About the Project

2012

3D acquisition of the Ruthwell cross

The Ruthwell Cross is a 17 foot high stone cross erected in the eighth century near a former military site (later probably a monastery) in Dumfriesshire. The cross was pulled down and broken in the seventeenth century and partially reconstructed in the nineteenth. It is now located in a small apse on the north side of the Ruthwell church. The cross is carved with scriptural scenes surrounded by Latin inscriptions on its broad sides, and with continuous vinescrolls surrounded by an Old English runic poem on its narrow sides. The poem may be the oldest known record of Anglo-Saxon vernacular poetry.

In 2012, a 3D scanning campaign took place in order to obtain a high quality 3D representation of the cross. The whole data processing pipeline was completed using MeshLab, the open source mesh processing tool created by Visual Computing Lab.

2013–2015

Building a digital edition of the Ruthwell cross

The creation of a high quality 3D representation of the cross was only the first step. The members of the working groups took advantage of the newly available HTML5 framework to build a web-based visualization that could integrate 3D visualization and textual information. The main result of the effort has been the release of a first version of a digital edition of the cross and the experimentation on several editions regarding the runes carved in some panels of the cross.

2017

3D acquisition of the Bewcastle cross

The Bewcastle Cross is an eighth-century standing stone cross also found on a former Roman military site, in this case on the terrace just inside the gate. Approximately the same size as Ruthwell, the severely weathered Bewcastle Cross still stands in its original location. It has the remains of a sundial on its south side and may have been painted and decorated with other metalwork or glass attachments. The west face is carved with three figural panels, of which two also appear on Ruthwell. ISTI-CNR acquired the entire cross in July 2017.

2019–2020

Building the Brussels Cross and settling the viewer

The Brussels Cross is a reliquary cross made in England in the 11th century but kept in Brussels at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. In 2005, a team led by Christopher Fee from Gettysburg College travelled to Brussels to partake in a 5 day photography campaign of the cross for a different project. Among those present was Dan O'Donnell, one of the Co-PIs for the Visionary Cross Project. So when the time came in 2019 to use those photos to make a photogrammetry model of the Brussels Cross it was a quick process. It took 3 months for the Pisa team to complete the model.

At this time, the project was also very focused on finding a new viewer and archival system that would comply with FAIR data and be sustainable far into the future. The solution was to use linking in GitHub and Zenodo. This process was described in detail at DH2019 in Utrecht.

2024–present

Organizing, archiving, and presenting

After a short break in progress, the Visionary Cross Project came back stronger than ever. From 2024 to the present, the team has been working on establishing the new viewer, ensuring the quality of all the models, and preparing all the data for publication.