PAST IN PIXELS

Heritage for the masses

It all started with an expression of frustration, a seemingly obvious solution, and an answered email. We were frustrated about the lack representation of archaeology in the media and in pop culture, and we were frustrated with the lack of imagination by the game industry to use their technology to only make games, when you could do so much more.

Both groups separately thought that archaeology can be displayed in an engaging way in a game environment. Both groups tried to make it a reality, but the archaeologists lacked the knowledge and artistic skills to create the visually stunning and sophisticated environments, and the game team lacked the archaeological knowledge and access of the raw data. It was not until this frustration was voiced, separately, that an email introduction (and a further two introductions) kick started the formation of a pilot study titled the Past in Pixels.

So who are we?

We are a group of archaeologists, game designers, and digital artists that are dedicated to bringing heritage to the masses in an engaging and visually stunning way. Together we combine our mutual skills to use a variety of different types of archaeological data to create virtual heritage experiences in a game engine environment. We conducted a pilot to study to create a workflow to take raw archaeological data, archaeological interpretations, and use this to create digital environments using Unreal Engine 4. 

Sometimes these environments display the archaeology as it is, in situ, and other times we create a hypothetical reconstruction of what the past might has looked like. We use both digital capture data and traditional paper archaeological data to create these experiences. Currently we have only created virtual environments that can be launched on any platform, and we are currently expanding our work to include Virtual Reality (VR) experiences and Augmented Reality (AR) experiences. 

 Past in Pixels is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organisation, and because of this, all donations may be tax deductible. Please consult your tax specialist before donating. All donations go towards furthering our goals of creating heritage for the masses. We are actively looking for new projects! Please take a look around our website and see what we have done with the pilot study and please get into contact with us if you have any questions, comments, observations.

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