Icon for: Ashley Richter

ASHLEY RICHTER

University of California at San Diego
Years in Grad School: 2
Judges’
Choice
Judges’ Queries and Presenter’s Replies
  • Icon for: Joni Falk

    Joni Falk

    Faculty: Project PI
    May 20, 2013 | 10:17 p.m.

    Really enjoyed this video. The narrator was so articulate the visuals were great, and it made me want to learn more about your work. Very well done!

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 22, 2013 | 08:53 p.m.

    Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it! x

  • Icon for: Sandra Pinel

    Sandra Pinel

    Judge
    Faculty
    May 21, 2013 | 09:12 p.m.

    This presentation was facinating. I am interested if your team is researching the implications of this sophisticated, and sometimes, salvage approach (when the site is being destroyed) on the implementation of the World Heritage Convention. How could you learn if decision makers at the national level, for example, were more or less likely to protect this or other cultural resource sites given the detailed view that your technology can provide?

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 22, 2013 | 09:15 p.m.

    Thank you!

    I think this will be a huge hot topic going forward as the world goes digital. As more and more aspects of our lives become wrapped up in the intangibility of cyber-realms- we, as a world culture, will have to face large questions of authenticity. Specifically, in a global society that is inevitably running out of physical space to live in, how important and efficient is it to physically preserve the past which it has also preserved digitally?

    And we may have to face the tragic possibility that the architectural artifacts of the past might have to be converted or supplanted in order for the world to move forwards, that we cannot hoard everything without it inevitably hurting us.


    Cyberarchaeology, as an emerging, interdisciplinary tradition, must balance its push for the implementation and innovations of technologies, while simultaneously addressing the anthropological questions of this unfortunate predicament. The existential and practical arguments must be made clear for policy-makers so that as these questions of digital vs. physical become more and more predicated on a global scale- there are philosophic arguments that can be dialectically debated in order to decide what is comfortably best for a global community and how tangibly we hold onto the past in the future.

  • Icon for: Wayde Morse

    Wayde Morse

    Judge
    Faculty
    May 21, 2013 | 10:15 p.m.

    This is a nice application and modification of new technologies. Is it possible that the digital conservation of a site has the possibility to endanger the physical conservation? In other words, once you have ‘rescued’ the site might a government have less incentive to maintain the actual site? Please discuss.

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 22, 2013 | 09:40 p.m.

    Thank you!

    Yes, as partially discussed in my above response to Judge Sandra Pinel, I think there is an inherent global threat to all things that can become digitized and that international policy makers will have huge considerations of anthropological authenticity and tangibility to face in the near future. Digitization, while preserving the site, does accidentally endanger the object it is replicating.

    However, at the same time- modern technologies for digitization and visualization are nowhere near comparable to the actual space, and until the technology catches up entirely with full, phenomenological replication so that a space can be fully, sensually experienced as if it were the real thing (i.e. the Star Trek holodeck)- the argument that a site can be destroyed now that it has been digitally copied should be vehemently shouted down. As I indicated above, though it should be stopped now, spatial destruction as justified by digitization, should not be ignored as a possible concept – on which global culture will have to debate at length before coming up with a system for dealing with the ethics of the situation.

  • Icon for: Aurora Sherman

    Aurora Sherman

    Judge
    Faculty
    May 21, 2013 | 10:47 p.m.

    I think this is a really interesting set of challenges to work on! Ashley, could you give us any more specifics regarding what your specific contribution to the CISA3 project is? Your poster and video make it clear that you are part of a big and dynamic team, but I’d like to know what your specific focus is.

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 22, 2013 | 10:17 p.m.

    Thank you!

    My wider program at the University of California, San Diego is attempting to create a larger surveying mechanism or infrastructure through which the world can be diagnostically surveyed, the disparate data sets processed into meaningful correlative informatics systems, and the information disseminated into dynamic and significant visual systems. We are attempting to create efficient surveying technologies and methodologies for air survey, landscape survey, underwater survey and elemental compositional survey which work on a flexible digital infrastructure which can be displayed in a multitude of visual realities.

    Though I work on implicit methodological questions for all of the different types of possible survey data (i.e. land, air, water, element), I primarily deal with landscape data. But my wider role in this is two-fold as I work on both the initial data acquisition aspect as well as the dissemination end. As an archaeologist and “cultural heritage engineer,” I take the challenges of field archaeology and apply them to diagnostic imaging equipment (in particular terrestrial laser scanners) to create surveying solutions which bring in effective, data of increasingly higher and higher data quality. At the dissemination end, I consider the anthropological questions of digitization, transparency of cultural heritage data, and the means by which it should and could be effectively, cognitively engaging the past- on the wider, long-term global level, as well as in terms of short-term media and education outreach for archaeological and technological initiatives.

  • Icon for: Jeffrey Lidz

    Jeffrey Lidz

    Judge
    Faculty: Project Co-PI
    May 21, 2013 | 11:07 p.m.

    Do you think that digital conservation could have a negative impact on physical conservation? What assessment tools are you using to determine whether digital conservation efforts are being used effectively, e.g., if the conclusions from research based on digital records are similar to, better than or worse than conclusions based on physical investigations?

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 22, 2013 | 10:49 p.m.

    Yes. I do think digital conservation may one day play a negative role on physical conservation. As I discussed in my responses to Judges Pinel and Morse, I think issues of tangibility and anthropological authenticity will be huge upcoming debates society will need to face as it considers whether to replace physical entities with purely digital ones.

