00:00.17 archpodnet Um, all you are. 00:00.35 alan Okay, welcome back. This is segment 2 this is Dr Allen Garfinkel with your rock art podcast and we have a illustrious guest scholar Eric Hanson of blue planet talking about vr virtual reality. And the development of various means of capturing heritage values and talking about indigenous culture rock art and all other things related to the history and prehistory of our globe. 00:38.40 Eric Hanson I Certainly am. 00:38.37 alan Eric you're back? Well great at the last ah segment. We're just about to sort of plunge in and maybe talk a little deeper about how this vr experience enhances the notion of understanding or. Grappling with some of the issues in terms of relating to a cultural heritage of an exotic culture or of other places and times and people how does this work and how does this facilitate? ah. A person's better appreciation for such aesthetics. 01:22.20 Eric Hanson Yeah,, that's a great great topic. It's one that I actually had in discussion with my class this afternoon and in virtual reality. Ah,, let's say not gaming but let's talk about you know, filmmaking or documentary type experiences. There's always the issue of how to direct the viewer direct an audience and it's an ah entirely different animal than ah for flat cinema. But so if we think about that. Um. If we look at Blue Planet What I've been up to that that is actually letting someone try to forge a personal connection to a location and and I don't and I offer some background. Ah, you know, ah kind of orientation to this location whether it's rock art or other Um, but I would say it. It kind of. Breaks down into a few ah Aspects. So In other words I think ah rock art itself being such a compelling subject. Um, kind of does the narrative of rock art will be found both in the interpretation. 02:25.69 Eric Hanson Or interpretation of the presence of the rock art. Um I don't mean to say the interpretation of the meaning That's ah you know a little delicate subject but but the interpretation of what this site where the site is placed. Um what the historical context of it might be what the tribe. Ah, tribal affiliation. Maybe so forth that can all be disseminated as ah information through Multimedia Audio visual means whether it's a spoken word whether it's text on screen whether it's maps Graphics Etc. So. A lot of what I've done in blue Planet is. 03:01.00 alan So all. Ah so all of this is sort of a multimedia expression that can all be captured under one Umbrella am I understanding that correctly. 03:10.24 Eric Hanson Well it it can be what I'm saying is within so number one you feel present on location number 2 you're standing. Ah you know directly in front of the subject you you have a sense of personal connection to that place because of the the sixth degree of freedom. Thing that I talked about prior and but now ah to you know you? you? Also we have the ability to do interaction and what we call agency in ah vr so that um we can query things we can interact with things and of course. Rock art being rocks. The interaction may be somewhat limited but as an example, what I found and this is another great capture that is ah is within blue planet is of course the great great panels at San Teresa Canyon in Baja California which. 03:59.11 alan Yes, yes, please, let's let's talk. Let's talk a bit about that. Yes, please. 04:02.66 Eric Hanson By the way that that recent let's talk about that because yeah, that that Youtube link you just sent me. That's a terrific little film that Bradshaw created just fabulous and I've already got people commenting positively on it. So yeah, it's a terrific piece but ah, but in that case, um you know the rock art is. 04:09.86 alan Oh my. Oh my word? Yeah, ah, it's amazing. 04:22.22 Eric Hanson You you know? Absolutely world-class and stunning and you know you could you don't really need to do more than just put somebody in front of it. But 1 of the one of the sites that I ah one one section of it and you know this. It's a very low overhang and it has this the incredible density of layering. 04:34.89 alan M. 04:41.52 Eric Hanson Ah, over time of just the the most you know, complex record I've ever witnessed well trying to discern. It was extremely difficult so because the overhang I couldn't understand um how the composition was was formed for being such a low overhang I mean you can. 04:47.90 alan Intricate. 