TOC | What CHI Does | The Big Picture | Mission | Contact | Bios | Acknowledgements

What CHI Does

CHI supports the development and adoption of new tools and methods that apply the power of digital technology to humanity’s cultural legacy.

CHI fosters research, provides proof of concept documentation services, consulting, and training in a variety of leading digital imaging techniques. CHI works with cultural communities, archaeologists, cultural heritage institutions, museums, universities, and others interested in recording and preserving cultural objects and places. For examples of how CHI collaborates with the cultural heritage community, see Featured Projects.

With easy to learn methods employing familiar equipment, CHI’s goal is to make the adoption of new standards of cultural heritage best practice compelling and straight forward. To develop and disseminate best practices, CHI collaborates with digital imaging and cultural heritage experts from leading industry and research organizations. CHI works directly with cultural heritage professionals to craft practical digital working methods that are compatible with existing workplace cultures. CHI speeds the adoption of digital tools that capture and communicate more useful, higher quality information that leverages the collaborative potential of the digital age.

New two- and three-dimensional digital techniques can “virtually” document and communicate far more information about cultural heritage material than is currently available through traditional sources such as drawings, printed reports, motion pictures, and photographs. CHI’s approach enhances and expands traditional cultural heritage documentation and presentation methods to make humanity’s treasures more accessible to all.

CHI extends classic scholarly techniques into the 21st century and beyond with revolutionary ways to convey and disseminate information and record scientifically rigorous data. Read the CHI position paper, 'The Big Picture', for details about CHI’s philosophy and how it relates to the current state of cultural heritage research and preservation.

Many of the best uses of digital imaging have yet to be invented. CHI actively encourages the cultural heritage community to imagine novel ways to use digital information. CHI welcomes exploratory conversations about the creation or employment of digital cultural heritage content and encourages decentralized digital trail blazing.

CHI envisions a future where all significant cultural heritage objects and sites are digitally documented in a way that captures their relevant features and presents this information in a manner that is searchable and accessible to everyone everywhere.