SketchUp Skills

I spent about five hours the other night trying to figure out how to model terrain in SketchUp. I started by doing a very haphazard, ugly triangle method which made the mountain/field look jagged and unrealistic, then I went for the curved terrace look (which was equally unrealistic but more aesthetically pleasing), and then, after watching a few YouTube tutorials, I figured out how to use the sandbox features to create a smoothed mountainous terrain for the field. I will withhold screenshots here so that I have more new material to show for myself in the presentation on Wednesday. After making this discovery (and, in the fervor of epiphany, continued to play around with the model for a looong time), I sent the model to Pengfei, the graduate student that Dr. Badler got involved with the project. I went in to see him the next day to try to transfer the image from Sketchup to Maya and then Maya to Ogre. At the SIG lab, I learned several things:

1. The field surface on which the "agents" will tread must be perfectly flat in the model
2. Newer versions of OGRE are pretty different from older versions
3. How to increase the order of magnitude of the view of the objects in Maya
4. That the model must be made up of triangles to be able to tag coordinates for CAROSA (and that the smooth feature in SketchUp simply conceals the triangles)

I've been in touch with Diana about modeling props and other items for the model. She showed me a screenshot of a kero cup model and a plow, both of which looked amazing. Things are really shaping up.

Archaeologists and Popular Culture, Project Beginnings

The readings for this week take up conceptions of archaeologists in popular culture historically, anecdotally, statistically and, even, psychologically (though I find the Freudian/oedipal phallus analysis in “Metaphors We Dig By” a little hard to buy). Most of the literature concludes that there are several stereotypes of archeologists – ranging from the hairy-chinned academician to the hairy-chested hero – that spring into the collective imagination. These archetypes are perpetuated by (and in some cases find their origins on) the silver screen. The former (the hairy-chinned), regrettably, seem closer to the truth, leaving the Indiana Joneses to the magnificence, fantasy and fiction of the movies. Unsurprisingly, the occult also finds its place among these fantastical imaginings. That the Lara Crofts and Indiana Joneses are generally unrealistic figures doesn’t really matter, though: they portray archeology in an overwhelmingly positive, albeit distorted, light. The A, D, R and C themes put forth by Holtorf in “Popular Culture and Archaeology” are anything but disparaging. The only unfortunate emphasis in these accounts is that the process of archeology is more important – and certainly more fun – than the end result. It seems like our class will do its part to dispel these kinds of beliefs: the models, renderings, web pages and animations we will create seem like pretty cool end results to me.

I spent an hour or so reviewing Google SketchUp. I’ve used it in the past for set designs and mock-ups of dorm rooms. I’m looking forward to learning how to use this program more efficiently and to do more complicated renderings. I played around with the contour tools, but still don’t have a good understanding of how it actually works.

I’ve started thinking about the kinds of things I’d most like to do for the final project. I’ve been studying the use of technology, media and communications in the 21st century; I wonder how I might translate that to our field site. The way people use technologies might manifest in the project as some sort of examination of tools, or animating the use of a particular tool. It would be cool to model how a particular technology was incorporated into daily life in Cuzco. I also enjoy modeling architectural features; perhaps a static representation is more in line with my technological capabilities.