Over the last several years, we have seen countless historical sites destroyed by conflict and disaster. It’s not just the monuments and artifacts that are lost. We lose our history and our heritage. We set out to reclaim both. That’s why we created Reclaim History, a crowdsourced online museum aimed at restoring heritage that has been taken from the world. Here people come together from across the globe to digitally recreate, experience and learn about monuments that have been lost. People could help by uploading, sorting and masking images. They could also lend their 3D modeling skills. Once the models were uploaded, the world was invited to explore, learn and help us reclaim history.

ReclaimHistory.org works as the central hub where people can go to visit and learn more about the monuments, ensuring that we pass on our heritage, history and all of the lessons that have been learned in the past to the next generation.

The site is a crowdsourced museum where anyone can upload and sort images and create 3D models to participate. The web-based platform is evolving to better utilize publicly-available data on the web and assist volunteers in new ways.

Using the photogrammetry technique, we created 3D models which are displayed with WebGL. We showcased sixteen lost monuments to be experienced and navigated virtually for the launch. To extend the experience even further, we used 3D printing to develop physical versions of the monuments for display.

While still early in the life of the project, we have received some strong results.

Objective #1: Create crowd-sourced engagement to recreate lost monuments.

- At last count 5351 photos had been submitted. All these photos are being used to create the models and Reclaim History.

Objective #2: Create awareness through key media coverage of the cause.

- After only recently launching the project has already had significant coverage on over twenty major outlets including: Fast Company, Mashable, News Channel 10, The International Business Times and Yahoo.