This research utilized a field-based documentation approach combining community engagement, immersive media capture, and comparative technology analysis. Between March and April 2025, three research trips were conducted to Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. These trips aimed to document significant Gullah Geechee cultural sites through 3D scanning, 360° videography, and aerial photography. A range of hardware and software tools were employed to capture, compare, and evaluate the quality, cost, and accessibility of different spatial documentation technologies.

Day 1: March 29, 2025 — Preliminary Documentation

The first research trip to Daufuskie Island served as a preliminary documentation effort. Golf carts were rented for a self-guided tour, during which initial visual and spatial captures were conducted.

Sites Documented:
      - First Union African Baptist Church (Sanctuary and Pews)
      - African Praise House
      - Mary Field Cemetery

Tools Used:
      - iPhone 16 Pro Max (Scaniverse app — LiDAR and photogrammetry)
      - Insta360 X4 (360° video capture)

Notes:
      Captures provided foundational material for later, more targeted documentation efforts.

Day 2: April 18, 2025 — Community Engagement and Light Documentation

The second research trip emphasized relationship-building and cultural learning. The day was spent touring the island with Ms. Sallie Ann Robinson, a sixth-generation Gullah Geechee Daufuskie native. Documentation was minimal, with a focus on deepening trust and understanding the cultural significance of sites from a community perspective.

Sites Documented:
      - Mt. Carmel Baptist Church (Billie Burn Museum)
      - Oyster Union Society Hall
      - First Union African Baptist Church
      - Mary Fields School
      - Ms. Sallie Ann Robinson's Home

Tools Used:
      - iPhone 16 Pro Max (Scaniverse app — Gaussian splats, video, photography)

Notes:
      Captures were secondary to learning and relationship development, with mobile LiDAR and 2D media prioritized for feasibility.

Day 3: April 19, 2025 — Comparative Technology Documentation (Tuskegee Collaboration)

The third research trip focused on high-fidelity documentation and comparative analysis of capture technologies. In partnership with Dr. Kwesi Daniels and Tuskegee University's Architecture Program, two major sites were documented.

Sites Documented:
      - Taby Structure (Rob Kennedy Trail — Public)
      - Robinson Family Home (Private)

Tools Used for Taby Structure:
      - iPhone 16 Pro Max (Scaniverse app)
      - iPad Pro (Polycam app)
      - Leica RTC 360 (Leica Cyclone software)

Tools Used for Robinson Family Home:
      - Leica RTC 360 (Exterior LiDAR scanning)
      - Leica BLK2GO (Interior LiDAR scanning)
      - DJI Mavic Pro (Aerial photography and videography)

Notes:
      Comparative scanning allowed assessment of cost, quality, and context capture. Time constraints prevented full drone photogrammetry. Mobile devices were deemed insufficient for large-scale building scans.

Comparative Technology Analysis

A key component of the field methodology involved a comparative analysis of three different spatial documentation technologies: a professional-grade terrestrial LiDAR scanner (Leica RTC 360), consumer-grade tablet-based scanning (iPad Pro with Polycam), and mobile phone-based scanning (iPhone 16 Pro Max with Scaniverse). This comparison was conducted at the Taby Structure site to assess differences in capture quality, resolution, processing workflows, and cost-efficiency.

The Leica RTC 360 produced the most precise and detailed point-cloud data, offering high-fidelity measurements and broader contextual capture. The iPad Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max yielded lower-resolution outputs with more noise and scaling limitations but demonstrated significant advantages in cost and ease of deployment. These findings highlight critical trade-offs that inform strategies for enabling community-led digital preservation efforts.

Purpose of Tool Analysis

This section details the core hardware and software platforms utilized during the Daufuskie Island field documentation. Specifications were compiled from manufacturer sources to illustrate the technical and infrastructural demands embedded in digital preservation work. Trade-offs between accessibility, performance, and platform limitations critically shaped what could be captured, processed, and preserved.

Hardware Tools Comparative Overview

Software Platforms Comparative Overview

Design as Methodology

This website is not merely a container for research—it is part of the research itself. Each visual, interactive, and symbolic decision was guided by the project’s central aim: to create an immersive, reparative experience grounded in Black spatial memory and cultural sovereignty. Design here functions as both interface and argument, grounded in the principles of techno-vernacular creativity and techno-vernacular cartography. These frameworks, articulated by Nettrice Gaskins, assert that Black cultural production often emerges from improvisational, resourceful, and context-aware design strategies—what Gaskins calls "cultural remixing as a survival mechanism."¹

Symbolic Interface Design

Typography: The fonts Bayard and Harriet, designed by Tré Seals, are central to the visual identity of this site. The Harriet font draws from Black quilting traditions, with each glyph forming part of a larger pattern. This modularity allowed the site to incorporate digital quilt codes as navigational and aesthetic motifs, evoking the visual lexicon of the Underground Railroad and mapping vernacular ways of knowing through form.²

