New life online for museum exhibits

D’Arcy Thompson collection now in digital 3D

Prairie dogs, puffer fish and giant tortoises from a Dundee museum can be viewed online thanks to new digital 3D modelling technology.

Specimens from Dundee University’s D’Arcy Thompson Museum have been uploaded to enhance the learning of anatomy students around the world.

State-of-the-art scanning and design techniques have been deployed to digitise the animals, as well as the skulls of elephants, rhinoceroses and other items from the collection of D’Arcy Thompson, Dundee’s celebrated first professor of biology.

The resulting 3D models are hosted online and are available for viewing and downloading worldwide under a creative commons licence.

This has already led to one of the items, a skull thought to belong to an Indian elephant, being reclassified as that of an African forest elephant following comments posted by an expert.

The project was instigated by Dr Caroline Erolin, MSc medical art course coordinator at the university’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, who uses the museum’s collection as part of her teaching practice.

“Every visit to the D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum throws up something else fascinating,” she said.

“My focus is on the future of medical art and artists, particularly in relation to new and developing technologies, and this gave me the opportunity to explore the collection further while also honing my 3D scanning and modelling design skills.

“It’s been incredible to see the models come to life, as it were.”

The 3D models can be viewed online through the museum’s website.

Every visit to the D’Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum throws up something else fascinating. DR CAROLINE EROLIN

The project was instigated by Dr Caroline Erolin, MSc medical art course coordinator at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design.