Research Assistant in 3D software development

The GPR ‘Human Past’: our group and our research

The GPR (Grand Programme de Recherche) ‘Human Past’ is an interdisciplinary research project supported by the University of Bordeaux's Initiative d’Excellence. ‘Human Past’ gathers ~110 researchers from 3 laboratories (PACEA, AUSONIUS, and Archéosciences Bordeaux) affiliated with the University of Bordeaux (UB) and the University of Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM). Our expertise combines Biological Anthropology, Classical and Medieval Archaeology, Prehistory, Protohistory, History, Epigraphy, Archaeometry, Geochronology and Computer Science Applications to Cultural Heritage.

’Human Past’ aims to document, characterize and understand the tipping points that have induced major biological and cultural changes within past human populations. Spanning a large chronological period (from Prehistory to historical times), our research aims to identify the steps that enabled a primate originally adapted to African ecosystems to evolve into a species that occupies and impacts every ecosystem on the planet. Biological and social systems will be scrutinized at different scales from a multitude of perspectives with particular attention paid to phenotypic and genetic variability, cognition, technology, social organization, belief systems, and genetic and cultural adaptive strategies that drive human societies.

This position advertisement belongs to the first part of the funding scheme, planned for 4 years.

Project description

The project consists in developing software that allows the association of analytical data from research work on archaeological sites and objects with one or more 3D models. The 3D models are already produced by the research teams by photogrammetry, lasergrammetry or 3D modeling, and have the particularity of being multi-scale. As for the data, they are heterogeneous in nature because they come from multiple sources and disciplines. They can be textual, numerical, or more complex like spectrometry or sensor data.

The software developed by the study engineer will integrate a real-time 3D visualization in an autonomous way (unity 3D C#) but also online on the internet (webGL threeJS, gltf, javascript). The database(s) will be based on generic documents (JSON, NoSQL). A web server (nodeJS, javascript) will handle communications between the database and the 3D Viewer. Gateways will also be developed with existing software, particularly for indexing metadata and managing collections (semantic web).

No experience in archaeology nor humanities is required.

Adequacy of the PhD project with the objectives of the GRP

The work of the research engineer will be in line with the objectives of the GPR "Human Past", and more precisely with the themes of Action 2 ('Cultural heritage sites and objects are the subject of long-term research') of Work Package 5 ('How can the study of cultural heritage improve our knowledge of the human past while at the same time promoting its protection and strengthen societal and community development?).

The engineer will develop this software in close collaboration with the researchers, with the aim of refining their interpretation of the archaeological sites and objects studied, with implications not only for Action 2, but also for WP5 and the GPR 'Human Past' more globally.