00:00.20 archpodnet Welcome back to the arche tech podcast we're talking about past tech from the first 50 episodes of the archeotech podcast and the next thing we're going to talk about is codify. We have mentioned codify a lot of times on this show a lot. Yeah I mean they were. 00:13.43 Paul Um, a lot. 00:18.13 archpodnet Ah, we're and probably still are I don't know it's difficult to say what's going on with the company now. But ah, just a little bit of history. Um and full disclosure too. So I first heard about codify again at a conference an essay conference when I saw Michael Ashley giving ah ah about codify and some of the things that they were doing. 00:29.64 Paul Easy. 00:36.24 archpodnet And at the time codify was basically it was filemaker based because he's a he's a high end filemaker developer I mean Michael Ashley is a filemaker whiz I mean if if they have something called a master filemaker developer. He would be it if he's not already right I mean he just he's so he's a wizard with that kind of thing. Yeah, and um. 00:51.85 Paul Um, easy. 00:55.82 archpodnet So you know I talked to him and I was doing a project up North Clear Lake I think it was in in California and rather than I think going home one weekend because I was Monday through Friday and I was like driving back to reno some weekends rather than just staying there I drove down to San Rafl where his offices were which is just on the other side of the golden gate bridge from San Francisco and we met up at his offices and did a podcast interview. There was a couple people working there. It was called codify.org at the time it's now codify.com but codify was a. 01:30.69 Paul Um, is it. 01:33.42 archpodnet I guess it was more of a bespoke tool for academics and academic projects like people would come to him and say we would like to use this for this and they would essentially use. You know their platform broken down to like you know, fifty sixty percent completion and then customize the rest of it for that client and and that's what they would use it for. Another client would come along. You know they use a stripped down version and customize the rest of it for that client but the same basic principles were there and how it functioned and operated. So um, but yeah, there was a bunch of people working there at least like probably 10 employees they were doing really well doing all kinds of things and I remember saying when the podcast interview was over. Why aren't you guys doing this for crm because you could basically standardize everything for certain states not have to do bespoke projects anymore and then just sell it. You know so that actually sparked off codify as a separate company because I can't remember what codify was actually under was a subcompany of another one that he had. And I can't remember what it was called. Um, it will probably come to me but either way codified he spun off as a separate company in order to effectively do that and I joined him kind of as a consultant um and and basically we had lots of discussions about crm particularly the California dprs. 02:47.52 Paul Then. 02:48.69 archpodnet Ah, which are their site forms and then the Nevada Imax form the California dpr one was the big one that we started with and you know, really developing codify for that and we we developed it for a while and at some point we ended up parting ways. Um you know just had some differences on on the platform and things like that and. 03:07.32 archpodnet If you ever want to know that just ah, you know we can have a beer at a conference or something and I'll I'll tell you all about it. But if I haven't already mentioned all that on this show already. But anyway at some point they were purchased a few years ago by paleo west which again, there's another story back there that I could tell you all about, but they were purchased by paleo west and then just recently. 03:15.19 Paul Ah. 03:18.33 Paul Music. 03:27.10 archpodnet Um, it was actually on Michael's Linkedin Profile I saw it. Ah they've taken it out of paleo west so I don't know if he bought it back from them or if they just parted ways or whatever happened but now codify is independent again. Um, so I don't know exactly what's going on. They still have a website codify.com 03:43.47 Paul Is it. 03:45.14 archpodnet Um, there's a contact form on here so that presumably goes to Michael or somebody um, but there's not really a lot of information about how you can use it right now and and what you do if you what you get if you contact them so I'm not 100% certain what's happening there. You have any more insight on that Paul. 04:02.61 Paul Ah, no, no more insight. It's it's curious to me because I met him Michael that is I met him last summer on the on the project I was working on in Saudi a great guy had very interesting conversations with him really noses tech really thoughtful intelligent. 04:11.32 archpodnet Um, yeah. 04:17.39 archpodnet Um, yeah. 04:19.60 Paul Um, dedicated to to this so dedicated to this. He's got a big codified tattoo on his arm and the logo. So oh yeah, yeah, so he's a yeah, he's He's all in um. 04:28.46 archpodnet Oh yeah, yeah I remember when he got that. Ah. 04:37.79 Paul And and then I just found out about the ah about the it being I don't know I don't know what the? Ah what the right term it spun off from released from a party of ways of some kind and I haven't really bothered to dig in because I hope that it's all amicable and. 04:46.86 archpodnet I Don't either. Yeah. 04:57.28 Paul Yeah, and was a good thing for for all parties because that kind of strife really I have troubles dealing with so um, so yeah I'm hoping there was just ah, they saw an opportunity and everybody said yes is the right way forward for everybody and he's off of you know. 05:06.18 archpodnet Yeah. 05:16.30 archpodnet Ah. 05:16.60 Paul Building up his his company to ah to continue in the direction that he needs it to go. Um, yeah, we used the software and it worked totally fine for me I I thought it was a good idea. It was I have no complaints about it. Um I don't know what else to add though. 