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Anishinabemowin
The Project
The Bytown Museum is excited to open its collection through a new digitization project: Stories from the Collection.
In collaboration with the Carleton Immersive Media Studio, we have selected artefacts—most of them previously held in storage—and modelled them in 3D to tell the history of Bytown in a new way.
Each artefact represents a key moment in Bytown’s history, from time immemorial when Indigenous peoples, its original stewards, occupied the land, to the opening of the Bytown Museum in the Commissariat Building in 1952.
Artefacts tell stories. Explore the 3D models to find out what these objects have to say about the past.
The Purpose
To further expand public access to the Bytown collection, the museum explored 3D modelling using photogrammetry.
Our team brought artefacts out of storage and out of display cases with the goal of presenting them to visitors in greater detail than ever before. These 3D models from our collection serve to enhance access to Canada’s material culture and heritage.
The 3D modelling process also offers new opportunities for preservation.
In documenting a selection of our artefacts in this digital format, we extend their longevity and preserve their stories. Now that the current condition of these artefacts has been documented, they can be “handled” by visitors without fear of damage.
Through 3D modelling, the Museum is able to highlight meaningful connections between artefacts and the stories they tell.
The Stories
The history of the area we know today as Ottawa is made up of many moments. The artefacts in this project tell stories of industry and labour, women, prominent people, disaster and war, and everyday life from the pre-Bytown, Bytown, and Ottawa eras.
Immerse yourself in an interactive storytelling experience, as you explore a map of Ottawa and discover what the artefacts have to say about the past.
The Collection
The choice of artefacts to include in Stories from the Collection was led by our community’s interest in discovering artefacts that have local stories and ones that have, to date, been in storage.
With these parameters in mind, staff explored our collection to uncover rarely exhibited artefacts, as well as a handful of favourites from our galleries. Each object tells a part of the Bytown/Ottawa story.
Project Partners
Carleton Immersive Media Studio
The Carleton Immersive Media Studio (CIMS) is a Carleton University Research Centre (CURC) affiliated with the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. CIMS is engaged in theoretical and applied multidisciplinary research concerned with the integration of new and emerging digital technologies into non- or semi-digital workflows. We collaborate with public, private, and not-for-profit partners on projects that address diverse research challenges in the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner operator (AECOO) industry, biomedicine, economic development, forensic evidence, and heritage conservation. Since 2007, CIMS has pursued four interrelated streams of research: Digitization, Modelling, Digitally Assisted Fabrication, and Digitally Assisted Storytelling. Bytown Museum: Stories from the Collection drew on both the Digitization and Digitally Assisted Storytelling streams.
Learn more about the documentation process
