Comments for THATCamp CAANA 2012 – Computer Applications in Archaeology North America

Comment on What is THATCamp? by Qu’est-ce qui se cache derrière le terme "Humanités numériques" | Le Tourbillon Spatio-temporel

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:03:46 +0000

[…] on apprend vite qu’une définition plus précise a été proposé pendant le THATCamp de Paris en […]

Comment on Reflections on THAT Camp 2012 by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 15:32:16 +0000

Thanks for the writeup! Glad you enjoyed the experience!

Comment on Three days to submit proposals! by Abigail Holeman

Abigail Holeman — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 12:30:54 +0000

I’m probably too late, but I’ll put this up here anyway. Last night (hence the late post), a colleague and I were discussing the use of GIS in non-traditional ways, or creating new ways of representing nontraditional features. I use GIS to look at cosmology in Native American societies. My use of the technology itself is fairly straightforward and in fact rather traditional, but I am using it to ask questions I don’t usually see in connection with GIS. My colleague uses GIS to look at concepts of identity and cultural boundaries. In her work she has struggled with how to represent boundaries in more complex ways. Although the broader Digital Humanities uses different technologies to do this kind of thing, I’d love to hear how other people might be using GIS specifically in this way. I don’t have any thing specific in mind, just thought it would be great to hear other people’s thoughts on this.

Comment on GIS Help by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 03:24:45 +0000

No problem, proposals can be added during the scheduling block tomorrow morning. Hope the rest of your travel goes well!

Comment on GIS Help by kevinmdonaghy

kevinmdonaghy — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 01:04:33 +0000

OK, i apologize, i meant to post a session and have been at the airport since 330 having been delayed cancelled by weather, Concerning GIS i am hoping we can develop the photogrammetric discussion – i have worked with Rolli-metric software, sorry for typo’s battery dying, at airport, ok, but also my interest is in not only spatial distributions over the site but distance routes and paths of resource sourcing, trade, and technological development, Lyle, i got the shapefiles for you on your site area so we should have some stuff to play with

Sincerely,

kev

Comment on GIS Help by Lyle Browning

Lyle Browning — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 21:24:46 +0000

Dominic Powelsland of the UK West Heslerton Parish Project did that in the 1980’s with his own created version using a 500k item Anglo-Saxon cemetery and could call up profiles, drawings and whatnot and do it in 3D. Way out of my price range at the time though;) Colonial Williamsburg used it for a while.

Lyle

Comment on Three days to submit proposals! by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:56:59 +0000

This is a great idea. Thanks for offering, Garth.

Comment on GIS Help by whafford

whafford — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:10:29 +0000

GIS and any way to relate spatial data to lists of artifacts and info on them as well as other information such as field photographs, publications of various parts of a site, etc. would be a great thing to discuss. I am creating a huge database of everything from the site of Ur in Iraq and need to link it to maps of the site. Should I also try to put these sites into google earth and work in kml? At any rate, a session on the options on how to do such things would be terrific.

Comment on Three days to submit proposals! by Mandy Ranslow

Mandy Ranslow — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 08:47:19 +0000

As a non-local, I think it’s a great idea!

Comment on Three days to submit proposals! by Garth Anderson

Garth Anderson — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 03:32:53 +0000

I am not sure if another local has offered this, but as one of UVA’s historians I’d be happy to offer an overview of the Academical Village. If there is another local who can address “Canada” and the Kitty Foster homesite in our South Lawn (Canada was an area occupied by Free Blacks probably starting with the construction period of the University).
This tour could be organized for Friday, after the camp.

Comment on Project Review for Historic and Cultural Resources by Mandy Ranslow

Mandy Ranslow — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 20:45:45 +0000

What a cool map site! I will certainly take a look at that while doing project reviews. Here in Connecticut we are fortunate that the Map and Geographic Information Center at the University of Connecticut has scanned a lot of our local historic maps (in addition to many others): magic.lib.uconn.edu. And what’s also great is that I can download them and bring them into ArcView. Unfortunately, there is the issue of georeferencing them, which we do not have the time to do at the moment. Even the 1811 Warren Map that has been georeferenced is far from perfect.
The VA SHPO DSS looks like something CT is working towards, though we’re far away from that. It looks like the data is easily accessible to qualified researchers. We’re hoping to unltimately digitize that kind of data up here. Where has the funding come for this? Is it striaght-up Department of Historic Resources and VA DOT or is it grants through those agencies? Unfortunately for us, it’s a lack of funding and staff that’s stymieing our efforts. And who makes the call on who gets access and who doesn’t?

