From an article in Artdependce.
The project has seen three Masters students from Southampton work alongside archaeologists and curators at the museum to apply the latest AI technologies to a series of projects, including the restoration of HMS Victory – Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson’s famous flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar.
Guided by the University of Southampton’s CORMSIS research group – a collaboration between the Southampton Business School and the School of Mathematical Scienses – the project has given the students the opportunity to push AI technologies to the limit when it comes to managing and applying the huge amounts of information held by knowledge institutes.
Currently undergoing an ambitious ten-year restoration, the HMS Victory ‘Big Repair’ project involves a team of shipwrights, riggers, conservators and archaeologists who are painstakingly documenting every detail of the work. This helps to capture vital information about historical repairs to the ship, parts that have degraded and informs planning for the next stages of the work.
Since the restoration of HMS Victory began in May 2022, archaeologists have taken over 3,000 images in addition to the high-resolution images taken to produce multiple 3D digital models of the ship. These additional images had to be stored and analysed manually, but aided by AI, this process is now automated, increasing the quality and resolution of the recording of the works.
Dr Rodrigo Pacheco-Ruiz, Visiting Fellow in Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton and National Museum of the Royal Navy Archaeological Data Manager for HMS Victory, explains: “Archaeologists are obsessed with detail and if records are not accurately stored, vital historical information could be lost forever. This is where the help of our University of Southampton students has been invaluable. They have developed an AI-based algorithm to match images stored in different locations and add them to our digital 3D model to ensure it’s as accurate as possible.
“This work has pushed the boundaries of what this type of AI is capable of, as our images are extremely high resolution, complex and detailed. The project is really at the forefront of how AI is being used in archaeology – we’re demonstrating just what’s possible. It’s certainly a long way from the traditional perception of how an archaeologist spends their time.”
For the complete article on preserving maritime heritage CLICK HERE.
