Smithsonian/British Museum 3d scanned library

[Dan Dubeau]

https://3d.si.edu/

https://sketchfab.com/britishmuseum/models

The Smithsonian and British Museum are scanning objects and uploading them to 3d print.

I have not scoured the sites yet, but there might be some cool things to print. I'm sure there are probably others too. Would be neat to do some lost resin castings in bronze of some old coins.

 

[djberta]

The museums 3d scanning artifacts should be a priority. Currently and for the last couple of years its been more of a publicity thing, to get people to go to the museum web pages. If we can scan these collections and down to even small museums we can save a lot of history from disappearing. Fires, thefts and in the last couple of years outright vandalism would not be as bad as we currently see. Last I read the Glenbow shows less then 4% of their collection, which means the rest are in storage. It would be amazing if those collections could be scanned and put online.

 

[Dan Dubeau]

It's a catch 22 somewhat. The more you digitize, the more you lose the incentive for people to leave their house and come visit. BUT with real estate, especially prime locations where Museums would actually thrive, it's not a very profitable business model without subsidies. But on the other hand, all that stuff is no good just buried away out of sight......

When we lived downtown TO we had ROM memberships every year. Bit of a hike now to go for a visit, but we still go periodically. Due for one actually. Small museums hold the most interest to me, and the ones I feel are the most at risk here. Nobody is interested in preserving local history, and it's a full time job fighting for it's preservation sometimes. Not to mention the old guard that wont let it go, and will happily drive any young people away that are interested in taking the reigns.....Then they just take to facebook bitching that it's all disappearing, all while riding it into the ground holding the stick to the IP themselves......Sorry, personal rant about what's happening around here.....Some people just can't let go of their personal fiefdom....

The small roadside ones are the best. Probably not too many left, as they were mostly passion projects of older generations. People just don't have that much "free time" anymore, and there are way too many other distractions in life. On family roadtrips we would always stop at those roadside stands/sheds/barns. Could never get Dad to stop for a piss, but hey, there's a small "museum" of old farm equipment, or outboard engines etc and we'd stop and walk around for hours.....While my Mom and Sister sat in the car lol.

 

[PeterT]

I was just mentioning this to a model engineering buddy. He bought a scanner & has been doing some FS engines & parts as a basis for making models of interest. Relatively fast & non destructive as long as you can get reasonably close & get the equipment orientated. My point was why don't they do it themselves as another form of preservation & make the file available. Of course for a functional object especially like an engine, a surface is maybe the first 1% of the effort, but an important step nonetheless. The real work start AFTER the scan. I was quite amazed when I went digging into this stuff, there are very few surviving plans & service manuals etc. for lets call them famous engines & machines & mechanisms. Not that they wouldn't sell you a scan, it just does not exist. Not just wartime stuff where things may have been destroyed or tucked away or degraded. A patent diagram is a good source but again, just a tiny bit of info. OTHO maybe Google AI has been quietly slurping it up in the background like all the books that have timed out.

To Dan's point, maybe people would visit less as a result of having a scan, but I really wonder. If you get exposed to some interesting historical object you wouldn't normally see in the daily depressing news trash, then maybe that would trigger an excuse to go there & see it in person. A piece of 3DP plastic (or photo or video walkthrough or anything really) is 'OK', but just not the real thing. Well, for many objects of value in a museum its not the real thing anyway, but that's a different story. You hear this from artists & urban sketchers quite often - sitting there for an hour making a sketch forces you to pay attention & absorb many of the details & nuances.

Another trivia note. I've heard certain museums with valuable paintings on ceilings & walls are forced to limit walkthrough viewers because of elevated CO2 levels from 'human breathing exhaust' if they can't reasonably install air purification equipment. The gas degrades the paint or something along those lines. Talk about a climate emergency LOL.

 

[Susquatch]

Another trivia note. I've heard certain museums with valuable paintings on ceilings & walls are forced to limit walkthrough viewers because of elevated CO2 levels from 'human breathing exhaust' if they can't reasonably install air purification equipment. The gas degrades the paint or something along those lines. Talk about a climate emergency LOL.

I heard the same story but it's the camera flash damage that caused it. People promise not to take photos and then they do.

 

[djberta]

I guess this is true. Museums have been on the decline for decades as the younger generations continue to have no interest in history. Partly due to the school systems, I was dumbfounded to find out that my daughters school more then 10 years ago was not going to the museum. Now with some of the politics attacking our history I don't know. Partly due to the fact that people are having less and less to do out side of their homes. Less people out doing anything these days which is really sad.