Uploaded November 2016 | Updated September 2026, 19 minutes ago
This is a demonstration video illustrating the Stonehenge section of the Interactive Soundgate, an audio-visual installation that can be found in the European Music Archaeology Project (EMAP) exhibition, Archaeomusica. It opened in Ystad in Sweden in June 2016, and will tour to Valladolid (Spain), Slovenia, Rome and Cyprus, and hopefully also to Brandenburg in Germany, Brussels, Switzerland and China.
The installation is a computer game-like point of view walkaround, created using Unreal Engine 4. You can explore Stonehenge in 4 phases, from the earliest construction of a bank and ditch, through the earliest bluestone circle, to the first Sarsen circle and its final phase. Accurate acoustic responses of the stone circles have been generated using acoustic modelling, and these are experienced as you walk around the spaces. This version was videoed playing on a Macbook Pro Laptop, and so movement is not very smooth, the main installation is on a Mac Pro Desktop computer, and is far smoother. For some reason the audio is not very balanced between ears in this video either. In the live model, sounds and acoustics pan as you turn around. We are currently developing versions for Windows, iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android platforms, reducing the detail on the model for less powerful processors.
English Heritage gave permission to use partial individual point clouds of the stones from a photogrammetric survey from the 1990s as the basis of the model. at least 3 point clouds were stitched together to make each stone. These were then stitched together, surfaced and textured, and placed on LIDAR ground data. Where stones were missing, existing stones were copied, to complete an artistic interpretation of the original site as it may have looked in the past. Numerous decisions had to be made, the Altar stone is placed vertically, 3 slaughter stones are put in place. The blue stones are put in the Aubrey holes in an early phase, following archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson's suggestions following excavation of an Aubrey hole, having seen the bottom of the hole crushed by a heavy weight, likely a stone not wood for example.
A number of impulse responses were generated of each digital model, to model the acoustics in a number of positions. As you move around the space these acoustics are activated. A background acoustic environment is created using birds that may have been present and other sounds. Musical instrument sounds can be triggered by pressing buttons on an XBox360 controller. These include sounds of a model of a deer skinned frame drum, based on a museum example from Scandinavia. A reconstruction of the Wilsford Flute (found in the WIlsford shaft nearby, an archaeological find from a similar date), has been made by Simon Wyatt, who also plays it. The acoustics of the space are convolved with these sounds, so you hear them as if they are being played in Stonehenge's acoustics. Although we cannot be sure this exactly what the site was like, the project has tried to use accurate scientific evidence to make the model as correct as possible.
You can see more of the project at www.emaproject.eu
You can find out more about the acoustics of Stonehenge at SoundsofStonehenge.wordpress.com
This model was created by Dr Rupert Till of the University of Huddersfield
hud.ac.uk/ourstaff/profile/index.php?staffid=432
This is a demonstration video illustrating the Stonehenge section of the Interactive Soundgate, an audio-visual installation that can be found in the European Music Archaeology Project (EMAP) exhibition, Archaeomusica. It opened in Ystad in Sweden in June 2016, and will tour to Valladolid (Spain), Slovenia, Rome and Cyprus, and hopefully also to Brandenburg in Germany, Brussels, Switzerland and China.
The installation is a computer game-like point of view walkaround, created using Unreal Engine 4. You can explore Stonehenge in 4 phases, from the earliest construction of a bank and ditch, through the earliest bluestone circle, to the first Sarsen circle and its final phase. Accurate acoustic responses of the stone circles have been generated using acoustic modelling, and these are experienced as you walk around the spaces. This version was videoed playing on a Macbook Pro Laptop, and so movement is not very smooth, the main installation is on a Mac Pro Desktop computer, and is far smoother. For some reason the audio is not very balanced between ears in this video either. In the live model, sounds and acoustics pan as you turn around. We are currently developing versions for Windows, iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Android platforms, reducing the detail on the model for less powerful processors.
English Heritage gave permission to use partial individual point clouds of the stones from a photogrammetric survey from the 1990s as the basis of the model. at least 3 point clouds were stitched together to make each stone. These were then stitched together, surfaced and textured, and placed on LIDAR ground data. Where stones were missing, existing stones were copied, to complete an artistic interpretation of the original site as it may have looked in the past. Numerous decisions had to be made, the Altar stone is placed vertically, 3 slaughter stones are put in place. The blue stones are put in the Aubrey holes in an early phase, following archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson's suggestions following excavation of an Aubrey hole, having seen the bottom of the hole crushed by a heavy weight, likely a stone not wood for example.
A number of impulse responses were generated of each digital model, to model the acoustics in a number of positions. As you move around the space these acoustics are activated. A background acoustic environment is created using birds that may have been present and other sounds. Musical instrument sounds can be triggered by pressing buttons on an XBox360 controller. These include sounds of a model of a deer skinned frame drum, based on a museum example from Scandinavia. A reconstruction of the Wilsford Flute (found in the WIlsford shaft nearby, an archaeological find from a similar date), has been made by Simon Wyatt, who also plays it. The acoustics of the space are convolved with these sounds, so you hear them as if they are being played in Stonehenge's acoustics. Although we cannot be sure this exactly what the site was like, the project has tried to use accurate scientific evidence to make the model as correct as possible.
You can see more of the project at www.emaproject.eu
You can find out more about the acoustics of Stonehenge at SoundsofStonehenge.wordpress.com
This model was created by Dr Rupert Till of the University of Huddersfield
hud.ac.uk/ourstaff/profile/index.php?staffid=432
