July 2002–August 2003
Scientific expeditions are life-altering experiences for the researchers who get to experience them. These expeditions generate incredible research and also incredible photography chronicling their field work, which, before this project, had no formal management or archiving methods. With the image pipeline developed by this project, everything a field team captures can be almost transparently stored in a sensible, sharable, and safe repository.
The first two expeditions in the project were to Bhutan and Cambodia. In Bhutan, MIT staff and students, as well as Bhutanese students, officials, and friends, were equipped with the latest digital photography and traditional film gear to capture a portrait of the country. Film was processed by scanning and archiving it onto a 2.54-terabyte server, and the data was merged with GPS logs. All 30,000 images collected can be viewed online. Besides the advances in digital archiving, the project also generated the world’s largest bound books of fine-art-quality photography. The project’s innovations in image management ensure that the magic of the visual record of MIT field research can be experienced by all.
Investigators: Dr. Michael Hawley, Dept. of Architecture; David Salesin, Microsoft Research