05:26.58 archpodnet Yeah. 05:35.20 archpodnet Yeah, sure, um, hey quick editor note I'll take this out Paul are you guys using codify on this project too or something else. Okay, okay, that's yeah, we'll we we'll talk about that after yeah I'll take all this out coming back in. 05:39.18 Paul Um, no, we're not and I'll fill you in um that after. 05:48.48 Paul Peace. 05:53.32 archpodnet Yeah, yeah, so that's ah you know that's the interesting thing is yeah, we're not really sure what happened or what you can do with codify. But again I can't tell you there is a website. There's a connect box. You can email whomever is on the other end of that line and say hey I'm interested in this and you know talk to them about it see what's going on. So. If we had more information I would probably give you more information but we don't all right? So the next one this next one's pretty cool and I'm so happy to see ah where this has gone but on episode 25 and that was back in March Seventh Two thousand and sixteen ah we interviewed it was probably me and Chris Simms interviewed Dr Dan Bigman I First met Dan when I was in grad school at the University Of Georgia in Athens in 2009 2010 and in fact, I remember ah meeting him a number of times in the laboratory of anthropology that we had there and then also. 06:37.61 Paul Um, reason. 06:52.19 archpodnet I think him and his wife they used to have like parties and stuff and I remember going over there. Ah for like a Christmas party or something where I think it's the first time I made my eggnog that I've made literally every year since then I found this one recipe. That's just amazing and ah it's it's highly asked for when whoever's had it before. 07:09.21 Paul That I. 07:10.66 archpodnet It's not my recipe I found it at some point and just started making it every single year since then. So um, but yeah Dan Dan is a super cool guy very high energy. He is just like you know, hopping all over the place. Yeah I mean it seems like he's just like wound super tight but he is so smart with all this. Um. 07:20.20 Paul Oh yeah. 07:29.78 archpodnet You know, remote sensing and geophysical stuff and his company started as it's bigman geophysical and his company started as I mean really just doing gpr for other people right? So he he bought the equipment and he was doing gpr for other people ground penetrating radar. And then started teaching people how to use their own equipment and doing onsite classes putting together Youtube videos and really being proactive and telling people you know how to maximize their use out of these things that they may or may not know how to use and again started just doing it for people and and being contracted out and at some point they. Obviously got into other geophysical methods and then ah was teaching people how to use those they rent equipment and now you look at their website and there's just about there's just not nothing in that like remote sensing space that they don't do you know? I mean they do pretty much everything and what I love about him is he's really focused on. 08:16.55 Paul Um, this is. 08:20.72 Paul Yeah. 08:20.88 archpodnet Empowering people to do this and teaching them about it and and it's not just a company that's going out there and doing these things or really teaching people How to do it. 08:28.60 Paul Yeah, no I'm on his his company's mailing list and they you know I regularly get emails about different classes and workshops that they're giving it seems like it's mostly targeted now towards towards civil engineers that sort of thing. Um. 08:31.24 archpodnet Oh. Yeah, yeah, me too. 08:43.92 Paul But obviously if you're learning how to do Gpr and analyze the data for um, for civil engineering firm. You could take that same stock of knowledge and apply it for archaeology too. So yeah, there's still value for archaeologists though I think he's focused on. 08:44.78 archpodnet Ah. 09:01.66 Paul You know people with deeper pockets. 09:05.42 archpodnet Well, and honestly because we we've interviewed him a couple of times at least and that's one of the ones you were on Paul it was just a few years ago and yeah, we ah I remember talking to him about that because he he was like you know he said it the nicest way possible, but the the. 09:08.98 Paul Um, didn't yeah. 09:20.29 archpodnet Building a business and having employees and trying to make payroll. The work is just not there in archeology. There's just not enough of it right to keep this to make this sustainable so they started looking out of archeology and and one of the things I remember him mentioning was using Gpr to find like um ah find like pipes and and utility lines and stuff like that. 09:25.68 Paul Um, right, right? right. 09:38.68 Paul Right? right. 