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Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

cosmowenman.substack.com

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Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#201

Post by IncreasePosts »

rpigab wrote: post #104

I am a French taxpayer. This is not the most outrageous thing about taxpayer money at work that I learned today. That would be the fact that local branches of the ministry of agriculture require wind turbine builders to put blue dyed water in concrete to make it friendly to all life or something, I'm not sure I understand, it's called Pneumatit®, and I'm not making this up. It's biodynamics, it's biogeology (neither…

Cui bono?

I just did some initial snooping, thinking the manufacturers of the product would be some French people with some backdoor connection with the ministry of agriculture, but as far as I can tell, it is provided by some seemingly unrelated German company.

Is this something that is distasteful, but needs to be done to prevent some group from picketing the installation of the wind turbines?

Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#202

Post by BlueTemplar »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #151
BlueTemplar wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good laws try to be future-proof. Transparency of government is a big deal in liberal democracies. It's incongruous for a museum to resist something like this, when exhibiting artifacts to the public is one of the main reasons for their very existence.

Legislators are human beings. "Future-proof" is one thing, guessing all possible cases is quite another and perhaps their aim simply wasn't things like 3D scans at all, as mentioned, because freedom of information laws came about to tackle a completely different issue (which was indeed transparency, not scans of sculptures...) That's how it is and key to this case, and not really discussed in any comments. I am not c…

Ok, I guess "transparency" doesn't begin to cover all potential cases, CADA's role is to ensure the freedom of access to administrative documents, but also to public archives and to the re-use of public information.

And any document created during a public service mission is concerned, regardless of whether it's in a text, visual, audio, etc. format, the law specifically abstaining from giving an exhaustive list or even type of documents, considering their variety.

And why would point clouds of statues be exempt when point clouds of buildings or landscapes are not ?

Legislators are human beings indeed, not computers, they are able to try to convey "the spirit of the law", and hope that their successors will be able to understand them.

The "hate" is from, yet again, taking taxpayer money, while basically doing the opposite of their job.

P.S.: Something to cheer you up : https://youtu.be/sQ9I4t0kJxg

Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#203

Post by BlueTemplar »

t43562 wrote: post #125
rootusrootus wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There has to be a point where seeing things in the virtual world becomes "good enough" that we won't fly thousands of miles to do it. For certain things, I could see that. But for many things I go see, it's being there that is part of the point. Knowing that I'm seeing or touching the actual thing the artist saw and touched, or standing in a place where the builders worked build it, etc. Seeing a perfect representa…

I half agree, but I've been to a few of these things and it's all somewhat debatable because you're not really supposed to touch, or there are millions of people and you can't just sit and enjoy, or you don't know enough about them to understand deeply what you are seeing. Ruined cities really don't look or feel anything like what they were. You miss an incredible amount by not being able to see them as the inhabitan…

Some people have of course tried to do something like this. I specifically remember some video about getting street noise right... I think it was for that Assassin's Creed game set in Paris ?

Related :

https://youtu.be/NbETq6owNmc

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1341280/NotreDame_de_Pari...

Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#204

Post by rendall »

This is an astonishing account. I should no longer be amazed when governmental, or quasi-governmental, bodies abuse their authority in defiance of the law or reason, but it's absolutely baffling.

Peripheral, but related: one of my favorite genre of YouTube video is that of people who quietly assert their civil rights to, e.g., stand in front of City Hall with a cardboard sign, or record video inside City Hall or a public library or other public building, or record anything at all on video from a public sidewalk, or criticize the mayor at a town meeting, all completely legal and protected activity in the USA. Astonishing, the number of times a civil servant or police officer will attempt to run these people off under threat of arrest, exposing themselves and their town to a federal lawsuit.

Invariably, without an ounce of self reflection, they frame these people as troublemakers, as no doubt does the Rodin Museum to Cosmo Wenman, even as the courts thump them.

Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#205

Post by dr_kiszonka »

AyyEye wrote: post #136
mapt wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photogrammetry is great with textured, consistently lit, opaque objects. Blank white plaster, less so. You really want some kind of microtexture to grab on to for it to be anywhere close to a structured light scanner. That may mean you want a macro lens and a thousand exposures because you're grabbing on to microscopic surface roughness or dust. Not necessarily easy to do surreptitiously.

