Of the many new techniques and tools that were tested by Mississippi State University archaeologists during recent dig seasons, none proved more useful or enlightening than our customized visualization tool. The application provides researchers with three-dimensional views of the entire dig site, including terrain, dig areas, slices, and individual objects. The idea of allowing researchers to spin and browse the dig in real-time 3D was, at first, only an intriguing way of looking at the data. Yet, when used in the field while the dig was underway, the program became much, much more.
The screenshot above shows part of Field IV of the Lahav Research Project 1999 Dig Site at Tel Halif, Israel. The cyan boxes are the Area coordinate boxes while the magenta elements are 3D descriptions of the locii. Individual artifacts can be seen as small green dots.
The visualization application has been lovingly dubbed "DigDug" after the classic arcade game of the 1980s. While this application has nothing in common with the classic game (other than taking up fast amounts of our time) we've kept the name as a kind of homage. DigDug has been written in C++ and OpenGL making use of direct calls into the dig's database. The program was written by John van der Zwaag of Concept House, Inc. under contract from the Cobb Institute of Archaeology/Mississippi State University.
