“This is a highly integrative project,” said Nesbitt. The ribs alone have taken months and months.” If the ribs don’t look right, the whole animal doesn’t look right. “I got to digitally sculpt the skull, which was fun,” said Nesbitt. The group also is working with partners in Tanzania to also translate the app into Swahili. The project will make engaging experiences for Virginia Tech Museum of Geosciences visitors. University Libraries’ 3D scanning technology is highly accurate and captures not only the shape of the bones but also the texture and color. “It’s getting easier and cheaper to be able to tell these stories, and now viewers can actually interact with these animals that are hundreds of millions of years old.”ĪRIES is responsible for developing the augmented reality app as well as the preparation and optimization of the 3D models of the bones that University Libraries’ 3D Scanning Studio, led by Max Ofsa, Prototyping Studio manager, scanned from original fossils. “It’s a way to bring these animals back to life in a way that we haven’t been able to because of technological barriers,” said Nesbitt. Theoretically, this augmented reality experience can be created for any fossils, including 3D-printed ones, with a digital scan. “With refinement, these ideas and approaches developed in the project might just find their way into larger places like the Field Museum in Chicago or internationally known museums like the National History Museum in London. “The paleontology itself is a big deal,” said Todd Ogle, executive director of Applied Research in Immersive Experiences and Simulations (ARIES) at University Libraries. Carnivorous Teleocrater is one of the oldest relatives of dinosaurs that has ever been discovered, and its bones are temporarily housed on Virginia Tech's campus. This creature is a cousin to dinosaurs, has a long neck and tail, walked on four crocodylian-like legs, and was approximately 6 to 7 feet long. Living over 245 million years ago during the Triassic Period and predating dinosaurs, Teleocrater was unearthed in Tanzania, East Africa, and named by Virginia Tech and other paleontologists in 2017. Through this app, visitors can learn about the importance of the animal, how and when the animal was found, relationships between skeletons, and how the virtual experience was created. The project’s digital skeleton of the Teleocrater rhadinus was created from original fossils and will be 3D-printed as a freestanding skeleton that participants can interact with through an augmented reality app. You can literally scan the bones with your phone and transport into a digital environment.” So what we're doing is making that panel more integrative to the animal itself. “You can look at a specimen or a skeleton and see its physical structure, but the only information about that animal is on a small panel in front of the exhibit. “Right now, there’s only static skeletons in museums around the world, so most of the interaction is passive,” said Nesbitt. Led by paleontologists Sterling Nesbitt and Michelle Stocker in the Department of Geosciences, the team aims to close the gap between static skeleton displays in museums and digital access to the wealth of information they possess. The Modern Skeleton: Translating Natural History into Interactive and Immersive Experiences project was made possible by a $25,000 Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology Major SEAD Grant. The related educational materials will be accessible worldwide, filling in the holes between what our scientists know today and the Earth's history. This interactive learning environment will include digital replicas of all individual bones as well as a mounted 3D-printed skeleton. A Virginia Tech team is bringing museum exhibits to life by creating a complete digital skeleton of a Teleocrater rhadinus - an animal that predates the dinosaurs - to serve as the centerpiece of an immersive educational experience.
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