This coursework was created during the Heritage Data Mapping and Visualisation module in the Data Science for Cultural Heritage MSc programme at UCL. UCL collaborated with Historic Environment Scotland (HES) to provide the students with a wide range of data from the site Skelmorlie Aisle, a 17th-century tomb in Scotland. The data included scientific reports, graphs, and images of the aisle.
The assignment was to create a visualisation to communicate an aspect of the site to a specific audience. I proposed a teaching tool that helps students digitally explore the symbolism of animals in the painted timber ceiling at Skelmorlie Aisle.
Click on the button below to head to the Adobe XD prototype of the teaching tool. Note that this won't work well on a phone.
results
I submitted this coursework for the Adobe Digital Edge Award in 2021. The award is for 'game-changing student projects that use Creative Cloud apps... to take uni work to the next level.' I was shortlisted for the award (Top 20 out of hundreds of applicants). I didn't receive the prize money, but I did get a prize basket including an Adobe water bottle and a mini bottle of champagne.
I also worked with HES to develop it into a tool on their webpage for Skelmorlie Aisle. We converted it into a ThingLink which is a handy tool for interactive visualisations. You can see these updates at the link below.
Keep reading to see how I turned one image of a painted ceiling into an interactive data visualisation for kids.
The Idea
When schoolchildren study the Renaissance period, they learn about the Italian masters like Da Vinci, but they may overlook the examples of Renaissance painting in their own backyards. By engaging with the Skelmorlie Aisle, students can better understand the artistic and historic significance of the Renaissance period in Scotland. However, due to Scotland’s COVID guidelines, Skelmorlie Aisle was closed to visitors in 2021.
Therefore, I proposed a teaching tool that helps students digitally explore the symbolism of animals in the painted timber ceiling at Skelmorlie Aisle. The intended audience is school children studying in the UK, approximately nine to twelve years old, who are learning about the Renaissance in their classes. The teaching tool is interactive and supported by text to help students engage with the paintings. This tool was created using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and XD.
Figure 2. The painted ceiling at Skelmorlie Aisle. Image courtesy of Canmore. Historic Scotland Photographic Library SC 1844005. Available at: https://canmore.org.uk/collection/1844005 [Accessed Jul 5, 2022]
Image Editing
The teaching tool showcases the image of the painted ceiling at Skelmorlie Aisle in Figure 2. There were some editing challenges in converting the original photo to a 2D layout.
Firstly, the cracks between the timber planks on the ceiling are interesting from a conservation point of view, but they create visual clutter that could take focus away from the animals. Therefore, they were removed in Adobe Photoshop using the clone stamp tool.
Figure 3. Before and after photoshop was used to clean up the image of the painted ceiling on panel H2.
Since the ceiling is vaulted, the image’s perspective had to be warped in Photoshop to match the 2D representation of the ceiling. Although warping changed some of the properties of the ceiling, the animal symbols maintained their overall shape. Once the images were edited, Adobe Illustrator was used to design the layout. Illustrator was also used to create the diagram for the ceiling layout shown in the ‘Animals’ page in the teaching tool.
Interactive Visualisation
Given the young audience, I wanted this tool to feel inviting, engaging, and fun.
I developed a first draft of the interactive visualisation in Tableau, an analytical tool for data visualisation. In this version, shown in Figure 4, the tool was an interactive scatterplot with the paintings in the background, but the Tableau page design was limiting and did not feel kid-friendly.
I checked out the other Creative Cloud apps and found that my skills in Photoshop and Illustrator translated well to Adobe XD. After some tutorials and trial and error, I designed a more complete package for my idea. Students can engage with customised, scrollable, and clickable elements within the home and animal pages to learn about Skelmorlie Aisle.
Figure 4. The Tableau first draft of the visualisation.
digital heritage
One challenge for the heritage sector during the pandemic was that people could no longer interact with heritage sites and museums in person. While new innovations like virtual reality exhibitions can be captivating, many museums have also invested in digitising their collections in recent years, so millions of heritage images are now online, just waiting to be seen.
However, there is debate within the heritage sector regarding the usefulness of the images once they are made publicly available. Through Adobe tools, I transformed one image into a significant experience for students, demonstrating how digital heritage can be helpful for both preservation and engagement.