05:01.70 Eric Hanson Barely stand up under it I think from what I recall and that it's right adjacent to a a steep drop off so you don't really have much room to move around or get a different view of it and I got down on the ground and kind of leaned back looked at it from the ground surface kind of laying on my back just to try to take it in better. But but it occurred to me while I was shooting it for Vr that one thing I could do in Vr you can do all these things that you could never do in the real world because it is a 3 d asset that you can manipulate is I thought you know what I'm going to do I'm going to get back home and I'm Goingnna make a cut in this kind of crevice and again we don't. You know I can't show you an image of of this here. But basically I took the overhang and detached it from the model. So initially you walk on the site just as you would physically you observe the site but then you can ah press a button on the controller that you have in vr hand controller and you can elevate. Ah the. This overhang up about twelve fifteen feet higher and because it's something that I wished I could have done on site like wow if I could just get this at an elevation above me I could make out the composition understand this panel better. So that was kind of a very cool opportunity to do that in br and I give you that opportunity in. 06:09.81 alan And and so you were able to do that Electronically yeah, you're able to do that electronically. 06:16.94 Eric Hanson Yeah, in planet. You can do that you could ah so you and it feels very It doesn't feel fictional or electronic because it is based on real world. Ah models right? and light and so forth. Um, but anyway to go beyond that what I then elected to do is with a press of another button. I could scale it down to be something that rather in real world might be thirty feet long and I could scale down to a miniature version that was maybe 3 or four feet long and at that point it's so small that you can hold it in front of you and like you're holding it in your hand in a sense. 06:52.64 alan No. 06:55.00 Eric Hanson With the hand controller and move it and observe it and put it right in front of your eyes for close inspection. It's a delightful attribute to be able to do that So that was ah again an opportunity. You can only have in Vr that you could not do in the real world and I find it just absolutely stuns people to. 07:00.48 alan Wow. Ah, ah. 07:13.94 Eric Hanson Ah, to you know it helps their interpretation of it So again and that's that's one of the beauties of Vr is um I've been very go ahead. 07:16.53 alan To do that? Yeah, um, maybe for the maybe for those people they'll go ahead go ahead I think for those people that may not be aware of what great mural rock art is in the Sierra Day San Francisco in this. Amazing area. Um, you participated I think in one of our cultural tours did you not in terms of being on the back of a mule and having your gear. Ah so yes. 07:47.17 Eric Hanson oh yeah, oh yeah this is I think right after one it was a tour with Ryan Gersner and um, yeah, certainly and ah yeah, but it's a great. It's a it was a yeah, go ahead. Oh absolutely world class. 07:53.56 alan Wow And if anyone's ah it's an epic experience. Yeah, it's really an epic experience and I've done it several times but but um, but the rock guard itself is so mystical and magical in terms of its setting. 08:03.46 Eric Hanson Rum class. 08:13.28 alan Um I have to bring this up Eve Ewing is a ah woman in her 80 s who's been down there studying and writing articles about great mural rock art for about 50 years she's been there probably 100 times she had the opportunity of going into. And meeting Eric Hanson and putting on the headset and taking a look at one of her favorite hallmark sites which was the um major panels there at the painted rock shelter and she saw it. 08:36.22 Eric Hanson Here. 08:51.66 alan And her mind's eyes so clearly and so immersively that she began to lecture us on every little detail and what we were seeing. It was a magical moment. Please. 09:03.69 Eric Hanson Oh it was that way I got to say that was that was ah by far the the most you know human moment I've ever had show sharing some of these experiences of someone and yeah, you know a lot of times we try to make ah the you know this is kind of a young. Person's technology and ah to show her this tech she took to it so rapidly and she felt because she knew this site so intimately I think she had visited once a year for 50 years isn't that the statistic. 09:35.45 alan Oh yeah, something like that. Yeah, exactly. 09:38.66 Eric Hanson And um, she knew you know it. It was just crazy and once she learned how she could move about virtually she was roaming everywhere and showing us all this detail was just extraordinary and again to be able to do this offsite. Back here you know Thousand miles away and ah be able to share interactively a site with others like this and this is this is only we're seeing what she's saying on screen right? But the other very interesting thing that's happening with vr because of this rise of the metaverse and so forth. Is all this is going to become social so you can ah easily put multiple ah viewers in you know each with a headset ah present in the space with each other so as far as I mean basically Alan we could do all the rock art tours that the the club does virtually as well. 10:27.39 alan Yeah, yes, virtually. 