eCorpus demonstrates its educational value once again, this time within the Faculty of Humanities in Lille and the Institute of Historical Research of the North (IRHiS). A promotion campaign was launched in collaboration with the research institute, the company Holusion, and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille. Through this initiative, third-year undergraduate students were able to digitize museum artworks themselves using iPads and photogrammetry software.
Introduction
It was in 2023 that IRHiS and Holusion partnered to provide this photogrammetry training. This approach, not only essential for ensuring the preservation of artistic works from our History, also allowed the direct involvement of young people in the project, raising their awareness of the promotion of Art History.
Once the digitizations were completed, the different groups of students were able to finalize their work by importing the 3D models into the eCorpus database. Full presentations were thus able to accompany the digitized works.
September 2023
Third-year undergraduate students were accompanied on a visit to the Palais des Beaux-Arts with the aim of creating photogrammetries of the museum’s artworks. These digitizations were then uploaded to the eCorpus database to be semantically enriched, as well as digitally preserved and later used for educational purposes, allowing easy access to the subjects for remote students, for example.
May 2024
During her internship at Holusion, Manon, then a third-year student at IRHiS, was able to take over her classmates’ projects to deepen and enhance them, while carefully respecting the foundation of their work. To further her knowledge, Manon also learned to use the photogrammetry software Reality Capture, using the Monument aux Martyrs de Roubaix as her subject. Discovering the 3D modeling software Blender was also helpful for her to “clean up” the models from any imperfections caused by inaccurate photogrammetric interpretations. This internship also enabled, among other things, the preparation of future remote teaching courses to be offered by IRHiS via eCorpus.
Holographic Exhibition
IRHiS has acquired an Iris 42 holographic display provided by the company Holusion. The display was installed in the Georges Lefebvre Library within the research institute’s laboratory. This innovative display is connected to a touch table system, allowing visitors and students to admire the previously mentioned models, further showcasing and enhancing the work of the student groups involved in the project.This event provided a unique and innovative opportunity to introduce students to photogrammetry, enriching their experiences. This engaging and practical teaching also allowed eCorpus to be tested with a new type of audience, contributing to the enrichment of user experience data for the Open Source software, and thus its definite improvement through the processing of this data. The results were very convincing from the start, demonstrating the ease of use of eCorpus, which was indeed well understood by the young people who tried it on this occasion.
This opportunity provides better visibility of the possibilities offered by a database such as eCorpus, as well as enabling the introduction of new teaching methods in the field of research and heritage development.
Indeed, the inability to access certain artworks and museum pieces proves to be a real obstacle for remote learning, especially in Art History and archaeological research programs. We can therefore see a double beneficial effect arising from this initiative: students learn photogrammetry while also gaining deeper knowledge about the digitized subjects, thereby making these accessible to their peers remotely, who can, in turn, use the photos taken to try photogrammetry themselves. This so-called “win-win” situation helps to reduce the disparity between students who do not have access to the same resources, while also strengthening the bonds among students of the same cohort, giving them, in the process, a concrete example of how to showcase their work.
We thank the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille for opening its doors to IRHiS students and for giving them the opportunity to digitize the exhibited artworks. We also thank Mathieu Beaud and Thibault Guillaumont for their involvement in the project and the instruction they provided during this event.
In conclusion
The continued improvement of eCorpus allows us to advance further in the natural evolution of teaching methods linked to the progress of new technologies. These new tools will enable current students to be modern in their approach and open them up to innovative conservation and museography methods, which will undoubtedly revolutionize the way these historically significant works are viewed and accessed.