Comment on Schedule by Three days to submit proposals! » THATCamp CAANA 2012 - Computer Applications in Archaeology North America

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 03:51:12 +0000

[…] Schedule […]

Comment on Project Review for Historic and Cultural Resources by lebrowning

lebrowning — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 02:41:54 +0000

The VA SHPO has a system called DSS (Data Sharing System) that incorporates AP’s, USGS Quads, archaeological sites and structures. It also has NRHP districts and Civil War battlefield sites as layers in its GIS system. One other layer is probably going to be previous survey areas. The beast is being completely redesigned from the ground up and should be out next year. I really, really would like to see the GIS layering expanded to include resources that are from historic maps such as mills, railroads, iron furnaces and so on that as yet aren’t recorded in the system. It would be easy enough to correlate the source with a circle of relative accuracy. I don’t think there’s any plan to pull historic maps in but I did run across a nice map site that in essence does that at: oldmapsonline.org/ but it’s not extensive enough yet.

Lyle Browning

Comment on Data Sharing in Archaeology by Brad Hafford

Brad Hafford — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:46:13 +0000

This is exactly the sort of thing I am hoping to discuss with everyone at THATCamp. Sharing data is what my project is all about and I’m particularly interested in how to share spatial information in an open-source way.

See you all at THATCamp CAA-NA

Brad

Comment on Data Sharing in Archaeology by mmr03

mmr03 — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 23:03:08 +0000

Hi Ethan,

Brilliant! I like the idea. It will certainly allow the public and independent researchers to use general location data for spatial analysis without jeopardizing archaeological sites.

Comment on Data Sharing in Archaeology by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 18:51:07 +0000

Hi Mandy,

The IGCH records findspots to the nearest modern town. The coordinates on the map aren’t the precise findspot, but coordinates of the town provided by wikipedia or geonames, which is usually the address of the town hall.

Comment on GIS Help by kevinmd

kevinmd — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:55:25 +0000

Dear Lyle,

I downloaded shape files for you and will bring with me to the session next week.

Best wishes,

kev

Comment on The Web and Public Archaeology by bkmeans

bkmeans — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 14:04:03 +0000

Tim, thanks, will do, probably sometime early in the fall semester.
Cheers,

Bernard

Comment on The Web and Public Archaeology by Tim Goddard

Tim Goddard — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 02:06:57 +0000

Well contact me another time and we can talk more about WebGIS if you would like.

Tim

Comment on The Web and Public Archaeology by bkmeans

bkmeans — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 22:54:59 +0000

The WebGIS angle interests me and it’s a shame I won’t be able to talk with you the 10th. I’m toying with integrating my digital models with a GIS and as away of highlighting objects at different historic sites.

Comment on The Web and Public Archaeology by Tim Goddard

Tim Goddard — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 20:39:23 +0000

Terry,

As we talked a bit in Baltimore about this but I feel the WebGIS has a role to play in this. I feel the spatial visual element of a WebGIS can appeal to the public greater than a Musuem type online exhibit alone. By linking the visual stimulus of maps and/or 3d and then move into virtual realty based on real archaeological data that then allows people to link and comment or draw and add their own ideas is still in its infancy and needs some more feedback from the pubic as to refine this technology. The virtual reali opens a big bag of worms so I will mainly focus in the WebGIS for now. The social media combined with WebGIS needs to be explored more to get the most out of the data and the potential wide variety of users. The more ways we can give the user access to data the better the experience and positive feedback we can get. Not everyone will get the same from a single type of web presence but if we use a “mash up” of web tools done in a specific way I think we can attract a wider audience which will help build the uses and needs of web based tools.

Sorry I just found out today that I won’t be able to attend on the 10th so I’m going to miss out in some good discussion.

Comment on Data Sharing in Archaeology by Tim Goddard

Tim Goddard — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 20:31:22 +0000

I am working both in Italy and the united states using Gis and/or WebGIS as a Portal to various databases. This way we don’t have to make one universal database(this has always been the problem in the past) we record everything in its spatial context as the unique identifier and then can link to a variety of different database types. This seems to give our projects the most flexibility to work with a wide variety data schema. As WebGIS expands there are many open and off the shelf options that work. With the advent of the cloud there are low cost solutions that don’t require a substantial infrastructure to build to host the WebGIS. As more archaeological websites abound the user interfaces will continue to reach a wider audience and allow them to access like never before. I think we are at a time were we need to experiment and work with the various stakeholders to develop user interfaces to meet their needs. A WebGIS I built in the states has found unexpected stakeholders such as realtors, architects, and school teachers beyond the historians, archaeologists, local homeowners, and students that I initially designed the site for.

