makes them among the most fragile of archaeological sites.

Need to Visualize
With a need to protect Arkansas' rock art yet still promote the cultural value of these sites, the Arkansas Archaeological Survey (AAS) teamed up with the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) to produce a series of site visualizations that document and explore rock art sites in Northwest Arkansas. The visualizations are a combination of 3D site models, animations, QTVR's (Quicktime Virtual Reality presentations), and digital video clips - all of which portray the sites in their current state.

The goal of this project is to create rock art site visualizations that provide the viewer with a sense of what it is like to be at the site by portraying the site as completely and accurately as possible. This includes accurate visualization of the site, the rock art motifs, and the contextual/environmental setting.

Project Description
Archaeological visualization is a means of modeling archaeological data. Whether it's in the form of a 3D object rotation or a flythrough of a 3D site, archaeological visualization portrays all or part of an archaeological site without the requirement of actual presence at the site. To learn more about related projects and issues concerning archaeological visualization, please visit the section entitled "What is Visualization?"

This project is unique because it concerns the documentation and 3D visualization of the present (rather than past) state and setting of rock art sites in Northwest Arkansas. In other words, rather than reconstruct what these sites may have looked like, our goal is to record and model the current state of each site. For each site, we will produce:

1) A digital video record of the site

2) A 3D scaled replica of the rock features at the site

3) A 3D animation through a reconstructed or “virtual” version of the site

4) An interactive QTVR of the site using the 3D data

The digital video is a secondary product that is obtained for addtional site documentation and for validation of the 3D site visualizations. The main emphasis of this project is creating the 3D site visualizations. By creating these visualizations and making them available to the public online, it is our goal to promote yet preserve the cultural value of rock art in Arkansas.

Equipment
The equipment used in this study includes the Optech ILRIS-3D laser scanner, a Canon PowerShot A70 digital camera, MiniDV digital video cameras (Canon XL-1 and Panasonic AG-DVC30), and necessary processing software. For more on hardware and software system specifications please refer to the equipment section.

Methods
The Optech ILRIS-3D laser scanner was used to obtain an accurate, scaled model of the rock features at each site. The digital camera and video obtained the necessary site imagery used for reference in creating the site visualizations and also for texturing the models created for the virtual site environments. For additional information on data collection and processing technique, please see the methods section for more details.

The Sites
Candidate sites for the project were chosen based on two factors: site accessibility and environmental context. Each site had to be accessible for the project team (not a 2-3 mile walk into the woods) due to the importability of project equipment. The environmental context of the site was also considered: an emphasis was placed on hosting sites with varied environmental contexts to illustrate the different contextual landscapes chosen by Native American artists for the display of rock art.

To date, the project has been completed in full for one site – the Narrows . For a complete description of this project, please see the Narrows section . Work is currently underway for the Jacob's Rock and Carrion Crow Mtn sites and is scheduled to be complete for these sites by Fall 2005.

This project was overseen by Dr. George Sabo III, Research Station Archaeologist for the Arkansas Archaeological Survey and Professor of Anthropology for the University of Arkansas . All equipment and facilities were provided by the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies. Project and website completed by Angelia Smith as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Anthropology.