Research Platform Services Blog
Month
At ResPlat one of our passions is connecting researchers across different disciplinary communities. Last week we made this a reality by joining the forces of the Omkea, Tinkercad and Sketchfab communities.
A group of twelve enthusiastic community members came together to chat about and workshop ideas for connecting digital research tools across new workflows.
We explored important considerations for the display of 3D museum objects online as well as the importance of telling engaging narratives with online cultural collections content.A stellar @omeka + @tinkercad/@Sketchfab meet-up last night. Lots of great projects, ideas & discussion. Special thanks to @mharropesquire, @OzBigBen & @jules_s_k for sharing your expertise! @ResPlat @ResBaz pic.twitter.com/VlnI9m1yxw
— Tyne Daile Sumner (@tynedaile)
May 15, 2018
What is an object-based data set? It is any collection of three-dimensional objects you are working with for your research. This applies to a wide range of disciplines and academic positions, from zoologists working with bones or taxidermy, to archaeologists researching ancient ceramic, but also medical or dentistry research, art history and conservation, and so on.
To showcase this topic at our meetup, we heard from several fantastic speakers, who showcased their work and discussed current research projects with the group. Dr Julia Kuehns (Arts Liaison Librarian at the Baillieu Library) gave an overview of an Omeka site she’s worked on with a team of researchers at the University of Melbourne: The O’Donnell Marginalia Project.
In his own hand: the O'Donnell Marginalia Project is a collaborative project based at the University of Melbourne.
The project aims to facilitate a visual engagement with the O'Donnell Collection, as well as acting as a repository that brings together other research and resources relevant to the collection. Nicholas Michael O'Donnell was born in Bullengarook near Gisborne, central Victoria, in 1862 to Irish parents from Co. Limerick. After completing a medical degree at the University of Melbourne he established a medical practice at 160 Victoria Street, North Melbourne. But he was more than just a medical practitioner: he was also deeply involved in Irish cultural and political activities, and nowadays by many is considered Melbourne’s foremost Gaelic scholar. Following Julia, Ben Kreunen gave a demonstration of his latest work developing 3D scans of large scale architectural sites.I built a website with @yesmeredith showcasing marginalia in the O'Donnell collection: https://t.co/GoEI71ltD3 #1tweetresearch #resbaz
— Julia Kuehns (@jules_s_k)
February 22, 2017
Ben is a scientific photographer by qualification with twenty years experience in imaging and IT support at the University of Melbourne prior to starting with the University Digitisation Centre in 2009. One of Ben’s latest projects is to document the entirety of the inside of Wilson Hall in a 3D scan.It’s like I’m really standing in the moddle of the hall 😜 pic.twitter.com/TvtxzWCswT
— Ben Kreunen (@OzBigBen)
May 24, 2018
Dr Mitchell Harrop talked us through some options for quick, cheap and accessible 3D scans. With roughly 100 photos taken from an iPhone, it is possible to create a useful digital 3D model of any small artefact you’re working with. Here is Mitchell demonstrating this work at our recent ResBaz:
Current trends and interests at the intersection of Omeka/3D at the moment that are particularly interesting for researchers are in cultural studies, museum studies, archaeology and art history. But any one working with Object-based data-set could be interesting in 3D scanning their data, creating beautiful 3D model and displaying them online.What is @mharropesquire doing with this cheese plater? 🤔 Come along tomorrow for our pitch on working with objets-based data set and find out! 🧀🧀🧀 #3Dscanning #resbaz pic.twitter.com/yqimm5gVEK
— Emilie Walsh (@emilouwalsh)
21 February 2018
Our next meet-up will extend this work and we hope to hear from more researchers working at the intersections of Digital Cultural collections, mapping and 3D scans.
Please get in touch with us if you have any ideas or suggestions for our next gathering!
For the first Meetup of the year our aim was to come together, share our experiences and problems with MATLAB. We had a diverse group ranging from PhD students to Undergrads, as well as experienced users and even one of our own ResLeads.
We first talked about how to get support for using MATLAB, as well as building your network in the wider community. There are fantastic events and resources provided by MathWorks.
1) MATLAB Conference
The upcoming free MATLAB conference to learn more about which industries use MATLAB extensively and learn about the vast applications. More information here.
2) MATLAB online
MATLAB Online (You can use MATLAB in a web browser!). Find it here.
3) MATLAB resources are available here, with demonstrations and examples of coding, provides an interactive and easy self learning experience (Accessible through the University License).
Following covering these resources, we then proceeded to try and tackle the questions people had and the problems they have been having with their MATLAB applications and code.
Some of the topics we talked about were:
As we went through each issue we recapped the fundamental concepts that were introduced in the beginning workshop.
Thanks to everyone who came to the Meetup and contributed to this event. It was great seeing both old and new faces. Hope to see you all in the future.
Join us at our next Meetup, where Visualisations in MATLAB will be explored. Sign up here.
For more information about MATLAB events please follow our social media profiles:
Facebook Group: MATLAB@Unimelb
Twitter: @DUsluel and @ResPlat
Doruk Ushel is our Research Community Coordinator, leading in MATLAB.