Tradition meets tomorrow, one historic image at a time
Tradition meets tomorrow, one historic image at a time
In perfect timing for the UNI Sesquicentennial Celebration — which will honor the University of Northern Iowa’s 150-year journey — one exciting campus project lets people literally walk through history, bringing images from old scrapbooks, UNI Archives and photo collections into the present day. While time travel may still be science fiction (for now), this might be the next best thing.
Meet Zach Rogers, a recent UNI graduate who has spent three semesters working with Professor Emeritus Bettina Fabos on Fortepan IA, crafting 360-degree street view tours layered with historical photos of UNI’s campus and beyond.
“It’s a history and culture tool,” explained Rogers, who majored in geographic information science (GIS). “You can just see how things have evolved. It’s interesting to see how the campus and students have changed.”
The result of Rogers’ work, along with contributions from several other dedicated UNI students, is an augmented reality experience known as FotoSphere Tour, that lets users see the past merge with the present. He’s geolocated hundreds of historical photos into Fortepan IA’s digital platform. The project ties in perfectly with his GIS background, which focuses on data collection and digital mapping.
“The pictures come from families around Cedar Falls or people who lived here,” Rogers explained. “A lot of them are from the UNI Archives in the library, and then we also have some from UNI Museum scrapbooks.”
The photos span more than a century of UNI history, going back to the 1870s. Rogers’ favorites are the ones that capture slices of student life, like one image of UNI Panthers playing seven-on-seven tackle football in front of the Towers.
So how does it work? Once Fortepan IA receives a photo, Rogers or another team member scans the image at high resolution, uploads it to the photo history portal and works to pinpoint where it was taken. Sometimes, it’s obvious. Other times, he collaborates with Rod Library Special Collections & University Archives to determine the exact spot.
Rogers first prints the images and visits the exact site on campus where they were created. He takes a picture of the historical image on his phone, positioning it as close as possible to its original placement. Then he uses a 360-degree camera to snap a new photo, hiding out of sight for the final product.
Students are inevitably captured in the 360-degree images and have come up with some creative ways of hiding.
“There are some funny pictures from the people who took the 360 pictures before me,” said Rogers. “They're sprawled out on the grass next to the camera or curled up in a ball under the camera.”
Rogers first heard about Fortepan IA when Fabos spoke at one of his geography classes. She welcomed anyone in need of an internship to connect with her. Since then, Rogers has worked on pictures at UNI, in Cedar Falls, as well as other Iowa communities like Waverly and Ottumwa. Fabos is also looking forward to new projects in Coon Rapids and Washington, both Iowa communities with large newspaper-based photo archives.
Rogers has even been able to use his experience as a commercial pilot and piloting drones to bring aerial photomatching to the projects.
“It's really good experience because the company I’m working with after graduation does GIS work,” he said. “It's nice to have that experience on troubleshooting cameras. It helped me out in my interview to have that experience.”
Although Rogers has now started his full-time position, he’s willing to rejoin the FotoSphere Tour project in the future — especially if Fabos ever takes the time-traveling experience abroad. The project already has plans to go global with efforts in Switzerland and Chile. The team hopes FotoSphere Tour can be used in education and tourism, allowing people to virtually walk through a site without having to physically be there.
Want to contribute to this historic archive? Fortepan IA is always taking submissions.
