Deciphering the worn inscription on the Oswald Allen memorial was an interesting challenge in heritage investigation. This Victorian ‘medicine pot’ memorial was believed to pay tribute to Oswald Allen, founder of the York Dispensary, and his wife Frances. However, despite a Victorian record of the stones within the St Lawrence churchyard, no record of Allen’s memorial inscription can be found and therefore its message is at risk to be lost to history forever. This is why a parishioner of St Lawrence Church approached us to see if digital technologies might be able to decipher anything beyond what is visible to the naked eye.
Determined to at least partially decipher the inscription, we tried several different methods. First a photogrammetry test was done to see if this technique would pick up the required level of detail from the stone’s surface to allow us to see fine depth information. The test didn’t prove promising unless new techniques were engaged including high resolution, macro photography or photometric stereo. Instead, our second method was to try laser scanning and to see if the level of detail was enough to determine small changes in depth.
We were provided assistance with the laser scanning from XR Stories and from SIGN’s Creativity Lab, both very useful resources available to small business in the screen and interactive media realm in the Yorkshire region. With the stone scanned, we first had to flatten it in order to be able to use depth information to help us potentially interpret some of the inscription. To do this, we used software called CloudCompare. Once flattened, we were able to add a colouring system which changes colours based on height information. This helped us to see a little more, but the first scans did not obtain enough fine detail to allow us to see much.
