3D SCANNING INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
We worked with the Royal Saskatchewan Museum to 3D scan one of their most famous specimens - Scotty, the world's largest Tyrannosaurus rex.
3D Scanning The World's Largest T. rex
Scotty is the nickname for the largest T. rex fossil ever found. The 67 million year old skeleton, on display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM), is over 13 meters long with the skull alone measuring in at a little more than 1.2 meters. RSM wanted to digitize the skull to create a 3D model online for viewing.
Scotty provided some unique challenges. While we only had access to the cast fossil, the specimen is still quite fragile and targets would not be possible to place on the surface. We decided to use Creaform's Go!SCAN Spark to ensure we could scan Scotty without any targets and in colour for maximum realism in the 3D capture.
To ensure we captured Scotty's gaping jaw accurately, we needed to get creative. We placed a soccer ball and tube covered in targets inside Scotty's mouth to help geometry tracking. This way, we could get the outside and tips of the T. rex's massive teeth accurately and efficiently. Also, the soccer ball helps for scale - look at the size of that skull!
We scanned the skull at high resolution to ensure we captured as much detail as possible. The skull was captured in multiple sections to ensure the data processing and merging went quickly. The final model contained over 11 million triangles in the mesh.
