Community Conservation: 3-Day Photogrammetry Workshop

For projects like Te Hau-Ki-Turanga, it is important that conservation and restoration strategies are developed by the indigenous tribe Rongowhakaata to ensure that future sustainability can be locally supported in the long term care of the meetinghouses. A recognizable feature to this approach has been the skill acquisition and promotion of conservation techniques and documentation for their meetinghouses on their land.

This July, I was fortunate to led a 3-day workshop for 10 Rongowhakaata scholars on how to 3D digital document and archive data of their Maori meetinghouse in Gisborne New Zealand. 

The 3-Day Workshop

Each workshop day was approximately 7-8 hours each (with a tasty lunch and tea break in the middle).

• Day 1 was focused on learning the overview of photogrammetry and principles of computational photography, photogrammetric measurements and scientific imaging.
• Day 2 began with a deep dive into equipment prep and mapping of a space for great photogrammetric capture. Afterwards, the group divided into 3 teams and began their hands-on training for prep and mapping the space. The afternoon was dedicated to more hands-on training for capturing a painting and sculpture in the round and ended with a final lecture on pre-processing and archiving the raw data.

• The morning of the 3rd day focused on capture of the meetinghouse and then pre-processing the data. The teams worked hard on their focused area of capture inside and outside the meetinghouse. They then quickly pre-processed the data getting it ready for the photogrammetry software. The afternoon centered on working with the post-processing software agisoft, which each member had a free license. The team ended up creating some amazing XYZ pointclouds of the meetinghouse.

What is Next for the Team?

With their new knowledge the team has plans to work with other tribes in the area to 3D document 19 other meetinghouse in Gisborne alone. This will be invaluable for the archival records as well as educational resources of many important Maori meetinghouses in New Zealand.