Over the past summer at ES@S, one of our undergraduate internship students worked on fusing media data and in field 360 imagery with UAV-based reconstructions of the Lyscombe Nature Reserve, run by the Dorset Wildlife Trust.
Bethany Seaman, a second year Environmental Science student, joined the ES@S team this summer to undertake a four-week internship with the aim of incorporating digital media with a virtual reconstructions of the Lyscombe Nature Reserve, owned by the Dorset Wildlife Trust (DWT). The DWT acquired Lyscombe with the aim of restoring the site and creating a safe haven for wildlife, as part of this work ES@S undertook baseline surveying to support their work.
During her time with ES@S, Bethany learnt how to capture effective media across a range of techniques, ranging from interviews, 360 imagery, and audio soundscapes, editing them to produce short video pieces that could be integrated into the virtual tour. She then spatially integrated these into the ArcGIS Online software suite with the help of the GeoData Institute for fusing alongside the survey data collected by ES@S at the beginning of the restoration works.
I found this internship was a great opportunity to learn about the thoughtful planning that goes into the rewilding process, as well as to have creative freedom over a project, and learn a range of new technical skills. This was a really rewarding challenge, which I hope produced an engaging tool to immerse people in the site, seeing Lyscombe’s amazing wildlife for themselves!
Bethany Seaman, 3rd Year Environmental Science Student
Bethany then developed a workflow for taking the 360 images recorded at the site and creating a virtual tour using open-source software. Within this, she identified methods to embed information points and images, allowing viewers to both explore the digital reconstruction and jump into a first person view and navigate around the site.
The outcome of Bethany’s work can be seen below, allowing you to navigate through the Lyscombe Nature Reserve, or you can view it in a new tab by clicking the link below.
The work undertaken by Bethany as part of her internship with ES@S and the Dorset Wildlife Trust has produced a superb engagement tool for our Lyscombe nature reserve. It really enables the viewer to be emersed within and understand the vision for the site.
Steve Masters, Senior Ecologist at the Dorset Wildlife Trust
If you want to know about how we may be able to offer to support for your work and deliver similar insights and knowledge exchange, you can contact us via e-mail at esas@soton.ac.uk or by submitting a request through this link: https://esas.soton.ac.uk/contact/
Thanks to the David Robins Legacy Fund via the School of Geography and Environmental Science for financing this work, Dorset Wildlife Trust for providing field support, media footage, and audio and photography data, and to the GeoData Institute for project support.