Windsor

Ground-penetrating radar gives new picture to Windsor history

The We Dig History project uses ground-penetrating radar to scan the city’s landscape and identify where demolished buildings once stood.

University of Windsor team collecting photos and radar images to re-imagine the city

A group of professors from the University of Windsor are asking residents to donate photographs of Windsor to help them complete a massive database of historical documents that include underground imagery of where buildings once stood. (We Dig History)

A team of professors from the University of Windsor is hoping to get a better picture of the region's history by creating a massive database of photographs, documents and underground imagery. 

The We Dig History project uses ground-penetrating radar to scan the city's landscape and identify where demolished buildings once stood. 

So far, they've scanned an area near the university to look for remains of structures. Those images will then be accompanied by photos collected from residents and scanned into the database. 

Maria Cioppa, an associate professor in the department of earth and environmental science. (Dale Molnar/CBC)

The group held a scan-a-thon Friday at the school's Leddy Library to help bring the research to life, collecting images of the Ambassador Bridge, building blueprints, and photos of old buildings.

"We're actually trying to dig into history," said Maria Cioppa, an associate professor in the department of earth and environmental science. "We're trying to collect images and imagine what the past was like 150 years ago and beyond."

The group collected more than a couple dozen images Friday and hopes to gather more during another scan-a-thon in November.