Learning Sites FAQs

Yes.

LEARNING SITES offers archaeologists a wide variety of products and services for research, hypothesis testing, documentation, publication, excavation, data analysis, and teaching. We can reconstruct, show as found, and provide simulated contexts for any size or type of object, from small stone tools to buildings, other structures, and entire sites. Many examples of our range of expertise are shown here throughout our Website. If you have a specific object which you would like digitally modeled, published, or placed in an interactive virtual world, we would be happy to speak to you about your finds and your visualization needs.

Since the past happened in 3D, in color, and as sets of actions, that is the way it should be studied and taught!

LEARNING SITES uses a model similar to that of traditional publishers for the development of electronic publications for archaeologists. Our arrangements with you will mimic those you would have with the traditional paper publishing industry with regard to funding, royalty payments, professional exposure, and creation of the complete line of dissemination tools. For example, LEARNING SITES produces digital excavation reports, broad research compendia, and innovative Web-based publications and supplements to standard paper volumes, such as those shown elsewhere on our Website. Our work is custom-designed to more effectively meet your specific short- and long-term outreach needs.

No.

LEARNING SITES does not have GIS or laser scanning capabilities, either for in-the-field exploration or for data entry. We can build digital terrain models of your site or region and use interactive technologies to allow you to visualize the data collected, study the results, and link them to other forms of information. New technologies allow us to create accurate 3D computer models of artifacts and buildings directly from photographs or videos. Ask us how.

Our unique Digital Site Seer^TM service offers excavators the opportunity to link daily operations directly to our model shop. Send us your digital data from the field or photos of your progress (taken to our specs), and we will model your artifacts, trenches, or buildings immediately and send the resulting 3D models or virtual worlds right back to you.

This service increases the efficiency of your excavation in numerous ways--

• you get detailed 3D digital models of what you are excavating as you dig;
• you can test hypotheses about the areas under excavation without waiting until the end of the season;
• you can instantly adjust your excavation and survey strategies accordingly;
• you can upload our models and renderings to your excavation's Website or social networking site for peers to review, providing the opportunity for comments that might help you to interpret what you are excavating while you work; and
• our visualizations also make preparing interim and final reports and engaging fund-rasing images more efficient and effective.

We can also recommend the REVEAL all digital excavation recording and documentation software toolkit. This open-source package allows you to integrate all your drawings, photographs, 3D models, satellite imagery, and tabular data in a single piece of software. REVEAL will also automatically create interactive virtual worlds of your artifacts, architecture, or trenches via a built-in photomodeling process so that you can view your work and your finds interactively and in 3D.