Yes they are different things and photogrammetry isn't a replacement for a "real" 3d scanner. But this is about museums which largely aren't unlit plain white surfaces. Getting models of museum objects is generally doable by anyone without thousands in specialised equipment. Taking a video or pictures is a lot less weird than pulling out any scanner.

Do you have any software recommendations? I tried a few photogrammetry apps to capture small items (e.g., keycaps) and bigger ones (e.g., my face) but the results were never good enough. Ideally, I would like to open such models in Fusion, make a few edits, and 3D print them.

Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#206

Post by BlueTemplar »

iterance wrote: post #66

I suspect the true rationale may be more deeply based on art history than either the museum or this article are letting on. To understand why, I think it's important to reckon with what happened to "art" as an institution when the processes of reproduction became cheap and readily available during the 1900s. I can only sketch and I won't fully do it justice. Before the 1900s, some methods of mechanical reproduction d…

You are trying to insist on the "reproduced for cheap", I guess, because I'm pretty sure that expensive reproductions (whether legal or illegal, frauded as "real" or not) of paintings and statues have existed for a long time ?

Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#207

Post by krick »

This is kinda amazing that one has fight for it. I would like to think any museum should be immensely grateful to anyone willing to put in his time to either do the scanning himself or at least to provide an open platform to distribute the scans.

Honestly, I am less sympathetic about this particular case (I mean, who cares about accurate representations of Rodin's sculptures anyway?), but making an open catalog of all digital copies of all ancient stuff found this far really should be #1 priority for history as a research discipline at this point, IMO. It is absurd that anyone would actively prevent that. Yet, at some sites you aren't even allowed to take a photo (yes, w/o a flash), even if it is accessible. Most important sites and archives, obviously, aren't accessible to normal people at all.

Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#208

Post by aredox »

bambax wrote: post #105
myrmidon wrote: post #48

This is utterly puzzling to me. I just don't understand how you sit on the museums side of the trial on this, without seriously questioning your own position and conceding immediately. They were basically arguing that they are entitled to hide those scan artifacts to better protect their gift shop?! How can they even reconcile those arguments with preserving the artists legacy/serving the common good? I'm also surpri…

Welcome to France! France is built on the idea that the public can't be trusted, has not really reached adulthood (won't ever) and needs to be coached by an army of civil servants whose job is to protect the State and its finances. It's not corruption, exactly; it's the idea that the interests of the State are paramount, and everything else doesn't really matter. If the State sells reproductions of Rodin's work, well…

What is this rant?

This whole story shows the exact opposite of what you wrote: it is the Rodin museum, an independent institution which prides itself in being self-sufficient (even when it is not completely true), that is misleading the public and trying to manipulate the state ministry to its help, and the State didn't, and another part of the state ruled against them on almost all counts.

Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#209

Post by aredox »

gabaix wrote: post #199
bambax wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to France! France is built on the idea that the public can't be trusted, has not really reached adulthood (won't ever) and needs to be coached by an army of civil servants whose job is to protect the State and its finances. It's not corruption, exactly; it's the idea that the interests of the State are paramount, and everything else doesn't really matter. If the State sells reproductions of Rodin's work, well…

This is an apt description of how things are, sadly. And it all starts at the crib when parents teach their children blind obedience.

This is the complete opposite of what this story describes.

And since when are the French blindly obedient? Is that really their reputation?

Re: Secret 3D scans in the French Supreme Court

#210

Post by LegionMammal978 »

bambax wrote: post #150
cinntaile wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's the final court for civil matters in France I would argue it's still a supreme court.

One difference among many: the Cour de Cassation does not issue decisions, exactly; it can only hold or break a decision from a lower court. If it chooses to break the lower court's decision (casser=to break) then the case is sent back to said court to be decided again, with new guidance from the upper court.

That's also typically how the U.S. Supreme Court works, except for those few oddball cases where it has original jurisdiction. The losing party from the lower court files a petition for certiorari (judicial review). The Supreme Court may grant it, hear the two parties' arguments, and reach an opinion which is sent back to the lower courts, who are then responsible for resolving any remaining questions.
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