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3D, Science and Cultural Heritage

The simultaneous progress of computing, also of physics and chemistry have modified since about three decades the study and the restoration or the reconstitution of the artistic heritage. Archeology, applied to objects, to architecture and to the techniques of the past, has particularly benefited from new refinements in the analysis of materials, their use and workmanship since prehistory up to the 20th century (industrial archeology).

The most spectacular aspect of the use of computing for this sort of cultural heritage is, without doubt, the creation of 3D images and animations which open a dynamic window on the past. This is very attractive for the public, but also very useful for the specialist in view of the validation, reconstitution, restoration, replication, etc. In our event, open to everybody, we would like to present the main technologies, at present in use for the analysis, the reconstitution and the archiving of the cultural heritage, especially in the domain of the materials and the 3D.

Concrete examples will be presented in the exhibition: images, videos, computer animations, digital and physical models, stereoscopic displays. And specialists - archaeologists, historians, computer scientists, physicists, chemists, engineers - will present their works through lectures. The exhibition and the conference will be also displayed on the Internet, and a little bilingual (French-English) DVD catalogue will be edited.

• Place: Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers, Metz, Lorraine, France.
• Exhibition: Wednesday 19 to Sunday 23 of October, 2008.
• Conference: Saturday 22 and Sunday 23, November, 2008.

Source: Arsmathematica

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen: Sgraffito in 3D

Voor het eerst zijn 3D-reconstructietechnieken uit de industriële wereld losgelaten op museumstukken. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen presenteert (25 okt 2008-4 jan 2009) zijn prachtige verzameling sgraffito-aardewerk uit de collectie Van Beuningen-De Vriese op wel heel bijzondere wijze. Kunstenaar Joachim Rotteveel ontwikkelde een nieuwe manier om het aardewerk te scannen (MRI Scan), archiveren en driedimensionaal te printen.

De tentoonstelling maakt de archeologische collectie zo op spectaculaire wijze toegankelijk. Sgraffito in 3D wordt getoond in het vernieuwde entreegebied van het museum, dat voor iedereen gratis te bezoeken is. 

Source: Boijmans Van Beuningen

Robert Graham: The Virgin Mary

The Virgin Mary that presides over all who enter the newly dedicated Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles stands eight feet tall and weighs 1,000 pounds. With braided hair, simple clothing and bare head and arms, this Virgin Mary varies from the traditional, as did the methods used to create the statue.

The Virgin Mary is the work of sculptor Robert Graham, who also created the Cathedral doors, which are 20 feet tall and weigh a combined 25 tons. Graham’s L-shaped outer doors frame cast-bronze inner doors depicting various manifestations of the Virgin Mary. Topping the doors is a tympanum, a gilded architectural detail on which the statue stands.

Graham is noted for his large-scale work, including the Olympic Gateway for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and statues of American icons Joe Louis, Duke Ellington and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. For the Virgin Mary, he started with a 30-inch sculpture made from plastilene, an oil- and wax-based clay that holds detail but does not harden. He then created a mold and polyurethane cast that was used to design the Virgin’s clothing. Once this version was approved by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, it was taken to Scansite in Woodacre, Calif, to be scanned and digitized.

Before the scanning, the polyurethane cast was painted gray to ensure a flat, even scan. The figure was scanned using a Cyberware MM laser scanner for the head and a Cyberware MS3030 for the remaining body parts. Once the point-cloud data were collected from multiple scans of the entire piece, we cut the figure into pieces for detailed scans of the head, body, arms, hands and feet, says Noriko Fujinami, director of Robert Graham Studios. Scansite merged data of varying resolutions from each of the scans to create a highly detailed point-cloud model of the entire figure. The final file contained more than 1.7 million points.

The point-cloud data were organized and input into Geomagic Studio software from Geomagic. Geomagic Studio is used for 3D photography, the process of capturing a physical object and automatically turning it into a digital model for design, engineering, mass customization and web-based marketing applications.

Scansite created a polygonal file of the statue in Geomagic Studio. Engineers at Ctek, a service bureau in Tustin, Calif, also used Geomagic Studio to enlarge the figure from its original 30-inch size to its final 8-foot height. 

• Geomagic
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• Wikipedia