Comment on Data Sharing in Archaeology by Mandy Ranslow

Mandy Ranslow — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 15:25:58 +0000

So even though the lat/longs look pretty precise on that record, and I can plug them into Google Maps and get an exact location, it’s not necessarily the precise find spot of the coins?

Comment on The Web and Public Archaeology by bkmeans

bkmeans — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 13:18:07 +0000

This topic meshes well with the work that I am doing, especially the real versus digital, and I think my tentative session proposal could be integrated into yours. Certainly traveling around and scanning artifacts at historic heritage venues and archaeological sites in Virginia and Pennsylvania shows that this is a topic of great interest. My students who work with me are certainly comfortable working in the digital as well as “real” realms.

Comment on Data Sharing in Archaeology by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 19:49:41 +0000

This is an issue that we are tackling with coin hoards (3 or more coins found together in the same context) and also what the Portable Antiquities Scheme deals with daily. Archaeologists record precise geographical coordinates, but only make available to the public a more generalized "inhabited place" to prevent potential looting. With OCRE, we are interested in geographic distribution of coins on a more global scale. We're not concerned that two specimens of a particular coin type are found in adjacent rooms in a shop in Pompeii, but we'd like to know that there are two coins found in Pompeii. For our purposes, the nearest ancient (or modern) place is good enough--Pompeii, Alexandria, Homs, etc. This record from the Inventory of Greek Coin Hoards merely lists Kerch in Crimea as its findspot.

Comment on Data Sharing in Archaeology by Mandy Ranslow

Mandy Ranslow — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 13:11:07 +0000

I think this sounds like a very interesting project. I am interested in making archaeological data available online to the public, and I have been involved in discussions on how that could be done with state archaeological site files. I do stuggle with making all the information public. Are find spot locations of particular coins part of the OCRE? How precise is the location information? Is there any concern about looting of these sites if this information is public? While I enthusiastically embrace the ability to share archaeological information with the public digitally, I wonder where we need to draw the line for preservation’s sake.

Comment on The Web and Public Archaeology by Mandy Ranslow

Mandy Ranslow — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 01:59:20 +0000

I am very interested in this topic myself for a number of reasons. As the Connecticut Archaeology Awareness Month Coordinator I am looking for as many ways possible to reach the public with announcements of events and information about the importance of preservation. My latest experiment is asking (begging) historic house museums across the state to exhibit artifacts that have been excavated on their grounds. While I think many would be interested in doing this, the hours in which their open are rather limited, especially outside the summer months. I am thinking an online exhibit would be an avenue worth exploring for them. The Ellington (CT) Historical Society, who I am most closely tied to at this moment has already made strides to put part of their collection online (www.ellingtonhistsoc.org/), which seems rather progressive in my experience. I would like to find out more about creating an online exhibit focusing on a recent kids’ excavation conducted on the property.

Comment on The Web and Public Archaeology by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 17:14:52 +0000

The Portable Antiquties Scheme is one of the best examples of public archaeology out there. I suppose it is still controversial in some quarters, but the results cannot be denied--data for 800,000 objects that would otherwise never have been collected.

Comment on Augmented Reality by Shawn

Shawn — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:32:50 +0000

Hi Terry!

Sounds like a great idea. We should talk! I can give you details about our workflow, and/or introduce you to the folks at the Museum of Civilization who are very adept at all of this.

Comment on Augmented Reality by Terry Brock

Terry Brock — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:17:32 +0000

this is great. I’m currently in the very early stages of planning an exhibit within an old slave quarter. The site would not be very secure, and would likely be self-guided….what a great way to bring objects to life that we may not want to have on display for security purposes, or to make objects that don’t exist 3 dimensionally anymore (ie, features and buildings that we excavate) into models that could be examined and walked around in a museum.

hmm.

