Project Scroll has a studio

The St. Joseph River valley. From the start, this site has been about what the old records say. This is about how they are shown. Every map, period picture and 3D landscape on Project Scroll came from the same desk that reads the county histories, and that desk is also a studio.

The studio is older than the hunt. Michael Urbanski trained in visual communications (B.F.A.) and has long worked in photography, video and information design. That work now goes under the Project Scroll name.

On the studio page there is a light table of selected work. Move your mouse over the big picture and a reading glass follows it; click a frame on the film strip and it flies up to the big screen. On a phone, tap the picture for the next one.

What the studio takes on: careful images of photographs, letters and heirlooms; faded ink and old photographs studied for their details; torn and faded pictures repaired; books, charts, logos and signs; websites; photography from the ground or the air; short films and recorded interviews; and landscapes rebuilt in 3D from the public laser surveys, like Broadway in 3D.

For businesses there is something to try on the promotions page: type your business name, pick what you do, and watch your partner card build itself. Every paid place on the site is labeled, and money never changes what the record says.

One rule carries over from the research desk. A new illustration or reconstruction made for a story is always labeled as new work, and a restored photograph is never passed off as the original.