09:39.30 archpodnet Underneath roads and and you know other things where you know they're going to dig or do something they need to know where everything is and and just doing that and teaching people how to do that and things like that. So yeah, it totally made sense that they went out of archeology and started broadening their horizons in order to build the company because I mean you almost have to. So all right? Well, that's a cool 1 again. Bigman Geo link is in the show notes. Go check it out and you know he's got a a link actually in there 1 more thing I'll mentionary. He's got a link for the podcast I clicked on that and I was going. Are you really started a podcast but. Ah, he's kind of using podcasts incorrectly because it goes to a Youtube channel and it doesn't look like they've posted over there in a little while but he was doing some really cool things. Um you know, talking to different people I think they called it the ah the gpr hot seat or something like that and it's kind of a cool little series of Youtube videos. So go check that out and they probably have some other stuff over there as well. Um, again, really focused on teaching and learning. Okay, so this last one we're going to talk about these guys have gone through a number of changes and it's Lithodomos Vr and they don't even really call themselves Lihodomos Vr anymore it's just lithhodomos.com now. 10:53.60 Paul Is it. 10:54.73 archpodnet And because it's not necessarily vr anymore which is the other interesting thing this is another Australia -based company site viewer was Australia Fames was Australia and I don't know what's going on down there but they're they're really tech forward and I love it. But so so lithodomos. 11:10.22 Paul Don't you um work for an Australian company. What is it with you in Australia. Ah. 11:14.26 archpodnet I do a tech company. Ah I don't know it's kind of crazy right? So um, when I first heard about Lidomas Vr I can't actually remember how I came in contact with Simon who is the um, the founder oflythhodomos vr somehow we were put together. And we did an interview and again that was episode forty five aired on January Twenty Six Twenty Sixth 2017 and the company was really at its infancy at that point you know he was a newly minted ph d if I remember rights and was was kicking this off because it was based on something he did in his dissertation in how to. 11:34.70 Paul Um, li. 11:39.78 Paul He. 11:50.34 archpodnet How to view these like you know famous they were starting with like Roman sites and things like that. Um you know the the big hitters and I remember it was really based around like the Google cardboard if you remember that and I know if you can still get a Google cardboard but they'll ship you one for like twelve bucks I got 1 free at a Google event in Reno. 11:53.50 Paul Listen. 12:08.60 archpodnet And it's this flat thing you fold it out into like an old viewmaster type of deal and you put your iphone in it or your Android phone you fire up their app and it's got the stereoscopic vision and there's a little button on the Google cardboard that actually triggers like I think it's your volume up button or something like that depending on what your how your phone is laid out and. Essentially ah, you've got a little ret ah like ah like a little pointer right in your center field of vision and you can look at different things you can say I want to go this way so you you look that direction you hit the button and moves you that direction. So you're actually walking through and then clicking on these information things where you're hear a narration or you hear sounds. Of what it could have been like in this photorealistic virtual reality type of environment right? It's kind of fake virtual reality. But it's virtual reality. Well now you go to their page and they're not exactly doing that anymore. Um, they are they do have some of that if you scroll all the way to the bottom of their destinations page. 12:52.10 Paul Um, give it. 13:04.97 archpodnet You can see that they've still got a few that support Google cardboard because they've got the picture right on there for Google part cardboard and then they've got one destination and think it's ancient Athens for the oculus quest which I mean if they're doing anything they should move everything to the oculus quest. But I think they realized early on that the the novelty of doing this through something like Google cardboard. Was not a good business model right? like that's not sustainable. It's just it's it's not something that people are just going to use all the time right? Um, but now there it looks like it's really just either desktop or um phone or tablet based you know browser based. 13:26.19 Paul Um, right. 13:41.50 archpodnet You pay $6 for a different city or you know something you want to see and you can essentially use it from your living room or you can actually use it while you're walking around this city. You're walking around lisbon Portugal you can pull this thing up and have your headphones in and then see what where you're at if it's on their map um looked like. 13:43.87 Paul Um, is it. 14:01.00 archpodnet At a certain period of history with sounds and narration from qualified academics and and just ah digital reconstructions of things that aren't there anymore or maybe things that are in ruin and it actually looks pretty cool and I want to really kind of plan some travel around some of this stuff. It's all in you know. None of it's in the United States it's all over in like Europe and the Middle East and um around there. But yeah I don't know I I want to check some of this out. 14:23.20 Paul Ah, yeah. 14:30.30 Paul Yeah, no, yeah, we had them back on again for episode 1 Oh eight so I wasn't here for the episode 45 but I was for one eight and as it so happened they were coming to New York shortly after the interview. Um and the school that I was working at was using those cardboards. Not. 14:40.96 archpodnet Oh yeah. 14:47.18 Paul Actually we did start with the cardboard ones but we moved on to plastic ones later on and eventually I think they got some oculuses I'm not sure that happened ah toward the end of my time there. Um. But ah, but because these guys were in town they came and they had a meeting with ah with some of the guys from my department about about designing content specifically for use in school and what they had what they were really showing off what they were showcasing at the time was a whole workflow. 15:14.45 archpodnet That's awesome. 