    In terms of assessment tools to determine the effectiveness of digital investigations vs. physical investigation- this is exactly the concept my double prong integrated technologies for surveying and anthropological questions of digital cultural heritage research is attempting to address. The accuracy of digitization is dependent on these technologies and their quality of data capture. Digital recreations of space which can fully and entirely replicate the actual physical environment are not here yet, although hopefully not far off. But we need to be able to properly gauge the quality of these systems as we are developing them so we can assure that sufficient quality and phenomenological replication can be met (if possible). Many of my projects, like Sandcastles for Science, have been geared towards evaluating the quality capacity of these technologies alone, and the quality capacity of these technologies as part of integrated systems. This also applies towards the methodologies with which these systems (singular and integrated) are used.

    These all serve to build a data collection system which takes place in a replicable, scientific fashion so that its results can be quantitatively compared to each other as well as to the real thing.

  • Icon for: Gary Kofinas

    Gary Kofinas

    Judge
    Faculty: Project Co-PI
    May 22, 2013 | 12:57 a.m.

    Ashley – Very cool work! I’m new to learning about LiDAR / DEM work. Much of our applications in the Arctic are services with aircraft. Are aircraft flights for capturing LiDAR data ever used in archeological studies? Thanks, g

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 22, 2013 | 11:00 p.m.

    Thank you!

    Yes, aerial LiDAR for archaeology is a much more prominent movement in diagnostic imaging for field archaeology than the terrestrial LiDAR that I have been applying towards it. This is primarily with reference to the time and physical constraints imposed by terrestrial LiDAR which I have been attempting to solve so that field archaeology can start making pervasive use of terrestrial LiDAR for high quality data capture for surveying.

    Aerial LiDAR is extremely useful for wider surveys, particularly in dense environments and is particularly popular in Meso and South America where it is helping archaeologists properly survey jungle sites, often leading to the discovery of new ones. However, aerial LiDAR does not allow for the same level of ground detail terrestrial LiDAR has the capacity for, and therefore provides more capability for the potential of digitally replicating the site.

  • Icon for: Gary Kofinas

    Gary Kofinas

    Judge
    Faculty: Project Co-PI
    May 23, 2013 | 07:28 p.m.

    thanks for the info. Good work. Best of luck.

Presentation Discussion
  • Icon for: Thomas Levy

    Thomas Levy

    Faculty: Project Co-PI
    May 21, 2013 | 09:34 a.m.

    Excellent presentation of interdisciplinary and original research

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 23, 2013 | 07:21 p.m.

    Thank you! Glad you like it! x

  • Icon for: Federica Fornaciari

    Federica Fornaciari

    Graduate Student
    May 21, 2013 | 11:18 a.m.

    very interesting project and presentation Ashley! good luck!I truly enjoyed it!

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 23, 2013 | 07:22 p.m.

    Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it!

  • Icon for: Jim Galdos

    Jim Galdos

    Project Staff
    May 21, 2013 | 01:35 p.m.

    This is an amazing project and a very clearly expressed video!

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 23, 2013 | 07:22 p.m.

    Thank you! I’m glad you liked it!

  • Icon for: Avi Rosenzweig

    Avi Rosenzweig

    Project Coordinator
    May 21, 2013 | 05:58 p.m.

    Very timely contribution! With public awareness of LiDAR growing, it’s important to show how the new tools need to be wielded by experienced and serious researchers from the right range of perspectives.

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 23, 2013 | 07:24 p.m.

    Thank you and agreed! Its super important that as new technologies and ways of handling data enter into the zeitgeist we are constantly evaluating how well they work and the plethora of things they can be used for. x

  • Icon for: Whitney Crooks

    Whitney Crooks

    Graduate Student
    May 22, 2013 | 01:47 p.m.

    Great video and poster! Really cool work.

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 23, 2013 | 07:24 p.m.

    Thank you! I enjoyed yours too!

  • Josh Vallecillos

    Guest
    May 22, 2013 | 08:18 p.m.

    Great Job Ashley !!! Amzing Work

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 23, 2013 | 07:24 p.m.

    Thank you!

  • Icon for: Geoffrey Harlow

    Geoffrey Harlow

    Graduate Student
    May 23, 2013 | 12:16 a.m.

    This is awesome! It is inevitable that no site can be preserved eternally, but fantastic that you can capture it for future eyes to see. I’m happy to see you’re doing this.

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 23, 2013 | 07:25 p.m.

    Thank you!!

  • Icon for: Jesse Kohl

    Jesse Kohl

    Graduate Student
    May 23, 2013 | 05:31 p.m.

    Very exciting work! There are so many historical sites that are succumbing to the ravages of time and little is done to preserve them. Your technology will provide an indispensable record for our future!

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 23, 2013 | 07:25 p.m.

    Cheers!

  • Icon for: Edinah Gnang

    Edinah Gnang

    Graduate Student
    May 23, 2013 | 05:33 p.m.

    Very impressive piece of work. Keep up the great work !!!

  • Icon for: Ashley Richter

    Ashley Richter

    Lead Presenter
    May 23, 2013 | 07:26 p.m.

    Thanks!

  • Ianir Milevski

    Guest
    May 26, 2013 | 12:09 p.m.

    Congratulations from the Galilee!

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.