Comment on Augmented Reality by Shawn

Shawn — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 22:47:09 +0000

And of course, there are many other kinds of ‘realities’ – vr, mixed, immersive, etc etc… here’s a neat project using the Kinect: mayaarch3d.unm.edu/documents/CAA%202012-Kinect_PowerPoint.pdf

I’d love to play with a kinect & an archaeological GIS…

Comment on About THATCampCAA-NA by THATCamp Computational Archaeology 8/10/2012 | Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 20:36:22 +0000

[…] About THATCamp CAA-NA […]

Comment on Augmented Reality by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:01:11 +0000

I’m definitely interested in an augmented reality session, and I’m sure other THATCamp participants will be as well. I’m not currently using it, but this could be one possible approach to integrating 3D models into the tourist experience at Pompeii for a project I am involved in, at some point in the future.

Comment on Pattern Recognition by kevinmdonaghy

kevinmdonaghy — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 05:32:52 +0000

Nope, but will check out

Comment on GIS Help by kevinmdonaghy

kevinmdonaghy — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 05:30:27 +0000

Hi Lyle,

I’m not using QGIS, which version are you using? I’ll download and start getting familiar with it – concerning census data are you focused on USA or UK? the excel files go into Arcmap in a template that can be based on block groups, blocks, and tracts, this data can then be distributed in a chloropleth basically taking the vectortopologic data into a raster, then you could do models which wouold be a cool way to examine income, economy, the patterns you’ve mentioned in other post. I’ve never used Filemaker Pro – but i know that some students were using it as the database engine for their GIS and could also establish inter-relational databases that included images, i think they were orienting their research to web-based browsing of their sites, i was much newer to GIS at the time, choking on GRASS, and was not up to speed on the discussion, but let me know which version of QGIS you’re on and i’ll see if i can’t ramp up on it and make a quick model of the vector USA census into a basic raster, can you send me a shapefile of your georectified quad or 7.5″ ??

Best wishes,

kev

PS – my interest is in voxels, so any help is appreciated, since this is new for me

Comment on Pattern Recognition by Lyle Browning

Lyle Browning — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:35:20 +0000

Has anyone used Vextrasoft? It’s Windows based and seems able to do what is needed for a good price, as compared with Vextractor which is out of this world expensive. I would have thought that the rail symbol would be very easy to extract for such a program.

Comment on Register by Regina Hudson

Regina Hudson — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:54:08 +0000

Thanks so much Ethan! I’m sending you an email now.

Regina

Comment on Register by Abby Holeman

Abby Holeman — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:14:02 +0000

!! Ethan, I’ll be sending an email to the above address you specify if there’s still room. I’d love to attend!
Best,
Abby

Comment on Register by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 14:16:37 +0000

Hi Regina,

Registration was closed in order accept current registrations and create wordpress accounts for participants in order to allow them to propose sessions. It also gives ample time to participants to make travel and hotel arrangements. Even if there is a hard deadline, people tend to wait until the last few days to register, and I need a head count for food and hotel bookings. I can create account manually for you or anyone else who wishes to register after the deadline–there is still plenty of room. Please send an email to thatcampcaana@gmail.com, and I will create an account for you on wordpress.

Ethan

Comment on Pattern Recognition by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 14:09:38 +0000

This should be theoretically possible, so the question is: has anyone actually done this yet regarding railroad symbols in particular?

No mention of rail, but this might be a useful read: mapcontext.com/autocarto/proceedings/auto-carto-7/pdf/pattern-recognition-procedures-for-autmatic-digitizing-of-cadastral-maps.pdf

Comment on Register by Regina Hudson

Regina Hudson — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:52:45 +0000

Hi,
This event was just brought to my attention but I see that registration is closed. Can you please tell me why two months before the event you have chosen to close registration versus a month or a few weeks? Is there any chance of registering if someone drops out or any other way?

Thanks,
Regina

Comment on Pattern Recognition by BWS Johnson

BWS Johnson — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 03:32:49 +0000

This sounds like a job for railroad enthusiasts. I’ll keep me eyes and ears peeled; I’d be half surprised if the local groups didn’t already have summat patched together. Lower tech than scripting, but higher quality.

Comment on Campers by Registration Now Closed » THATCamp CAANA 2012 - Computer Applications in Archaeology North America

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:27:02 +0000

[…] Campers […]

Comment on Campers by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:17:33 +0000

Several names aren’t showing up. I am looking into this.

Comment on Registration Period Extended by Ethan Gruber

Ethan Gruber — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 13:19:56 +0000

Check out the register page: caana2012.thatcamp.org/apply/

Comment on Registration Period Extended by Liam Collins

Liam Collins — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 13:15:10 +0000

Interested in making reservations for THATCamp on Digital Archaeology