03 Aug Representing (Part 1)

One of our tasks at the Small Boat Shop at San Francisco Maritime has been to figure out some representational images for our larger Historic Structure Report project, using a number of methods like photogrammetry, digital photography, and Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to best represent a utilitarian and readily legible set of images. Since the goal of this project to benefit future conservators, preservationists, curators, and others who wish to inquire about the cultural and structural history of the vessel, we must be very careful about our representational decisions.

We wanted to clean up these plans for the Golden Gate Class boats, which is what Ku’uipo, the race boat we have been working on, is.

There is no outlined or straightforward way to do this, so it took a while testing things out.

So I messed around with Photoshop and made an inverse image while adjusting the brightness and contrast. Although an improvement, there was still much left to be desired. I also couldn’t figure out how to efficiently erase all that smudging.

Then we all agreed that best way to do it was to trace the plans via Illustrator so then we can edit the plans and add the work that has been done on the vessel since the plans were made, which will be my next task.

Although not quite functional as naval architecture, the images will be helpful for understanding the general structure and history of the vessel.