Digital Past 2015

Thanks to everyone who made Digital Past 2015 another great conference!

The event was opened by Ken Skates, Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism and Kate Clark, CEO Cadw. After an extremely inspiring opening, which placed heritage as a key player in the drive to improve digital inclusion and skills in Wales, Ken also took the opportunity to discuss the varied digital projects and products on show within the exhibition area.

 

Over 170 people attended the event in the spectacular setting of the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, enjoying 23 talks and 10 workshops, as well as taking advantage of the Unconference session to showcase their own projects and research. Topics ranged from crowdsourcing to gaming, Virtual Reality to 3D printing, apps for those recording in the field to headsets for immersing people in the past; however two overarching threads running through all the presentations were questions. 'Why?' was emphasised by both Kate Clark and Nick Poole (The Collections Trust) in the opening session, and 'How sustainable?' was the question asked by Natasa Milic-Frayling (Microsoft Research UK) as she warned us of the inevitable shelf-life of software, and therefore our digital files.




Workshops covered a range of practical skills including Reflectance Transformation Imaging, Gigapixel Photography and how to use Locloud Collection to build your own digital collection. Perhaps the most ambitious however was compiling and building a working 3D interior of a Welsh chapel on a raft of Google cardboard headsets!






A wide range of exhibitors were also on hand to showcase projects, products and skills to discuss with the delegates. Occulus rift headsets and 3D printers, laser scanners and UAV's stood alongside amazing augmented reality visuals, visualisations and web resources.

  

Thanks to all the speakers, exhibitors and workshop providers for providing another great year of content, and thanks as well to our sponsors and supporters for helping to keep the conference as financially accessible to all: Leica Geosystems, Heritage Lottery Fund, Korec, Software Alliance Wales, People's Collection Wales and the journal Science and Technology of Archaeological Research (Maney Publishing).