10:31.68 Eric Hanson Right? So and that's ah, just a stunning opportunity for for cultural heritage or rock art specifically. 10:39.43 alan Well I know that Ryan and I sort of have teamed up on these cultural tours from time to time but Ryan is ah 1 of those people who is a remarkable almost genius level person that can do almost anything and he began to. Ah self-study and use drones to capture the imagery in the canyons of the rock art in the sierra de San Francisco how does the use of drones interact or mix interpaginate with the vr technology. How does that work. Can you hear me still. Yeah yeah. 11:18.94 Eric Hanson Ah, well drones. Yeah I sure can drones can be used for 2 purposes 1 they can be used for filming which is what Ryan expertly did which is in the the film that we just discussed so it's fantastic to give a first person. 11:30.93 alan Sure. 11:35.50 Eric Hanson Point of view of and just a description of areas through standard cinema um, the other way we can do it and I practice this a lot is I should use them to shoot three sixty Panoramas aerally and I embed that within my spatial experiences. 11:45.99 alan Exactly. 11:53.14 Eric Hanson So We can get a unique 3 60 views and then lastly it can be used obviously as a way to augment photogrammetry is ah a means of acquiring the context of a site I'm still very bullish about shooting on. Ah you know on terra Firma. For the photography because I can use the higher resolution camera but but certainly they they have immense utility just to kind of dovetail that into the the larger site so you can understand some of the terrain and context as Well. So now they're they're an invaluable tool and. 12:24.63 alan So. In other words, what in other words, what we can do is we can so people might understand is that you can be looking at a cave and a rock shelter and basically process and understand conceptualize and study the painted panels. But you can also turn around in that cave and see what the inhabitants of that cave and what the Artisans saw by way of landscape ah completely in a real 3 hree-dimensional experience Am I correct. 13:04.44 Eric Hanson Yeah I mean for photogrammetry. Ah obviously now the other thing I should mention though too is that there's always great utility in them to have them on site. This is if it's legitimate to fly. Um, you know you have to be aware of of that. But. 13:13.93 alan Me. 13:18.30 Eric Hanson But if it's legitimate to fly you can use it as a means to basically scout or kind of do remote inspection. So I was at ays rock ah last year capturing it for photogrammetry and that'll be out in blue planet in an update this fall. No no airs rock ah California Owens Valley 13:30.29 alan This was in Australia. California. Yes, okay. 13:38.25 Eric Hanson Yeah in California I'm sure you know that site so that and that has a kind of a large hillside with a bunch of scattered boulders and rocks and I was very intrigued by what was in this cluster and so I was just able to fly the droneup and you know basically do a visual inspection. Ah, you know without the the effort that would take a few hours of ah accessing that so it it is you know it's also used for ah for basic exploration and I'm not here to sell drones but I will say there's a brand new ah model that just came out from dgi. The mini three and it is eminently light and compact nothing to put it in any day pack and it it is now shooting 48 megapixel stills and ah just absolutely remarkable performance I can shoot a thirty six Thousand Pixel Panorama with it so again you could go and capture these panoramas and then do further inspection back home either in a headside or just you know, ah straight ahead. Ah is a flight image. So yeah, great utility for these things and that new model is you know, less than $1000 so it's you know it's. Pretty good I was always reluctant to to spend a lot of money on one because I just have too much fear of losing it. But um, but this is makes that fear a little less when you have that model so pretty incredible. 14:51.20 alan Yeah, you. 15:00.39 alan So I think in this next segment The final segment. Maybe we can talk about where this this whole discipline is going and what direction you think it's taking and who should be participating and and why. 15:13.21 Eric Hanson Absolutely sounds good. 15:18.13 alan See in the flip flop gang.