Navigation Quilt: The top menu operates as a stitched digital quilt. Each clickable thumbnail is anchored in Underground Railroad symbology. For instance, the Carpenter’s Wheel represents First Union Church, referencing Jesus as the master builder and spiritual guide, while the Dipping Gourd symbol marks the site’s navigation interface, calling on Black celestial navigation traditions. These choices are not illustrative—they embed a Black cartographic logic into the architecture of the site.³

Color and Cosmology

Site colors draw from indigo-dyed cloths, oyster shells, and drone imagery of Daufuskie’s coastlines. Indigo serves as both visual motif and historical anchor: a labor-intensive crop tied to the exploitation of enslaved Africans and a symbol of resistance and rootedness. Background textures are overlayed over photos caputed on sight to provide another layer of interactivity. These choices reflect a cosmological layering of land, labor, and memory that aligns with Gullah Geechee worldviews.

Interactive Features

Hover reveals, smooth scroll animations, and model overlays are used to cultivate a sense of discovery and spatial reverence. The goal is not spectacle, but attunement. These features slow the viewer down, encouraging attention, reflection, and embodied interaction. This approach echoes Gaskins’ concept of techno-vernacular cartography, in which digital platforms are designed to map memory, imagination, and affect alongside physical space.⁴

On pages like Memory Sites and Interaction Guide, 3D models are embedded via Sketchfab, enabling zoom, pan, and rotation. Glyph-based animations subtly activate page transitions and headers. These are not decorative flourishes—they encode return, resilience, and spiritual continuity through motion and gesture.

Memory as Interface

This is a website designed for return—to the island, to ancestral memory, and to the cultural knowledge of those long excluded from formal archives. User experience is guided by values of care, consent, and cultural specificity. Even moments of stillness are designed: pauses between transitions, hovering over invisible threads, revealing what was once obscured.

Each interaction is a micro-ritual of reorientation, honoring not only what was scanned but how it was remembered, shared, and held. In doing so, the site activates what Christina Sharpe might call "wake work"—designing with, through, and in response to the afterlives of slavery.⁵

The Daufuskie3D website is structured around two distinct but interrelated sections: Memory Sites and Thesis. This bifurcation reflects the dual function of the platform—to serve as a community-facing repository of cultural memory and as a scholarly site for methodological documentation. The architecture was custom-built in HTML and CSS, with layout refinements developed through iterative testing and UI debugging processes.

Navigation is achieved through a combination of hover-responsive tiles, scroll-activated transitions, and overlay-based popups. These interactive elements were chosen for their ability to scaffold spatial exploration without overwhelming the user interface. Full-screen transitions allow models and videos to occupy visual primacy, while embedded instructional cues guide users through multi-modal interactions. The design prioritizes mobile responsiveness and intuitive gesture-based engagement across devices.

Inspired by the concept of techno-vernacular creativity (Gaskins 2016), the site integrates culturally specific design choices that draw from African American spatial aesthetics and Black storytelling traditions. These methods reject generic museum-style interfaces in favor of symbolic, affective navigation systems. Buttons, fonts, and hover states reference Gullah craft traditions and quilt code symbology, transforming interface into interpretive scaffold.

Each 3D model on the site is accompanied by context-specific annotations. These were derived from field notes, oral history interviews, and on-site observations. They are designed not as exhaustive metadata entries but as interpretive prompts—highlighting culturally embedded narratives, spiritual associations, and lived experiences. The goal was to preserve ambiguity and allow room for personal reflection alongside factual information.

Supporting media—including ambient sound, drone video, and archival overlays—were embedded directly within the interface to provide temporal and spatial orientation. These additions situate each model within a broader multisensory narrative, enhancing both engagement and cultural specificity. Sites were selected for modeling based on architectural distinctiveness, communal memory relevance, and logistical feasibility during field documentation.

Technical execution included a combination of photogrammetry (via Scaniverse and Polycam) and LiDAR scanning (RTC360 and BLK360), with post-processing performed in Cyclone Register 360. Outputs were optimized and published using Sketchfab embeds and custom web overlays. Annotation tools were either native to the hosting platform or custom-developed in HTML/CSS to meet documentation goals.

This section of the website serves as an operational proof of concept for how immersive tools can be used not only to visualize cultural heritage, but to situate it within frameworks of participatory and vernacular knowledge production. Design choices were guided by methodological priorities including accessibility, cultural specificity, and community accountability. Each model, overlay, and annotation operates not as a passive artifact, but as a spatial gesture—structured to invite return, interpretation, and dialogue.