A method for rapid 3D scanning and replication of large paleontological specimens
Name
A method for rapid.pdf
Size
19.16 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
bb7e49fc85d2ba3c2b3be1bd833184d9
Author(s)
Murmann, Denise C.
Cohrn, Kenneth
Das, Anshuman Jyothi
Raskar, Ramesh
Date Issued
July 2017
Journal
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Citation
Das, Anshuman J. et al. “A Method for Rapid 3D Scanning and Replication of Large Paleontological Specimens.” Edited by Pasquale Raia. PLOS ONE 12, 7 (July 2017): e0179264 © 2017 Das et al
Version
Final published version
Abstract
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. We demonstrate a fast and cost-effective technique to perform three dimensional (3D) scanning and replication of large paleontological specimens, in this case the entire skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex (T.rex) with a volume in the range of 2 m 3 . The technique involves time-of-flight (TOF) depth sensing using the Kinect scanning module commonly used in gesture recognition in gaming. Raw data from the Kinect sensor was captured using open source software and the reconstruction was done rapidly making this a viable method that can be adopted by museums and researchers in paleontology. The current method has the advantage of being low-cost as compared to industrial scanners and photogrammetric methods but also of accurately scanning a substantial volume range which is well suited for large specimens. The depth resolution from the Kinect sensor was measured to be around 0.6 mm which is ideal for scanning large specimens with reasonable structural detail. We demonstrate the efficacy of this method on the skull of FMNH PR 2081, also known as SUE, a near complete T.rex at the Field Museum of Natural History.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0179264
