Justin Blinder

The New York Times picture library, or "morgue," contains an estimated five to six million prints and contact sheets, at least 10 million frames of negatives and 13,500 DVDs, each storing about 4.7 gigabytes worth of imagery. Much of this imagery remains undigitized, and is only searchable through an physical index card classification system.

At the New York Times R&D Lab, we used photogrammetry and lidar scans to recreate the Morgue in 3D. This immersive model could then be explored in VR, allowing users to peruse assets from these hidden archives.

Role: Creative Technologist

Year: 2019