Inside this Issue

• Expanding Tecnology Aids Volcano Early Warning and Detection Activities
• Digital Dog Mushing
• Bering Sea Community Modeling
• Reclaiming History with Technology
• A Summer of Invention, Innovation and Immersion in HPC
• Forward Momentum in Computational Science

Siyuan Wang, UAF Art Department
Chao Peng, UAF Art Department
Miho Aoki, UAF Art Department
Richard Veazey, Digital Photographic Services and Micrographics, UAF Rasmuson Library

The town of Fairbanks was established in the early 20th century at a time when photography was fast becoming an effective way to document and convey many aspects of life in this frontier community. Today, in the early 21st century, staff at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center are working with artists and photographic archivists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) to develop ways to communicate and reinvigorate the past using three-dimensional visualization technology that builds on the work of those early photographers.

Master’s of Fine Arts students Chao Peng and Siyuan Wang came to UAF to work with ARSC and UAF Art Department joint faculty Miho Aoki in the field of 3D animation. Combining the background in architecture they gained at Hebei University in Japan with their interest in animation, Peng and Wang have collaborated on an historical recreation of downtown Fairbanks, circa 1910. The project’s aim was to create a virtually navigable frontier town that could be shown to students and visitors in the ARSC Discovery Lab.

The idea was sparked by Richard Veazey, director of the Alaska Digital Archives, who took an interest in re-imagining pioneer-era Fairbanks using photographs documenting its early settlement on the Chena River. Using these photos, and historical maps to locate the position of buildings that no longer exist, Peng and Wang reconstructed Fairbanks as it appeared just after the turn of the century. As many original structures have been demolished or otherwise destroyed, photographs and input from historians became the only reference for a period-accurate appearance.

Once the structure locations were mapped, Peng and Wang began the recreation of the buildings in 3D. Harnessing their background in architecture gave them a distinct advantage in determining the structure of the buildings, given the perspective of the photographs and the lack of information about the precise angles from which the shots were taken.

The Alaska Digital Archive stores over 42,000 image files on ARSC’s mass storage systems. Veazey made 90 of these images available to Wang and Peng, who then used the Autodesk Maya animation suite to map the photographic images onto the structures, essentially bringing them out of two-dimensional history into 3D virtual existence.

“My decision on which photos to include was based on certain landmark locations, because everything in downtown has moved at least once,” says Veazey. “The crucial things were the church and the bridge that now crosses Cushman Street, which are the two landmarks that have essentially remained in roughly the same location through the years.”

The Church of the Immaculate Conception, constructed in 1904, is significant as it is one of the few structures from the era that has survived downtown’s many redevelopments. Though relocated to its current location in 1911, it was originally situated at First and Dunkel Streets. Another feature of the recreation is the Cushman Street Bridge, which was as critical to the infrastructure for inhabitants at the turn of the century as it is today. The Cushman Street Bridge has remained at roughly the same location during the years, though yearly floods required new bridges be built every year for the first several decades of the 20th century.

The concept of the visualization was cinematic in origin, Veazey says. Inspired by films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, wherein a scene opens with a photograph from a long-ago era, and then becomes animated as characters move into frame on a set re-created to match the photograph exactly, Veazy hoped to similarly bring the past to life as these movies did through the magic of film. The Fairbanks Circa 1910 visualization achieves a similar effect, allowing the public to tour downtown as it once was, complete with storefronts, hotels, and the texture of frontier life at the turn of the 20th century.

For more information,visit Alaska's Digital Archives.