forest farm -maine

Currently trying to finish a (hypothetical/academic) proposal for digitizing and preserving a collection of papers and ephemera belonging to Scott and Helen Nearing -of The Good Life fame. One of the wrinkles is that an important part of the Nearing's legacy are the stone buildings they built by hand (themselves and assistants), on Stratton Mountain in Southern Vermont, and in Harborside on the coast of Maine. As well as being landmarks to the couple, the architecture and slipfrom masonry construction techniques were idiosyncratic; simple and functional solutions, though longevity being questioned now.

Anyhow, we considered a way to represent them in the digital archive and as well as storing high quality digital stills we investigated the process of creating 3D digital models of the structures. Deri Jones & Associates assisted us with some of the pricing and technologies. Not surprisingly the cost of surveying and 3D recording of old houses depends on their complexity and access. The optimum situation is to have a clear traverse around the whole house in about 3 survey stations and clear views through the windows to allow accurate location of the scans inside. An example of this type of scanning is the below project done by Deri Jones & Assoc. on some old houses in Friuli, Italy, taking one day to record. Imagine using the data to rebuild a full size 3D replica at some point in the future... good stuff.