Bermuda’s shipwrecks will be featured on PBS recurring News Hour Programme (Art and Culture segment).
The topic is The Bermuda 100 Challenge, which is a joint initiative between the Bermuda Government’s Marine Heritage Section of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Look Bermuda and the University of California San Diego Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI). It sets out to document digital reconstructions of shipwreck sites and marine conservation areas using modern technologies.
Dr Philippe Rouja at the ‘Mary Celestia’PBS News Hour’s Senior Correspondent & Chief Arts Correspondent Jeffrey Brown spent two days in San Diego with PI Professor Falko Kuester at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology Virtual Engineering Labs and three days in Bermuda in February with local project PI and Custodian of Historic Wrecks Dr Philippe Max Rouja.
Mr Brown was able to view the shipwrecks and artifacts in super resolution via virtual reality in San Diego and then experience them in Bermuda, demonstrating the promise of this new and developing technology.
Dr Rouja said: “The aim of the Bermuda 100 project is to document 100 or more historic shipwrecks and distinct natural habitats in the waters surrounding Bermuda in order to enhance conservation efforts and open the sites to both real and ‘virtual’ tourism from interested students, researchers and travelers from around the world.
Viewing ‘Mary Celestia’ at UCSD“Local divers, scientists and archaeologists are teaming with students and faculty from the University of California San Diego’s (UCSD) Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative (CHEI) to document and disseminate digital reconstructions of shipwreck sites and marine conservation areas are using modern technologies to collect, process, analyze, visualize and disseminate 3D data and visualizations from known shipwrecks and still-to-be located remains.”
Dr Rouja added: “PBS News Hour has an average of 1.1 million viewers nightly and therefore this filming presents an incredible opportunity for Bermuda to showcase this work to the world.”
PBS New Hour can be on Cable Vision channel 5, or online at pbs.org/newshour/video and other channels depending on the type of service.
The project website can be seen with many of the digital recordings on bermuda100.ucsd.edu/.
- Feature Photo: Dr Philippe Rouja with Jeffrey Brown at Wrecks of the ‘Norkoplin’ and ‘Emma Davis’
