| STAGE 9: VALIDATION PART TWO
At this stage in the reconstruction, it was possible
to assess the suitability of the textures collected at the Abbeydale
site and of the historical details incorporated into the crucible
furnace interior. These were generally found to be very satisfactory
within the constraints of the medium.
Given a greater budget and timescale, it may have been possible
to include a wider range and complexity of environmental details
(such as the different furnace tools, fixtures and fittings) and
a more extensive portrayal of the casting process. However, for
the purposes of a short virtual reality reconstruction of the
buildings and their context, a simplified scenario was quite appropriate,
conveying the design, materiality and atmosphere of Huntsman's
furnace building with great clarity.
The use of textures sampled from what is generally agreed to be
the closest surviving example of a crucible furnace in date and
construction proved to be an extremely effective aid to visualisation.
The semi-rural domestic scale of the buildings and their reliance
upon locally sourced materials are immediately apparent in the
rendered model. Correctly-scaled details taken from comparatively
large surface areas help to avoid visible tiling patterns and
lend the model a convincingly "hand built" appearance.
The final choice of scenes for the thirty second animated sequence
successfully portrays the working environment in a concise sequence
of vignettes, gradually moving out from the small scale of the
steel melting process itself, to the wider context of the furnace
yard, its associated structures and their location in the green
countryside that still surrounded the town of Sheffield in the
late eighteenth century.
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