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Help & guidance Guides to Good Practice

Archival metadata example

Angie Payne, Kieron Niven (Ed.), Archaeology Data Service / Digital Antiquity, Guides to Good Practice

One of the digital artifacts, Ark_HM_Headpot, has been selected to show an example project metadata set below.

Acquisitional metadata

The project level metadata below would be completed once for the entire project.

Project Level Metadata Sample Entry
Project Name Virtual Hampson Museum Project
Name of monument, survey area, or object Ark_HM_Headpot
Monument/Object Number NA
Survey Location Hampson Archeological Museum State Park; Wilson, AR
Survey Date(s) of survey (Month/day/year) 6-APR-2008
Survey Conditions Indoors
Scanner Details Konica Minolta VIVID 9i; mm
Company/Operator Name Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies, Christopher Goodmaster
Control data collected? N
Turntable used? Y
RGB Data Capture Y. The VIVID 9i uses internal RGB capture. A three point lighting system was used to illuminate the object from the top and from both sides; this minimized shadows on the object. Each light in the system had 1-3 white light (5000k) flicker free fluorescent bulbs. The number of bulbs that were used to illuminate each artifact varied depending on ambient light conditions and object color.
Estimated Data Resolution 0.35mm
Total Number of Scans in Project 18
Archived Datasets Original scans, registered dataset, premesh dataset, Mesh dataset, Decimated mesh dataset
Planimetric map of scan coverage areas N
Additional project notes NA
Images from survey Y. Ark_HM_Headpot_001.jpg, Ark_HM_Headpot_003, Ark_HM_Headpot_004.jpg, Arka_HM_006.jpg, Ark_HM_Headpot_009.jpg, Ark_HM_headpot_010.jpg

The information in the scan level metadata table below would be completed for every scan in the project. This information could easily be created in a spreadsheet using the metadata elements as column headings and a row per scan.

Scan Level Metadata Sample Entry
Scan Filename Ark_HM_Headpot_scan1.txt
Scan Transformation Matrix Ark_HM_Headpot_scan1_matrix.txt
Name of monument/object area Ark_HM_Headpot
Survey Date 6-APR-2008
Scan Number 1 of 18
Number of Points in Scan 160909
Additional Scan Notes NA
Scanner Technology Triangulation
Data resolution 0.37
Lense or FOV Details Tele lense

Registration metadata

Registration Metadata Sample Entry
Name of Registered Dataset Ark_HM_Headpot_GR.txt
Total number of scans used in Registration/Total number acquired 18 of 18
Global Registration Error in units (2 units precision) 0.06
Total number of points in final registration 3156822

Additional products metadata

Pre-Mesh Metadata Sample Entry
Name of Pre-Mesh Dataset Ark_HM_Headpot_GRE.txt
Number of points in file 995742
Point Deletion Summary Overlap reduction was computed in Polyworks software. Following overlap reduction, floating data points were also deleted. Data remnants from overlap reduction were also deleted.
Overlap Reduction (Y/N) (optional) Y
Smoothing (Y/N) (optional) N
Subsampling (Y/N) (optional) N
Color Editions (Y/N) (optional) N

 

Mesh Creation and Editing Metadata Sample Entry
Name of Mesh Dataset Ark_HM_Headpot.obj
Estimated mesh spacing .8
Holes Filled (Y/N) Y
Smoothing (Y/N) Y
Color Editions (Y/N) (optional) N
Healing/despiking (Y/N) (optional) Y
Total Triangle count (post editing) 647169
RGB Color Included (Y/N) Y
Data Reduction (Y/N) N
Coordinate System Adjustment (Y/N) N
Additional processing notes NA

 

Decimated Mesh Metadata Sample Entry
Name of decimated mesh dataset Ark_HM_Headpot_25k.obj
Total Original Triangle Count 647169
Decimated Triangle Count 25000
RGB Color preserved from original dataset Y