Mawrth 2011
Revealing historic sketches online
Revealing the historic sketches of Francis Place for the very first time…
After Museum conservators in the Art department had completed their conservation work on the Francis Place sketchbooks – containing some of the earliest on-the-spot- sketches of Wales in the Museums collections – I was given the task of figuring out the best way in which to present these sketches online.
Secret sketches hidden for 200 years
Places' sketchbooks had been taken apart 200 years ago and their pages stuck on a woven paper backing. Recent conservation work has since revealed further sketches on the reverse – sketches that have been hidden for over 200 years.
What's more, these hidden sketches were a continuation of the panoramic view from the previous page – so by digitally stitching two double page panoramas together, new complete views could been created that would never have been possible to see before – even by the artist himself!
Now, how could we display these new super long panoramas online whilst still allowing the detail to be seen?
The default width for our webpages is set at just under 1000 pixels across, this was just not enough to be able to show off these panoramas in any detail, so I decided that the easiest solution was to add scroll bars direct to the image, allowing them to be displayed across the page whilst at the same time allowing the complete panoramas to be studied in detail.
Cardiff 1678:
One of these newly generated images is of a panoramic view of Cardiff, containing an unique view of the medieval town as it was back in 1678.
To show this detailed sketch off in the best possible way, I decided to repurpose our interactive image navigator tool, which allows the user to pan around a high resolution image viewing details close up.
By using texts from a previously published article on medieval Cardiff, I was also able to pinpoint and highlight certain aspects of the panorama that were noteworthy – be it places that have remained unchanged since medieval times, or places that have long since vanished.
Francis Place goes global
To promote this work, the marketing team at the Museum distributed several Tweets and Facebook mentions. As well as being picked up by the BBC Wales news website and local media, we also published images onto the photo sharing website Flickr and added the extra information as notes embedded within the image. To make it a bit more user focused, I posted a comment asking users to guess where the artist was postitioned as he sketched… The foreground area of the sketch has altered so dramatically since 1678, it's not as easy as it seems….
Clwb Cwiltio
Dyma luniau o'r clwb cwiltio ddydd sadwrn diwethaf. Rydyn wedi cwrdd tair gwaith nawr ac mae hi'n sesiwn hyfryd a chyfeillgar.
Mae e'n neis i gwrdd â gwahanol bobl, a mae yna gymysgedd da o bobl sydd newydd ddechrau cwiltio a rhai sydd efo ychydig fwy o brofiad. Ar hyn o bryd mae yna le i fwy o bobl i ymuno, felly anfonwch ebost neu ffoniwch i fwcio, mae'r sesiwn nesa ar 7 Mai. Tan hynny, mae'r lluniau hyn o'r sesiwn ddiwethaf yn dangos y gwaith hyd yma, os ydych wedi bod yn dod i'r clwb, plis ebsotiwch luniau ata i!
Mae'r crocysau wedi cyrraedd!
Bron fel hud a lledrith mae crocysau wedi blodeuo hyd a lled Cymru!
Agorodd llawer ohonyn nhw yn ystod gwyliau’r hanner tymor, felly fe ddylen ni dderbyn llawer mwy o gofnodion gan ysgolion gan fod y disgyblion yn ôl yn yr ysgol nawr.
Yn anarferol eleni, rydyn ni wedi derbyn cofnodion o grocws yn agor yn y canolbarth cyn cofnodion o’r gorllewin. Dyma newyddion da i Ysgol Glantwymyn sydd fel arfer yn gorfod aros hiraf am eu blodau.
Darllenwch fy llythyr i weld sut i ennill trip ac i ennill eich tystysgrifau gwyddonwyr gwych.
Does dim cofnodion o gennin Pedr wedi fy nghyrraedd i eto, ond dwi’n si?r y clywn ni am adroddiadau cyn hir.
Mae fy nghennin Pedr i wedi dechrau troi eu pennau sy’n arwydd eu bod yn paratoi i flodeuo. Mae’r coed yn fy ngardd wedi dechrau blodeuo ac mae’r dail yn dechrau tyfu – cyn bo hir bydd fy ngardd i’n llawn lliw. Dwi methu aros! Mae llawer o arwyddion bod y gwanwyn wedi cyrraedd Sain Ffagan hefyd.
Cofiwch ddweud wrtha i sut mae’ch blodau chi?
Athro’r Ardd
Ydi'r gwanwyn wedi cyrraedd?
Yn gyntaf, Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus i bawb! Mae mis Mawrth wedi cyrraedd, ond ydi’r gwanwyn ar y ffordd? Es am dro bore ‘ma o amgylch yr amgueddfa i weld os oedd golwg o’r gwanwyn. Dyma beth wnes i ddarganfod…
categorïau
Pob cofnod
Ffotograffau Hanesyddol (Esmee Ffairburn)
cofnodion diweddar
Cystadleuaeth Darlunio Cennin Pedr 2013
Peregrines on the Clock Tower 2013
Natural science collections in Welsh museums – a Distributed National Collection
Addewid Athro’r Ardd: Fydda i ddim yn anghofio’r blodau hwyr
