When Powers Combine: Omeka + TinkerCad Meet-Up


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.

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.


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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. 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.

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.

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!

Emilie for 3D Printing and Design / Tyne for Omeka. 

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  1. resbaz posted this