Investigating Volumetric Video Creation and Curation for the Digital Humanities: a White Paper Describing Findings from the Project: Preserving BIPOC Expatriates’ Memories During Wartime and Beyond

Abstract

Volumetric video capture technologies offer humanities scholars and other researchers new, immersive ways of engaging with historical and cultural knowledge for research and pedagogical purposes; however, the high cost of this technology and a paucity of expert knowledge in the field have limited its adoption. In particular, volumetric video offers rich new possibilities for recording, preserving, and re-experiencing BIPOC (Black, indigenous, and other people of color) stories in immersive detail, which have been underrepresented in the historical record. This technology is still experimental and is typically limited to specialized labs at large research universities. To democratize the technology and ensure that the potential benefits of this new technology can be realized by digital humanities scholars more broadly, a group of researchers at the University of Arizona and Williams College, in collaboration with technical innovators from the world-renowned volumetric capture studio, VoluCap, GmbH, embarked on a project to explore the challenges and potential benefits of volumetric video capture for BIPOC storytelling. The team traveled to Berlin/Potsdam in June 2023 to visit VoluCap Studios and record several volumetric capture videos, including a video of Mike Russell, who told a story about his father’s experiences as an African-American servicemember during World War II. Recording these videos and observing their processing pipeline allowed us to consider the logistical and data curation challenges of this format. Dr. Bryan Carter, lead-PI on the project, is also director of UArizona’s Center for Digital Humanities, which houses a prosumer-level volumetric capture studio. Comparing the workflows at the Center for DH with what was observed at VoluCap allowed the project team to better understand the challenges and benefits of volumetric capture at different scales and levels of quality. Because volumetric videos are expensive and time consuming to create, an important objective of this project was to examine the preservation and curation challenges associated with the digital objects created through the volumetric capture process. Planning for preservation, access, and reuse of volumetric video assets is essential to realizing their full value. This report describes the creation challenges and pedagogical benefits of volumetric video, as well as preservation and curation challenges.