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this statue, as well as others,
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were placed there to preserve them for future generations.
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Following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003,
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a few statues and artifacts were relocated to Baghdad,
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but this statue remained.
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Then in February of last year, a video was released,
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and it instantly went viral.
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Maybe some of you remember seeing it.
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Here's a short clip.
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(Video) (Singing in Arabic)
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(Singing ends)
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Not a very pleasant sight, right?
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Did you notice anything familiar in the video?
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There it is.
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There is that very statue,
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as it was toppled over,
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breaking into pieces.
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When Matthew Vincent and I saw this video,
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we were shocked.
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Since we are archaeologists using innovative technology
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for digital preservation,
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an idea sprung to mind.
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Maybe we can crowdsource the images that were taken of these artifacts
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before they were destroyed,
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to create digital reconstructions.
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If we can do that,
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maybe we can put them into a virtual museum
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to tell that story.
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And so two weeks after we saw this video,
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we started the project called Project Mosul.
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Remember the pictures of the statue I showed you before?
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This is actually the crowdsourced reconstruction of it
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before it was destroyed.
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Now, many of you may be wondering,
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how exactly does this work?
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Well, the key to this technology is called photogrammetry,
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and it was invented here, in Germany.
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It is the technology that allows us to use two-dimensional images
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taken of the same object from different angles
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to create a 3D model.
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I know you may be thinking this sounds like magic -- but it's not.
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Let me show you how it works.
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Here are two crowdsourced images of the same statue.
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What the computer can do
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is it can detect similar features between the photographs --
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similar features of the object.
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Then, by using multiple photos,
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in this case, it can begin to reconstruct the object in 3D.
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In this case,
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you have the position of the cameras when each image was taken,
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shown in blue.
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Now, this is a partial reconstruction, I admit,
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but why would I say partial?
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Well, simply because the statue was positioned against a wall.
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We don't have photographs taken of it from the back.
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If I wanted to complete a full digital reconstruction of this statue,
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I would need a proper camera,
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tripods, proper lighting,
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but we simply can't do that with crowdsourced images.
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Think about it:
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How many of you, when you visit a museum,
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take photographs of all parts of the statue,
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even the back side of it?
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Well, maybe if some of you find Michelangelo's David interesting,
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I guess --
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(Laughter)
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But the thing is,
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if we can find more images of this object,
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we can improve the 3D model.
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When we started the project,
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we started it with the Mosul Museum in mind.
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We figured we may get a few images,
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some people interested,
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make one or two virtual reconstructions,
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but we had no idea that we had sparked something that would grow so quickly.
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Before we knew it,
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we realized it was obvious:
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we could apply this same idea to lost heritage anywhere.
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And so, we decided to change the name of the project to Rekrei.
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Then, in the summer of last year,
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"The Economist" magazine's media lab reached out to us.
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They asked us,
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"Hey, would you like us to build a virtual museum
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to put the reconstructions back inside,
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to tell the story?"
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Can you imagine us saying no?
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Of course not.
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We said yes!
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We were so excited.
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This was exactly the initial dream of that project.
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And so now,
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any of you can experience RecoVR Mosul on your phone,
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using Google Cardboard
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or a tablet or even YouTube 360.
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Here is a screenshot from the virtual museum.
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And there it is ...
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the partial reconstruction of the statue,
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as well as the Lion of Mosul,
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the first reconstruction completed by our project.
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Although the video doesn't explicitly show the Lion of Mosul being destroyed,
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we have many other examples of large artifacts being destroyed
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that were simply too large to have been stolen.
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For example,
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the Gate of Nimrud in northern Iraq.
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This is a digital reconstruction from before,
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and this is actually during the destruction.
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Or the Lion of Al-Lāt, in Palmyra, Syria:
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before ...
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and after.
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Although virtual reconstructions are primarily the main focus
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of our project,
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some people have been asking the question:
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Can we print them in 3D?
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We believe 3D printing doesn't offer a straightforward solution
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to lost heritage.
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Once an object is destroyed,
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it's gone.
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But 3D printing does offer an addition to tell that story.
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For example, I can show you here ...
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There is the statue from Hatra
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and the Lion of Mosul.
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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Now, if you look closely,
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you'll notice that there are some parts that have been printed in color,
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and some parts that are in white or gray.
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This part was added simply to hold the statues up.
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This works the same way if you visit a museum,
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and a statue is found in fragments;
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it's put together for the people to see it.
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This makes sense, right?
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However, we're much more interested
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in what virtual reality has to offer for lost heritage.
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Here is an example of one of the tower tombs
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that was destroyed in Palmyra.
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Using Sketchfab's online viewer,
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we can show that we have reconstructed three parts of the exterior of the tomb,
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but we also have photos of the inside,
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so we're beginning to create a reconstruction of the wall
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and the ceiling.
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Archaeologists worked there for many, many years,
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so we also have architectural drawing plans of this lost heritage.
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Unfortunately, we are not only losing cultural heritage to areas of conflict
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and at war --
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we're also losing it to natural disasters.
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This is a 3D model of Durbar Square in Kathmandu,
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before the earthquake that occurred last April ...
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and this is after.
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You may be thinking,
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you didn't create these 3D models with only tourist photographs,
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and that's true.
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But what this represents
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is the ability for large, public organizations and private industry
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to come together for initiatives like ours.
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And so one of the major challenges of our project, really,
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is to find photographs that were taken before something happens, right?
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Well, the internet is basically a database with millions of images, right?
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Exactly.
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So we have begun to develop a tool
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that allows us to extract images from websites like Flickr,
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based on their geotags,
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to complete reconstructions.
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Because we're not only losing cultural heritage to natural disasters and in war,
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but we're also losing it to something else.
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Any idea, just looking at these two pictures?
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Maybe it's a little difficult to remember,
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but only a few weeks ago,
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this was the example of human destruction by human stupidity.
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Because a tourist in Lisbon wanted to climb onto this statue
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and take a selfie with it --
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(Laughter)
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and pulled it down with him.
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So we're already finding photographs
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to complete a digital reconstruction of this.
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We need to remember
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that the destruction of cultural heritage isn't a recent phenomenon.
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In the 16th century,
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European priests and explorers burned thousands of Maya books in the Americas,
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of which we only have a handful left.
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Fast-forward to 2001,
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when the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.
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You see,
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cultural heritage is about our shared global history.
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It helps us connect with our ancestors and their stories,
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but we're losing pieces of it every day to natural disasters
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and in areas of conflict.
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Of course, the loss of human life is the most heartbreaking loss ...
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but cultural heritage offers us a way to preserve the memory of the people
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for future generations.
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We need your help to reclaim the history that is being lost.
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Will you join us?
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(Applause)
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