The College's priceless collection of Olivier models has been updated, care of an unusual student project.
The nineteenth-century string models illustrate mathematical principles, and Mike Pinch,
a computer science major, used them as the basis for a senior project that tapped into his passion for creating virtual worlds.
Pinch, advised by Professor of Computer Science David Hannay and with support from Tom Smith, the College's web director, and Professor of Mathematics Davide Cervone, created virtual representations of some of the models. He then created a virtual Nott Memorial in which to display them.
The result is an impressively detailed program that combines two of the College's most spectacular treasures. Users can “walk around” the detailed interior of the College's centerpiece building (complete with portrait of Eliphalet Nott) and manipulate four virtual Olivier models placed on the center of the floor.
The virtual exhibit and tour can be downloaded at
http://www.union.edu/Olivier.
Pinch said he didn't start out with the idea of placing the models in a virtual Nott. But after discovering that he could produce a virtual model in a matter of days, much faster than he expected, he took on the larger challenge of constructing a virtual gallery. “I knew right away how to put it together,” he said.
With his notes from a vector calculus class he took freshman year (“If I had known it would be so much use to me I would have paid better attention,” he admits), a handful of textbooks, and his developing skills in video simulation programming, Pinch set out on a project that consumed most of his waking hours during the last winter break.
He studied the models (through their glass cases) and wrote programs so the user could manipulate the intersecting geometric shapes the way that Olivier had intended. He also included photographs of the real models and text that identifies each one and describes the geometric
principles it illustrates.
He took photographs of the encaustic tiles on the floor of the Nott, created the sixteen dark-green support columns, and even added the large portrait of Nott. As for artistic license, he used some medieval-looking carved wood doors instead of the real glass ones. And visitors can go through a wall to the “outside,” where they can look back at a view of a mythical Nott suspended in a bubble.
The string models were invented in the mid-nineteenth century by Théodore Olivier of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. Their purpose was to illustrate the intersections of shapes and surfaces. Union Professor William Gillespie, who knew Olivier personally, purchased the models, which were acquired by the College after Gillespie's death in 1868. The College's collection of more than fifty models is believed to be the largest of its kind in the world. Some of the models are on display in the Science and Engineering Center and the F.W. Olin Center.
The models, highly regarded as both works of science and works of art, have been featured in articles in the scientific and mainstream press. A curator from the Smithsonian recently visited to inspect the models. Most of them were restored and cataloged in recent years by the late Professor of Mathematics William Stone, an effective advocate for publicizing the treasures.
But the Oliviers are fragile, and most people (including Pinch) have seen them only through glass. Cervone, who has become something of a caretaker for the models, said he finds Pinch's virtual versions “more true to the originals in that they can be manipulated. This is what Olivier would have done if he was around today.”
Pinch, who also minors in math, played center on the football team, served as president of Kappa Sigma fraternity, and studied on a term abroad in Scotland. He plans to pursue a career in computer simulation-widely used in video game and military applications- and he is considering a graduate program in the field.
“Mike showed a lot of
initiative, and he found the right tools to do this project,” said Hannay. (Pinch used C++ and OpenGL.) Hannay noted that Pinch experienced the revelation of applying computer science theory to
a real application, something many engineers don't get until after they graduate. “That's a common experience,” said Hannay, “but it usually takes a little longer. I get notes from students who are five years out who say they are grateful for the theory course they took.”
“Mike did a great job of
re-creating the models and the Nott,” said Smith. “I am thrilled to use this as part of our effort to showcase the Olivier models online. And best of all, there's no danger of breaking anything.”
Science and elegance…
The Olivier models have been described as the most elegant and ingenious collection of descriptive-geometry models ever created.
Handsome wood bases support brass frames that in turn carry brass forms in various shapes, circular and straight; from numerous tiny holes stretch colored threads that represent the surfaces of various geometric figures. All are members of a class of figures called three-dimensional ruled surfaces, so called because straight lines, or rules, can be drawn through any point on them. Almost all of them have moving parts, which can demonstrate the various properties of ruled surfaces. Many, in fact, represent the intersection of two or more such surfaces –a pair of cones, for example, or a cylinder and a plane.
The models, constructed in the mid-nineteenth century, were designed by Théodore Olivier, a professor of descriptive geometry at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris. What makes the Union models unique is that they are all originals, made by hand to their inventor's specifications.
The Union collection is Olivier's original set; the Conservatoire in Paris has another set, although it is less complete than Union's. Credit for restoring Union's collection belongs to the late William Stone '42, a professor of mathematics who missed the models when he returned to the College to teach in the 1950s. He eventually found them in an attic, much the worse for wear, and spent several decades overseeing their restoration, with a good deal of the work done by students.