Q & A - Kylie Dillinger
How do you use 3D scanning and printing technologies to communicate your field of science?
I use 3D scanning and printing technologies to communicate information in a more tangible and accessible way. It’s one thing to read on a piece of paper what the purpose and function of an artifact was and to see it in front of you, but it’s an entirely different feeling to actually hold the artifact in your hands and be able to pantomime the usage, or feel the weight and thickness and different textures also associated with the piece. Using 3D scanning and printing technologies, I like to try and communicate that physical type of learning and knowledge that normally only trained professionals get to experience through much less fragile replicas. The 3D scans are also still available to see digitally as a .stl or
.obj file for academic purposes or, in the case of the Smithsonian launching so many of its collections online on Sketchfab, for viewers who might not be able to go to the museums and see these artifacts in person.
What advantage do these techniques offer over traditionally used methods in anthropology and archaeology?
The 3D scanning technology offers a more minimally invasive way to recreate artifacts, and an easier way to share them online with other researchers.
Doing a mold and recreating an artifact that way wears down on a piece over time, and photogrammetry is honestly just a lot more timeconsuming with the need to constantly re-set a physical camera and get all the angles to accomplish the task just right. 3D scanning, on the other hand, is like photogrammetry, but with the camera doing the work putting everything in a spacial area for you instead of having to take the different photos at different angles. There has also been work in 3D scanning archaeological sites, which has the opportunity to better track site degradation over time due to the elements and any other exterior influences and also offer ways to digitally show other researchers what a specific site looks like and give more comprehensive spatial data as to how different features may associate with each other.
It’s one thing to look at pictures and maps, but another thing to be able to walk through the site on a computer and be able to experience and compare data in that format. 3D printing has the advantage of the replicas being able to be made fairly quickly and actually somewhat environmentally-friendly depending on what type of thermoplastic is used (PLA is biodegradable), and the replicas are also extremely durable and difficult to break on accident.
Please refer to a few examples of your 3D print replicas and discuss what these pieces represent archaeologically.
I’ve 3D scanned and printed a few different artifacts from all around the world. One of my favorite things that I’ve done though that I believe can help with better understanding use/form/function/purpose of an artifact though is digitally rebuild pottery from collected sherds. I did this with two different pieces from the Amache Japanese Internment Camp in Granada, CO - a bowl and a teacup - during Dr. Bonnie Clark’s field school at the site, and the reconstructions offered a more visual and easier to conceptualize version for researchers and public alike as to what those artifacts would have looked like in their original form and time of use. I did a similar thing on a project for the Archaeological Method & Theory class taught by Dr. Lawrence Conyers at the University of Denver, and did partial reconstructions on pottery sherds were were examining so that we could better understand what types of pottery (platters,
bowls, ollas, etc.) were found between two different sites and better compare what sorts of activities were going on in the two different areas. I didn’t print these, I just did the 3D scans and shared the digital reconstruction photos because they were only partial reconstructions and not full ones.
These models could be considered a fairly new medium for museum exhibits.
How have you displayed your 3D replicas to the public and what was the response?
The 3D printed pieces for the Amache Japanese Internment Camp are actually still with a travelling exhibit of the site currently, however with Dr. Clark’s permission during the field school I also printed extra replicas of the teacup for each former internee or internee descendant to the Amache site that volunteered during that field season. Everyone was really happy to be able to take a piece of history home with them, even in a digitally replicated and printed form, and it personally made me feel proud to be able to do something to give back to the amazing volunteers that were able to share their stories with myself and other students.
I also recently had a museum display on campus at the University of Denver as a part of my senior capstone project to earn my bachelors’ degree, entitled Artifacts Interactive.
The way I set up the display was that I had a selection of the original artifacts I had 3D scanned and printed on display safely behind glass, with a label to state what the object was and where it came from along with different types of themes I wanted to get across like accessibility and the idea of open-source archaeology.
From there, directly to the right of the original artifacts was a small pedestal with the matching 3D printed replicas set up in the same positions as the originals behind glass. The replicas weren’t tied down or bound to the pedestal in any way, all I put up was a sign explaining that the replicas were to be interacted with and requesting very nicely for nobody to walk away with them. I never once had to replace a stolen 3D printed replica, which I think speaks highly not only as to how people enjoyed the exhibit, but also that viewers wanted to make sure others enjoyed it as well. I took survey data on viewer experiences and the overall consensus was that the majority of people who interacted with this form of tangible display enjoyed it over the traditional “look, don’t touch” setup in most museums.