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—Tyler Leinonen, Student
—Jeanette Buelt, RMOTC
Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center (RMOTC) has recently collaborated with Casper College, the Natrona County 4-H Program, Anadarko Petroleum Company, and Esri to create a historic map of the 1920’s campsites (townsites) in the Teapot Dome and Salt Creek oil field areas. Remnants of these sites today include concrete foundations, fireplaces, sidewalks, excavations, and old pipes. This interactive map not only locates the historic sites, but also offers links to a brief text history of each site along with a selection of original photos. Since this information will be presented to visitors at the two oil field locations, a virtual tour of the area will also be offered in a 3D video format.
This project utilized Casper College Advanced GIS students to mentor and help 4-H youth develop skills in GPS data collection, ArcGIS mapping and creating ArcScene 3D videos. But, even the Casper College student’s knowledge and skills in 3D was limited. Therefore, an Esri 3D Specialist was requested to give them a net-meeting crash course on the process of exporting spatial footprints out of ArcMap into Google SketchUp in order to create campsite replicas using original photos, and then importing the 3D mockups back into ArcScene so that 3D virtual tours could be recorded on video.
Tyler Leinonen, the 13-year old who took on this 4-H project, began working with the four Casper College students in September 2008. They took Trimble GPS units to the field and collected spatial data on the historic remnants of the old campsites. That data was overlaid on an aerial photographic background, and then the students were assigned specific tasks for completing the project. Two students worked on collecting historic documents and photos from the college library archives, RMOTC and Anadarko. The other two students split the project in half – Teapot Dome and Salt Creek – and began working on ArcMap layouts. Tyler, having the least GIS experience, was assigned the project of creating 3D mockups of the old campsites in Google SketchUp and then helped create a variety of fly-through videos in ArcScene.
The final product consisting of an interactive historic ArcMap and 3D ArcScene videos of the historic area is being presented to RMOTC and Anadarko at the end of the semester, December 2008, in a class presentation.