Outback Newspaper Digital Preservation - video

[Dave Hughes]

This is quite an unusual video. It is an attempt to preserve digitally an outback newspaper office in Charters Towers, Queensland, Australia.

This purpose-built printing office opened in 1901 and remained a print shop until it closed in 2023.

There is a mention of Linographs, but I didn't spot any!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkoZxHTFCD8

Restoration of historical sites as a digital twin. This is a great example of keeping a "Printing press" and recognition of various historical elements.

Associate Professor Roger Osborne
Roderick Associate Professor of English Literature
Humanities, College of Arts, Society and Education

Summary: Preserving History in the Virtual World

As filmmakers, we hold a responsibility not just to capture moments, but to preserve the stories of places that may one day vanish. Historical sites — fragile, weathered, and vulnerable — face constant threats from time, climate, and urban change. Yet in the virtual realm, these treasures can be safeguarded forever.

This is where digital twins transform heritage preservation. By creating a hyper-realistic, interactive model of a site, we are able to step into history itself — to walk through a 17th-century printing workshop, to stand inside ancient temples, to explore forgotten streets as though they were alive today.

The process is cinematic at its core:

Capture — using photogrammetry, laser scanning, and 3D volumetric imaging, every texture, surface, and detail is recorded with breathtaking precision.

Reconstruction — data becomes design, stitched together in a digital canvas where realism meets imagination.

Immersion — through virtual and augmented reality, audiences don't just watch history; they live inside it.

A digital twin is more than a replica. It is a living archive — one that allows scholars, students, and communities to explore, engage, and even restore what time erodes. For filmmakers, it is the chance to turn storytelling into time travel, offering future generations not only a record of history, but the experience of standing within it.

In this way, the past is not lost. It becomes endlessly accessible, endlessly explorable, and endlessly alive.