Museum making collection 3D, online

Idaho State University president Arthur Vailas is asking the Joint Finance Appropriations Committee for $33,500 to help the museum catalog items using using technology and 3-dimensional scanning in a unique way.

Dr. Leif Tapanila, acting museum director, said cataloging technology has come a long way. He referred to the bison in the museum’s exhibit, and said the display isn’t the original animal. It’s a casting of the real bones which are safely in storage in the basement of the museum.

“This represents sort of the old way of making a mold and a cast and making a physical object we can have on display,” Tapanila said. “What we can do now in addition is make a 3-dimensional virtual model of exactly this animal.”

Tapanila said locals can come to the museum and see everything firsthand, but may never get to see all the bones downstairs that are not on display. That means that the museum is not only scanning the items but making the collection available online.

“It’s free open access to users anywhere,” he said. “The purposes for which are for education, for one’s knowledge or for research.”

But the technology doesn’t come cheap, which is why the university is asking for $33,500 to help catalog the collection online.

“It takes quite a bit of computing power to take one of these objects, create a 3D model and generate something that we can then put out into the world,” Tapanila said. “So what those funds are requesting is computer technologies to make this possible.”

Tapanila said the plan is simply continuing the mission of the museum, which is to share history with the public. He said it’s great to see not only what’s been in Idaho, but bring the past to the present to be shared with the future.

The museum is currently one of only four in the nation with the capacity to scan the 3D images and it has the most scanned 3D images in the nation.