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3D summer school 2026
Institute of Classical Studies, Senate House, University of London 13th–17th April 2026. Senate House MakerSpace (room 265)
Booking (closed): https://ics.sas.ac.uk/ics-digital/3d-summer-school
Feedback form: https://forms.gle/dPYzuZKcA51NmFVZ8
Responsible 3D questionnaire: https://leidenuniv.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bqKuHeAyQD23Zem
Tutors: Alicia Walsh (Leiden University) & Gabriel Bodard (University of London)
This in-person course will introduce participants to a range of 3D technologies, from photogrammetry to 3D design software, for the imaging, modelling and analysis of ancient artefacts and buildings. We offer a mix of practical and theoretical sessions, including advice on imaging both portable objects and outdoor monuments. Drawing on expertise and partnerships of the Institute of Classical Studies and nearby cultural institutions, this course is suitable for students, archaeologists, teachers and anyone with an interest. No previous technical experience is required.
- Watch at least the first batch of pre-recorded videos or slideshows prior to the start of the summer school
- Bring your laptop, ideally with a mouse (which is better than trackpad for 3D editing)
- Bring a camera or other photographic device (phone, tablet), and a USB cable to download photos to your computer
- Download and install Agisoft Metashape Pro (NB select the "Professional Edition"). The first time you run the software, you should select start a free 30-day trial. This trial is for 30 days so please do not activate the trial too far in advance of the workshop.
- Make a free account on Sketchfab.com
- Make a free account on Sketchup for Web
- 11:00 Welcome and introductions
- 12:00 The Ehrenberg Collection (Amelia Andrews) (catalogue)
- 12:30 lunch break (not provided)
- 14:00 Photogrammetry practice
- 16:00 Sketchfab demo
- 16:30 Private study
- 10:00 MakerSpace open for practice
- 11:30 Field trip: British Museum Science Department
- 12:30 lunch break (not provided)
- 14:00 RTI demo
- 14:30 Photogrammetry/RTI practice
- 16:00 3D printing intro
- 16:30 Private study
- 10:00 MakerSpace open for practice
- 11:00 3D Reconstruction practice
- 12:30 lunch break (not provided)
- 14:00 Discussion: documentation and paradata
- 15:00 3D Reconstruction practice
- 16:30 Private study
- 10:00 MakerSpace open for practice
- 11:00 Discussion: 3D and ethics
- 12:00 VR demo (Juliette Quatre)
- 12:30 lunch break (not provided)
- 14:00 3D Reconstruction practice
- 16:30 coffee break
- 17:00 Keynote lecture: Dr Sara Perry (UCL), Exploring Human Values through Social Virtual Reality for Cultural Heritage.
- 18:30 Join us for a drink with the speaker
- 10:00 MakerSpace open for practice
- 11:00 3D Reconstruction and/or Photogrammetry practice
- 12:30 lunch break (not provided)
- 14:00 Presentations of project work
- 16:00 Closing discussion and feedback
- 17:00 Join us for a drink/dinner nearby
Dr Sara Perry (UCL), Exploring Human Values through Social Virtual Reality for Cultural Heritage
Thursday 16th April, 17:00 BST. Senate House MakerSpace (and streamed online). (Booking not required for summer school participants.)
To what extent can virtual reality (VR) for cultural heritage support contemporary audiences in enacting unfamiliar human values and complicated socio-economic contexts? In this talk, I discuss a multi-user VR design, collaboratively developed with partners on the EMOTIVE project (https://www.emotiveproject.eu/), which prioritizes values-led engagement through social interaction. Our aim is to foster more complex outcomes for individuals engaging with the past. We validate this approach through ÇVR, an immersive experience in which pairs of collocated participants explore a reconstruction of a Neolithic heritage site. Through guided tasks and conversations, participants enact social practices inspired by archaeological evidence of egalitarian ways of living. Our research finds that such interactions prompt affective reactions, facilitate perspective-taking, and elicit overt care for people in the past, but especially for pairs in the present. Ultimately, I present a novel theoretical framework for social heritage VR and empirical insights into designing care and collaborative meaning-making into VR, with the wider intent of enabling audiences to rethink normative value systems.
