Brooklands 1907: Visualising the World’s First Purpose-Built Motor Racing Venue
46Released on the 7th August 2021 on the 95th anniversary of the British Grand Prix, this virtual reconstruction (VR) is of the original 1907 layout of Brooklands Motor Racing Circuit near Weybridge in Surrey, England. The animation has been produced for my dissertation project for a Digital Archaeology MSc at the University of York, titled "Brooklands 1907: Visualising the world’s first purpose-built motor racing venue to facilitate public engagement and provide guidance for the heritage management and protection of the site."
Special thanks to Brooklands Museum for their assistance with this project.
A significant part of this project has therefore been to digitally model Brooklands Motor Racing Circuit, the world’s first purpose-built motor racing venue, the VR being produced in order to facilitate public engagement with the site as well as to act as a tool to provide guidance for the site’s heritage management and its protection in the future.
The project is primarily practical, particularly the 3D modelling elements, with the main aim of my research and the final VR model being the recognition of motorsport archaeology as a new sub-discipline of archaeology. The project digitally highlights the surviving heritage features and threats to the site and ensures that focus is not lost from the site's intangible heritage, including the women involved in the site's history and the individuals who lost their lives whilst competing and spectating. To that end I've also researched and compiled the most complete list of these fatalities, although this is only from the site's motoring activities as the project's aim was to focus upon that aspect alone rather than the site's rich aviation history.
Ultimately the project's dissertation will conclude with a recommendation for the site’s World Heritage inscription.
The 3D models and animation were produced with QGIS 3.8.1, SketchUp Desktop 2020 Pro, Lumion 9 Pro, Serif Affinity Designer and Cyberlink PowerDirector 17 using data from Edina Digimap and also including vehicle sounds captured from Forza Horizon 4.
Final thanks have to be extended to my tutors, work colleagues, friends and family for supporting me over the last couple of years, I couldn't have done it without you!
Software:
Act 3D B.V. (2019). Lumion 9.5 PRO. [Computer program]. Available at: https://lumion.com/buy.html [Accessed 21 May 2019].
Autodesk, Inc. (2020) Autodesk Recap v7.0 version 7.0.1.22. [Computer program]. Available at: https://www.autodesk.co.uk/products/recap/overview [Accessed 17 April 2021].
CyberLink. (2018). PowerDirector 17. [Computer program]. Available at: https://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector-video-editing-softwareultimate/features_en_GB.html [Accessed 26 July 2021].
Microsoft Studios. (2018). Forza Horizon 4. [Video game]. Xbox One X. Microsoft Studios, USA.
QGIS. (2018). QGIS 3.8.1-Zanzibar. [Computer program]. Available at: https://qgis.org/downloads/ [Accessed 21 May 2019].
Serif. (2019a). Affinity Designer version 1.7.1.404. [Computer program]. Available at: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/designer/ [Accessed 26 July 2021].
Trimble Inc. (2020). SketchUp Desktop 2020 version 20.0.373. [Computer program]. Available at: https://www.sketchup.com/plans-and-pricing/sketchup-pro [Accessed 1 May 2020].