Using Digital Visualization of Archival Sources to Enhance Archaeological Interpretation of the ‘Life History’ of Ships: The Case Study of HMCS/HMAS Protector

Abstract

In 2013, researchers affiliated with the South Australian Maritime Museum and University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Visual Technologies [ACVT] conducted an archaeological and laser scanning survey of the former Australian warship HMCS/HMAS Protector. Between its launch in 1884 and service in the First World War, Protector was substantially modified. Once decommissioned, the ship again underwent drastic changes. While several archival photographs exist that depict Protector at various stages of its life, they provide only scant understanding of the transformative processes applied to Protector’s hull. Researchers at ACVT have developed methods of generating 3D models from archival photographs, and are using Protector as a case study. Models have been created that depict the vessel at three specific periods of its service life, which in turn has enabled archaeologists to identify gradual variations to Protector’s hull that, in some cases, were so subtle they could not be discerned in existing archival photographs and other historic media.