About SURE

Bringing Sheffield's medieval castle alive: viewing the past through an interactive website

SURE student: James Harvey, Computer Science

Supervisor: Dr Steve Maddock, Computer Science

Additional supervisors: Professor Dawn Hadley, Archaeology; Carolyn Butterworth and Ralph Mackinder, School of Architecture

The SURE scheme offers The University of Sheffield's undergraduate students an opportunity to become directly involved in the research activity of the University, take part in research projects in subject areas that are of special interest, and experience what it's like to work collaboratively in a research group.

The SURE project undertaken was intended as complementary addition to existing work under the umbrella of the wider University of Sheffield Castlegate project by making use of the 3D model of medieval Sheffield Castle that has been produced by Human.

Learn more about the SURE scheme

The Experience Castlegate tour incorporates the Sheffield Castle model in its historical location within the Castlegate area. It allows users to fly around the local area to get a bird's-eye view of Castlegate, walk through the gates and around the courtyard of the castle or hop around the various information hotspots to learn about history of the castle and local area. It has been developed to be a WebGL application through the web browser and as a downloadable virtual reality experience.

The work undertaken was used as part of the Festival of the Mind Experience Castlegate exhibition organised by the University of Sheffield. Using the official Twitter handle @XRCastlegate and the hashtag #ExperienceCastlegate, users of both the augmented reality app and exhibition visitors are able to share their experiences, allowing the project to garner interest of a wider reach of people.