LIBVIZ

Data Visualisation of the Old Library



 

The Old Library of Trinity College Dublin, built in 1732, is an internationally renowned research library. In recent decades it has also become a major tourist attraction in Dublin, with the display of the Book of Kells within the Old Library now drawing over half a million visitors per year. The Preservation and Conservation Department of the Library has raised concerns about the impact of the environment on the collection. The location of the building in the city centre, large visitor numbers, and the conditions within the building are putting the collection at risk. In developing a strategic plan to find solutions to these problems, the department has been assessing and documenting the current situation. This paper introduces ongoing work on a system to visualise the collected data, which includes: dust levels and dispersion, internal and external temperature and relative humidity levels, and visitor numbers in the Old Library. We are developing a user interface for which the data, originally stored in various file formats, is consolidated in a database which can be explored using a 3D virtual reconstruction of the Old Library. With this novel technique, it is also possible to compare and assess the relationships between the various datasets in context.

 
 


Team Members

Kerstin Ruhland and Carol O'Sullivan, Graphics, Vision and Visualisation Group (GV2), TCD
Susan Bioletti, Preservation and Conservation Department, TCD
Michael Sedlmair, Media Informatics Group, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich
 


Resources

 



 

LibViz: Data Visualisation of the Old Library
K. Ruhland, S. Bioletti, M. Sedlmair and C. O'Sullivan, Virtual Systems and MultiMedia - dedicated to Digital Heritage (VSMM 2008)

LibViz: A visualisation toolkit to support the preservation of the Old Library
K. Ruhland, S. Bioletti, C. O'Sullivan and H. Hussmann, Eurographics Ireland, pp60 - 66, (2007)

Demo of LibViz

Movie of the Old Library model (quicktime)