- 3D approaches and methods (10 min) (slides) (Gabriel Bodard)
- Types of 3D scanning and imaging (10 min) (slides) (Alicia Walsh)
- Non-3D imaging methods (15 min) (slides) (Gabriel Bodard & Alicia Walsh)
- Types of 3D object (20 min) (slides) (Gabriel Bodard)
- 3D modelling and visualisation - slides (Gabriel Bodard & Alicia Walsh)
- Best Practices in 3D: documentation, sustainability and access (20 min) (slides) (Alicia Walsh)
- Ethical considerations in 3D practice (Part I) (27 min) (slides) (Alicia Walsh)
- Ethical considerations in 3D practice (Part II) (20 min) (slides) (Alicia Walsh)
- Theory of photogrammetry (12 min) (slides) (Alicia Walsh)
- Photogrammetry software options - slides
- Photography for photogrammetry (3 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- Agisoft Metashape Pro interface demo (10 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- Photogrammetry Metashape Pro basic workflow (19 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- Photogrammetry Metashape Pro basic workflow - previous edition 1.8 (optional) (11 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- Introduction to outdoor photogrammetry (10 min) (slides) (Alicia Walsh)
- Outdoor photogrammetry field demo (3 min) (Valeria Vitale & Gabriel Bodard)
For practice with photogrammatric processing of existing photos taken by a museum expert, see Dan Pett’s photogrammetry drive folder (includes a lot of images and a few other resources, free to re-use)
- Aligning and merging chunks (12 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- MeshLab. Intro to 3D analysis of 3D models (slides) (Vera Moitinho de Almeida)
- Editing your model in Meshmixer (11 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- [Optional] Making Monsters in Meshmixer (EXTERNAL: presentation by Valeria Vitale 2017; start at 0:59:56) (cf. Vitale 2018)
- Introduction to 3D printing (18 min) (slides) (Gabriel Bodard)
- Preparing a 3D model with TinkerCAD (16 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
- Setting up 3D printer using Ultimaker Cura (12 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
- [Optional] Timelapse video of 3D printing Nefertiti bust (from Youtube) (EXTERNAL)
- More cute timelapse 3D printing videos: Dragon; Morgantina and chocolate vase
NB Some of the tutorials and materials below were designed for the free SketchUp Make 2017, which has since been discontinued. They should work fine, with only occasional, minor adaptation with SketchUp Web.
- Introduction to Sketchup and some simple actions (19 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
- Sketchup walkthrough of building (9 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- Sketchup walkthrough of building roof (4 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- Sketchup walkthrough of texturing (4 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- Sketchup walkthrough of importing objects (4 min) (Alicia Walsh)
- Choose one of the buildings listed in the Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Essex and try to create a model using the resources available.
- Mycaenean Tomb beneath the Middle Stoa; see especially Figure 1 and Plate 1a as the basis for your model.
- Try one of the buildings listed in Vitruvius - The 10 Books on Architecture (e.g. Temples; Villas; “the Greek House”; [ambitious!] Roman Theatre)
- Luca Brunke, Research-based 3D reconstructions of built heritage environments (2023)
- Loes Opgenhaffen, Innovating a tactile archaeological specialism with digital 3D technology (2022)
- Valeria Vitale, Missing, incomplete, biased. Priceless. The key role of documentation in the representation of historical buildings, from drawings to 3D models (2021)
- Chiara Piccoli, Visualizing and experiencing past cities in 3D: Methods, opportunities and challenges (2021)
- Andrea Wallace, Digitisation, Intellectual Property, and Restitution: Exploring (more) equitable approaches to digital cultural heritage management (2020)
- Matthew Nicholls, Virtual Rome - a digital model of the ancient city (2020)
- How to Make Your Scans Look Great on Sketchfab (by Thomas Flynn)
- Ethics, Sustainability & Paradata in 3D Heritage (Thomas Flynn, Alicia Walsh, 2026)
- VR and Virtual Environments (Juliette Quatre, Lynn Verschuren, 2026)
- 3D Imaging: From remote sensing to photogrammetry (Emlyn Dodd, Stephen Kay, Vera Moitinho de Almeida, 2024)
- Ethical Responsibilities and 3D Methods in Cultural Heritage in SunoikisisDC (90 min) (Gabriel Bodard, Paula Granados García, Tala Rahal, Andrea Wallace)
- 3D printing and intellectual property session in SunoikisisDC (Tom Flynn, Dinusha Mendis, Alicia Walsh, 2021)
- Blender tutorials- Methods and Techniques for Historical 3D Reconstruction (4D Research Lab, 2023)
- Blender tutorial in SunoikisisDC (Vasiliki Lagari, Chiara Piccoli, Alicia Walsh, 2021)
- Rethinking 3D Visualisation: From illustration to research tool (Valeria Vitale 2016)
- Digital Tools for Classical Archaeology & Architecture: Combining Total Station Drawing & Photogrammetry in Fieldwork Documentation (Jari Pakkanen 2019)
- The Application of Photogrammetric 3D Modeling to Roman Domestic Space (Kelly McClinton 2019)
- Museums in the Metaverse
- Digital Lab Notebook (from Cultural Heritage Imaging)
- NASA Astromaterials
- Youtube channel: Archaeological Documentation
- Meshroom tutorial
- MeshLab (from Visual Computing Lab, ISTI-CNR)
- Pure3D - An Infrastructure for the Publication and Preservation of 3D Scholarship
- ArchAIDE project aimed to create a new system for the automatic recognition of archaeological pottery from excavations around the world.
