Imag(n)ing Shuilu'an

This paper describes the Imag(n)ing Shuilu'an project, its goals and its results. The goals of this project were multifold, and were designed to produce both a lasting archive of the Shuilu'an temple, train the Xi'an Center for Conservation in imaging techniques, and explore the methods of 3-D capture and application. This project also worked to develop a prototype of a unified annotation and presentation toolset to explore networked based presentation models of the combined deliverable components, and to explore and evaluate the scholarly use and value of the 2-D and 3-D datasets. The datasets developed encompassed very high-resolution documentary photographic textures of each of the interior surfaces, panoramic VR nodes, a 3D scan of one of the interior walls, to-scale floor plans and vertical sections and technical and descriptive metadata about all of the objects, from the large composite textures to each of the individual acquisition photographic captures. A Web based annotation application was develop that allowed the Xian team to provide metadata and region-based metadata on the photographic textures. A dimensional metadata tagging system was created in able to develop a unified browse and search interface that sought to preserve the spatial relationships inherent in the actual structure, informing the digitized components in a fashion that would otherwise not be experienced in a network mediated presentation model. The acquisition phase began in October 2005 and ended in May 2007 with a culminating conference in Xian, China. It was a collaborative project between Northwestern University and the Xian center for Conservation and Restoration, and was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation.