The scan man
This week we were pleased to have Simon Harris from British Geological Survey join us for a couple of days at Ludlow. He brought with him the special scanner they are now using to generate 3D models of important items in their collections. So we had the chance to try out the new tech on some of the items that we have identified to model from ours. It also gave us a chance to compare how the process works alongside our usual method of using a digital camera.
The scanner itself looks a bit like a steam iron, but instead of steam it emits multiple beams of white light that are reflected off the scanned object and are then picked up by a camera and relayed back to a laptop, to build up a real-time model on the screen.
It's all very impressive and pretty quick as well, especially when you have a couple of young volunteers who are able to pick up the new software and tech as quickly as ours did. So thanks to them and to Simon we managed to produce over 30 models from the objects we scanned and had the chance to try a few techniques and object types. We'll be putting the models up live on our Sketchfab site in the near future.
