The Science of 3D

Conservators see potential for scientific 3D records to capture and present shape and colour with an accuracy not previously possible. 3D images can be used to detect features and their surface deterioration not visible to the naked eye, for monitoring weathering, erosion, changes in colour over a long period and during treatment. They can be used as a non-invasive tool for spatial comparison at both a qualitative and quantitative level and to document irreversible changes and events. 3D printing offers the potential to restore missing parts of objects with replica elements, and provide replica objects for loan.

Curators see 3D recording as offering real potential for research: enabling museum objects to be accurately measured and recorded in the round and in great detail, highlighting comparisons and distinctions, and facilitating long distance discussions. The 3D record represents a 'digital fingerprint' of the real object. There is also the potential to better document and characterise materials by complementing analytical methods such as fluorescence and pigment analysis. This could aid identification of objects in geographically scattered collections, enable low-cost global interaction and collaboration between curators and academics, and lead to new understandings of material culture.

A 3D model may be used in a display as a surrogate for the real thing, when, for example, a real museum object is out on loan or away for conservation. 3D models and prints open up the possibility of creating exact replicas, which can 'stand in' for fragile objects, offer handling opportunities, help demonstrate how an object was used or generate museum replicas for sale . Thinking more broadly, the 3D model offers the potential to subvert, transform or enhance all kinds of museum activity, from the courier trip to the exhibition catalogue where individually tailored content can be collected on a local mobile device, or indexed for subsequent viewing on a personal webpage. It can also offer exciting new ways of increasing visitor numbers and public engagement thus raising profile and generating new income streams, for example, as interactive digital postcards or through the provision of 3D image library content founded on stories stimulating the collection of groups of digital objects.

There is a use in training future generations of conservators. Working with 3D images and virtual spaces might broaden professional assumptions about how museum spaces might be constructed and presented, if curators and exhibition designers were able to more easily imagine, and co-create, installations without walls or cases. Exhibition catalogues could become digital artefacts, with material in a show linked to scans of related objects, sites or contexts.

3D models offer new ways of interacting with and understanding museum objects within the museum, providing eye-catching contextual information for traditional displays, and new ways of visually grouping and presenting different layers of interpretation. 3D display is a potentially powerful way of encouraging visual thinking, communication and learning. Such models particularly offer potential for communicating dynamic concepts such as creation or degradation, for highlighting small details or demonstrating a range of possibilities. They could augment the museum viewing experience by giving visitors greater control over what they looked at, the ability to turn fragile objects upside down and to see them in high magnification; and other privileges normally reserved for curators and conservators. They offer the potential to display in one place different parts of a physically dispersed object, with obvious teaching and learning applications. There is great opportunity for using 3D content in conjunction with other emerging technologies, such as touch tables, multi-projector systems and virtual environments.

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