15:19.24 Paul That went you know so they could quickly and efficiently and I got to say beautifully do these renderings um with a pedagogical aim and component to them which melded really well with what we were using vr for in the school environment. You know in k through 12 15:30.54 archpodnet Oh. 15:38.75 Paul Ah, mostly middle school high school. But also I think the the lower school was using them some too and so it was it I don't know that we ended up hiring them for any particular project. But but there was some active discussions and some back and forth going on about what. They could do what lithodos could do that the school was willing to pay for and the school was definitely looking at it because like I said it was It was good quality content and it was um, not just the beautiful renderings. But also you know and and package and yeah. 16:09.57 archpodnet Ah. 16:15.15 Paul Having talked to them I really believed what he was telling me about the the workflow that they had that they had specialists at each stage so they could you know bring a project in you know as an idea and pop it out the other end as a fully formed fully executed welldesigned. You know, final product of ah of vr. Not just rendering because there were animations going on during these but you know so you know a little more like ah a video game kind of context but with a lot again with a learning component with a lot of annotations and um, you know, a. 16:46.41 archpodnet Ah. 16:52.99 Paul Guided sense about how one would move through a space through a city to see what you could see. 16:58.73 archpodnet Yeah, and and that's yeah, that's what I love about it. You know there's a lot of attention to detail and a lot of historical accuracy that they're trying to go for yeah and that's really cool. So well definitely. 17:04.28 Paul Um, yeah, yes, yeah, definitely. 17:13.18 archpodnet Check it out I remember when I was looking at this website earlier today to just kind of refresh. Some of my research on this I ended up on a page that actually had all their deaf destinations with a price listed on there and I'm in english and the price was listed in you. Well it said dollars I actually don't know if that was us dollars or australian dollars. But it said 6 which it's relatively close right now. So $6 per destination and then at the bottom. Yeah yeah, exactly? Um, exactly? yeah, totally um, but now I can't find that page so maybe a little note to the um you know I don't know what. 17:30.83 Paul Us dollars or dollar dues. That's that's the Australian dollar right. 17:44.19 Paul So. 17:48.84 archpodnet I Don't know what pathway took me to that page. But now I can't find it. But if you do click on their destinations page. You can actually sample some of these things and it's actually kind of cool the way that they did the web page too because your your mouse as you're navigating the page is actually moving the background behind it in conjunction with the mouse which is which is really kind of neat. 17:53.25 Paul Um, three. 18:08.65 archpodnet Um, I've never seen a web page do that before but anyway super cool company. Definitely support them full disclosure they did sponsor some ads or they had some ads on the archology podcast network I think a couple of times when they were really trying to do some heavy promotion. So I really appreciated that. But. Yeah, I'm glad to see they're still up and running and I really want to go somewhere where I can use 1 of their destinations and use it in real-time. But of course I might just try one of these from the comfort of my own couch or try to find that oculus app I'm going to go in there and check that out so all right anything else. Paul. 18:45.64 Paul No I mean ah again, this is all stuff from before my time but it's also a lot of the stuff that got me first listening to this podcast and other podcasts on the on the network and then um and that eventually you know becoming the co-host on this one. 18:53.24 archpodnet Yeah. 19:02.42 archpodnet There you go. 19:03.23 Paul You know it was it was hearing all these discussions and these interviews with people that had neat ideas and were actually trying to execute them and I was filled with jealousy listening to these So So often back then because I was doing something that was out of archeology and oh if I could just do my tech stuff in Archaeology. It'd be so cool. Ah, well I'm glad somebody else is doing it and they now. Um yeah back in it and and I'm glad that that a lot of them are still going strong. 19:24.34 archpodnet Ret. 19:28.80 archpodnet Yeah, awesome and and on some of the stuff you're doing. You're actually able to to take some of these things and and and bring them into to what you're doing which is really cool like the loggosh project and things like that. So that's a really awesome conjunction of those things. 19:38.94 Paul Um, movement. Yep. 19:44.65 archpodnet Okay, well at some point in the future I can't tell you when I specifically stopped looking at 50 episodes because we had already had enough and I might just do other chunks because we've got well 4 chunks of 50 episodes now and I love to go through some of those others and just see where they're at I know getting really close to episode 200 so 19:54.83 Paul Oh my goodness. 20:04.30 archpodnet All right? Well with that we will see you guys later I don't know if Paul's going to have the internet or the schedule to make it next time with our interview with Paul Martin but hopefully he can otherwise it might just be me and Paul Paul Martin I should say not ah Paul Zimmerman and we will do that but otherwise good luck in Saudi Paul 20:17.77 Paul Yeah, yeah, maybe I should just avoid it just to avoid confusion. Thanks. 20:25.59 archpodnet Ah, yeah, totally all right? We'll see everybody next time. 20:27.60 Paul Ah, bye.