Idaho Museum of Natural History uploads collection online

You now won’t have to physically go to the Idaho Museum of Natural History at Idaho State University to see some of their artifacts and fossils.

For the better part of the last decade, the museum has been laser scanning objects in their collection and creating 3-D models of them. In the last several years, the museum has been putting the Virtual Museum of Idaho together.

On the website, people can look at thousands of objects from the museum’s collection and interact with them. The website is accessible on computers, smart phones and tablets.

Leif Tapanila, the museum’s director, said it helps people worldwide get access to what they offer.

“I wish everybody could visit our museum, but the reality is we’re one place on the planet,” Tapanila said. “Now with an internet connection you have access to our collection and the collection of others we work with as we scan their materials, too.”

The museum is still in the process of scanning and uploading new items to the website.

Tapanila thanks the MJ Murdock Charitable Trust and the Hitz Foundation for helping make this project happen.