Archaeologists
in the United Kingdom are using 3-D printing to bring two historical shipwrecks
to life.
The seabed holds some
fascinating historical secrets, but unlike monuments on land, they're largely
hidden from view. Now, archaeologists in the United Kingdom are using 3-D
printing to bring two historical shipwrecks to life for history enthusiasts and
experts alike.
Using data from
photogrammetry (measuring the distance between objects from photographs) and
sonar imaging, the researchers have produced scale models of a 17th century shipwreck near Drumbeg, in
Scotland, and the remains of the HMHS Anglia, a steamship that was used as a floating hospital during World war 1 The steamship was sunk by a mine off the south coast of England.
Scotland, and the remains of the HMHS Anglia, a steamship that was used as a floating hospital during World war 1 The steamship was sunk by a mine off the south coast of England.
"It was a proof of
concept for us, trying to establish what could be done using sound and light,
but there are so many different applications you could use this for," said
maritime archaeologist John McCarthy, a project manager at Wessex Archaeology
who carried out dives at the Scottish site and was in charge of producing the
3D models.
"People can engage much
more easily with a physical object in front of them. You can bring it to
schools and conferences, and we are hoping to donate both models to local
museums, once we've finished with them," McCarthy told Live Science.
It was not particularly
difficult to create 3D-printed representations of the shipwrecks, McCarthy
said. The magic, he said, was in creating the virtual models that were fed into the 3D printer
McCarthy carried out initial
experimental surveys of the Drumbeg wreck in 2012 with his colleague Jonathan
Benjamin, who is now a lecturer at Flinders University in Australia. McCarthy
recently joined him there to begin Ph.D. studies under Benjamin's supervision.
At the Drumbeg wreck site,
the pair found three heavily encrusted cannons with evidence of a preserved
wooden hull underneath. The ship's identity is still unknown, but one theory
holds that it is a Dutch trading vessel called the Crowned Raven, which is known to have been
lost in the bay in the late 1600s.
After realizing the
techniques they were using could provide enough data for the 3D model, the archaeologists went back to do a more detailed survey in
2014 and used the lessons they had learned from
their first attempt.
The archaeologists used a
technique called photogrammetry, which involves taking hundreds of overlapping
photographs of a site and then feeding them into a computer program that can
stitch them together. The application is able to establish the spatial
relationships between photos, which allows it to create a so-called 3D point
cloud that maps each image in 3D space.
"Once you have a point
cloud, you can turn it into a solid surface," McCarthy said. "Then
you have a 3D model of the site that's not subjective or an artist's
impression, but entirely objective."
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