In the course Creating Digital Collections, I created two 3D models of St. Barbara artifacts for the Nederlands Mijnmuseum. Here, I reflect on the process.
At first, I was worried because I had no experience at all. Nevertheless, I am satisfied with the result of my first attempt. I am especially happy about how detailed the models have become. But of course, I faced some problems during the process, which can be seen on the models (click on the respective image to view the models on Sketchfab).
The surface of the above figure shows dents on the arms and on the back of the skirt. Although I refined the masks, used markers, deleted noise, and experimented with settings and tools, I was not able to fix this. The problem might be the shiny paint coat of the figure, causing troubles to the software. In future, I would spend more time to adjust the lighting during photo capture and take more detailed images of these reflective areas.
On the left side of this statue’s mantle, we find irregularities which probably occur because the left side was less lit than the others during photo capture. I added more images of the area, but this did not solve the problem. Next time I would pay more attention to even lighting conditions. Furthermore, the gaps between the statue’s body and the tower and chalice did not remain open, although I deleted noise in the different processing steps. More precise masking could have mitigated the issue. Lastly, the inside of the statue’s coat is not processed accurately. Adding more detailed images of this area could have helped.
Despite these flaws, I am happy with the overall results. My worries were unjustified, and I realized that the “learning by doing” approach was a valuable experience. I am proud to have acquired a new skill I can refine in future projects.
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