Leica C-10

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Leica C-10

June 7, 2011 by aubreyhanson

I apologize for how inconsistent I’ve been in my writing. The program has picked up during the past two weeks and after long days of scanning in the sun and registering data on the computer, the last thing I think to do is sit down and blog my heart out. But now I sit here on a warm evening on my Hotel Melissa patio, and I am ready to write.

I feel very accomplished in what I have learned over the past two and a half weeks. For having no prior experience or knowledge of laser scanning and its accompanying software, I have worked my way to a point of comfort with such a new practice. While I am encountering some mind-bending confusion while trying to organize the data this week, I must remind myself that I am, however, able to deal with it all because of my comfort with the basics. And yes, I am patting myself on the back.

For two weeks, an instructor from University of Arkansas’ CAST program (Center for Advanced Spatial Technology) visited Eleusina with the center’s multi-thousand dollar Leica C-10 scanner, affectionately and deferentially dubbed Lulu. After a day’s demonstration inside our classroom in the Eleusina Cultural Center municipal building, we trudged out to the site of Eleusis with the heavy and fragile scanner, its accompanying tripod, and accompanying accouterments. The concept behind scanning is very simple, when broken down to the bare fact that when scanning 360 degrees, the laser bounces out lights quickly and whatever is bounced back to it is then formed into a set of thousands of small points that form specific shapes. These clusters are dubbed cloud points and can then be edited, reformed, etc. depending on what your plans for particular data are. What the scanner cannot see, it will not scan. Therefore, you need to be sure of what you want to show up in each scan and place Lulu accordingly. Because of this, each area of the site that we scanned necessitated seven separate scan locations at the least in order to cover all of the surfaces of interest. I will include a few screen captures of the data that I took while working on different pieces so that you might be able to picture what I’m trying to describe.

With this data, for the next week or so, we will be trying to redesign a map of certain areas of the site, the current maps of which is woefully inaccurate and infuriating when trying to specify where each scan was taken from. We will also be trying to tie in this year’s edited data with last years to come one step closer to an entire scan of the whole site of Eleusis. It’s fun to know that I will have a hand in the final (impressive) product.

Anyway, because each scan can take anywhere from four to 37 minutes, I spent much of my day setting up the scanner and then running and hiding behind walls, columns, and the occasional tree. Because the scanner picks up and inserts into its point clouds everything it can see, and since you do not want an Aubrey standing in the middle of your finished data set, we had to make sure that we were out of Lulu’s line of vision. This became difficult, however, when we were scanning in small areas with little to hide behind. We got wonderfully creative with our games of hide-and-go-seek. When we thought that Lulu was done, we had to carefully sneak up on her, making sure we were always out of her line of vision just in case she was still scanning. There were times that as I was sneaking up behind her, she would suddenly pivot, taking her pictures of the site, and I had to dive toward her blind spots or stand there like a deer in headlights.

When I wasn’t playing Rambo behind eroded columns or sneezing from whatever was growing on the site and assaulting my allergies, I had plenty of time on my hands to thoroughly explore the site. I’m very thankful for this time because I was able to climb into nooks and crannies and explore places I probably would have glossed over on a shorter visit. I waded through waist-high grasses to get to sacred porches or climbed down into cisterns. I found corners of a Roman villa that had plaster still clinging to some of its ancient wall paint, beautiful burnt red and dark golden colors. I sat quietly or napped beside the stray dogs that have assumed the position of temple guards. Through all of this I’ve come to appreciate Eleusis for the jewel that it truly is.

I will write more about personal adventures and such later. For now, some rest and possibly an episode of “Burn Notice”.