Scanning Begins at Mission Sonoma

Another site captured along El Camino Real

by Makenna Murray
August 30, 2013

Guest blogger: Makenna Murray is finishing her final year at Wellesley College studying History and Art History. She is planning to go to get her masters in Historic Preservation following graduation.


On August 30, CyArk will be completing a scan of Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma, California, which was the last of the El Camino Real missions, built in 1823.

San Francisco Solano is the fifth mission that CyArk has documented, joining Missions Dolores , San Juan Bautista , Carmel and San Luis Rey in our digital Archive . We are excited to be working with a number of local service providers from the area including 3D Virtual Design Technology, Inc. (3DVDT), Pacific HDS, and California Survey & Drafting Supply. This has truly been a community effort!

During initial planning, 3DVDT approached Sonoma Valley Union High School about the possibility of involving the high school’s newly implemented Engineering Design Technology (EDT) program. We have received a huge amount of interest from the students, and over 60 will be attending the event tomorrow to shadow our interior and exterior scan technician teams. Their enthusiasm is fantastic! We look forward to further discussing ways to bring the Sonoma data into the EDT program’s curriculum. Giving students the opportunity to use data for sites they are familiar with is a great way to introduce them to an unfamiliar technology and the process and standards of digital documentation while encouraging them to view their own community sites as valuable cultural resources.

We anticipate only one day of field work thanks to the small scale of Mission San Francisco Solano and the relative simplicity of the structures. Breck Parkman of California State Parks will also be in attendance to oversee the work and learn about the technology himself; the continuing cooperation and support of State Parks has made this project possible. The mission will remain open during the scanning process and we invite you to come by the mission to see the technology in action.

Soon, processing of this data will commence and the mission will be digitally preserved and the data will be archived for future use by conservators in the case of a catastrophe or for future restoration work.
Mission Sonoma being scanned, August 30, 2013.