- Principles and visualisation standards from 4D Labs
- Image Matcher - Blender add-on by Kimberly Meechan
- Bodard G., Granados García P., Mathur D., Rahal T., Wallace A., et al. 2024. "Ethical Responsibilities and 3D Methods in Cultural Heritage." White paper. REQUEST FOR COMMENTS. Available: https://github.com/SAS-DHRH/EthicalResponsibilities3D/raw/main/drafts/Ethical-Responsibilities-3D-Approaches-to-Cultural-Heritage-0.5-RFC.pdf
- Bohling, S. 2025. Online dissemination of 3D bioarchaeological data: An exploration of ethics, user preferences, and contextualisation in an official digital repository setting, Internet Archaeology 69. DOI: https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.69.9
- Bruce, Fergus, Pittock, Murray & Liu, Haoran. 2024. Museums in the Metaverse: Audiences and Impact Report. University of Glasgow. Available: https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_1138224_smxx.pdf
- Francien G. Bossema. 2023. "Inside out: Fusing 3D imaging modalities for the internal and external investigation of multi-material museum objects." Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage 31 (December 2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.daach.2023.e00296
- Hugh Denard. 2012. “A New Introduction to the London Charter.” In A. Bentkowska-Kafel, D. Baker & H. Denard (eds.) Paradata and Transparency in Virtual Heritage, Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities Series (Ashgate). Pp. 57-71. Available: http://www.londoncharter.org/introduction.html
- Historic England. 2017. Photogrammetric Applications for Cultural Heritage Guidance for Good Practice. Available: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/photogrammetric-applications-for-cultural-heritage/heag066-photogrammetric-applications-cultural-heritage/
- M. Lo Brutto, D. Ebolese, and G. Dardanelli. 2018. 3d Modelling of a Historical Building Using Close-Range Photogrammetry and Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-2-599-2018
- Lucarelli, Rita. 2023. ‘From Virtual Reality to virtual restitution: How 3D-Egyptology can contribute to decolonizing the field and the question of digital copies vs the original’, in C. Palladino and G. Bodard (eds) Can’t Touch This. Ubiquity Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/bcv.i.
- Papadopolous, C., K. Gillikin Schoueri, and S. Schreibman. 2024. "And Now What? Three-Dimensional Scholarship and Infrastructures in the Post-Sketchfab Era." Heritage 8.3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8030099
- Chiara Piccoli. 2018. Visualizing Cityscapes of Classical Antiquity: From Early Modern Reconstruction Drawings to Digital 3D Models. Oxford: Archaeopress. Available: https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/download/9781784918897
- Hannah Scates Kettler. 2021. “Linked Open Data for 3D Models and Environments.” In edd. Bond, Dilley, and Horne, Linked Open Data for the Ancient Mediterranean. ISAW Papers 20. Available: http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/20-5/.
- Valeria Vitale. 2016. “Transparent, Multivocal, Cross-disciplinary: The Use of Linked Open Data and a Community-developed RDF Ontology to Document and Enrich 3D Visualisation for Cultural Heritage.” In: Bodard/Romanello, Digital Classics Outside the Echo-Chamber: Teaching, Knowledge Exchange & Public Engagement. London: Ubiquity Press. Pp. 147–168. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bat.i
- Valeria Vitale. 2023. “Ceci n’est pas un temple. Visual secondary sources between representation and documentation.” In: Palladino C. & Bodard G (eds.), Can’t Touch This. London: Ubiquity Press. Available: https://doi.org/10.5334/bcv.b
- Walsh, Alicia and Tijm Lanjouw. 2024. "Two sides of the same coin: Digitizing the Allard Pierson’s Roman coin collection using cross-polarisation photogrammetry and RTI." 4DRL Report Series 7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21942/uva.25483624.v1