By Tony Richards and Samuel Simpson
The Rylands Heritage Imaging Lab have recently taken delivery of an Artec Spider II hand held 3D scanner. Over recent years we have developed our 3D digitisation and printing methods, firstly with photogrammetry and more recently with the Artec 3D scanners.
As part of the Artec training session, the team scanned a variety of collection items. This stone grotesque head turned out to be a favourite of the team.
So, what is it about this stone grotesque head that grabbed our attention?
It has quietly watched over staff having their lunch, in the staff room, for the past 30 years or so. We are sure many will not have even noticed. Rumour has it, that it may have fallen off the Library at some time in the past. Well, that was the rumour. If it had fallen off the building it would have caused severe damage to itself and anything or anyone below. Having spoken to Honorary Research Fellow, John Hodgson, who has extensive knowledge of the Rylands archives, he recalled how the grotesque was found stored elsewhere in the building in the 1990s, and placed in the staff room where it has been ever since.
Photographs of the Library from 1900 clearly show the grotesque in its original place, to the right of the right hand Oriel window.
The search is now on for images that are from 1980 – 1990, the period it is thought to have been removed. Let us know if you have one available in your albums and collections.
Due to the library being constructed of a dark sand stone and the time of year, we had to wait for a sunny day and for the light to be at an agreeable position between the tall buildings to capture how it looks today. I wonder how many people have noticed that its missing?
The scanning process
The Artec Leo and Space Spider scanners are a shared resource between a number of schools and departments. This can lead to access issues, especially when scanners are reserved for archaeological digs or museum facsimile projects. In addition, multiple users handling the equipment has lead to occasional downtime for repair and maintenance.
This has led us to purchase the latest Artec Spider II. A high-resolution, handheld 3D scanner designed for capturing intricate details on small to medium-sized objects. It uses blue-light, structured-light technology and a target-free system to scan quickly and create detailed, full-colour 3D models.
Training was provided by Siôn, Applications Engineer from the scanner supplier Europac3D.
The stone grotesque is extremely heavy, so we used our manual turntable rather than the brand new Bluetooth version that comes with the Artec Scanner. We wouldn’t want to break it, not on the first day.
The scanner was remarkably easy to use. And even without the automated tracking of the Bluetooth turntable, we managed to scan this item in a matter of minutes. Photogrammetry would have taken us much longer.
The grotesque was turned over a couple of times, so it could be scanned from every possible angle.
The team were then trained in the use of Artec Studio 20, the latest version of their 3D processing software. Again the software proved fairly straightforward and very user friendly. We will be delving deeper into its finer details and additional capabilities, such as its new AI photogrammetry feature.
Here’s an animation showing various previews within the software. The “X-ray” view proving very popular.
Once rendered, the final 3D model can be shared via Sketchfab, our current 3D repository. The Sketchfab hosted models can also be embedded into our collection records in Manchester Digital Collections.
Stone Grotesque by The John Rylands Research Institute and Library on Sketchfab
The arrival of the Artec Spider II marks an exciting step forward for the Rylands Heritage Imaging Lab. In the scanning of our collections and publication of the resulting models on Sketchfab, we can ensure that the collections held at the Rylands and the University of Manchester library can be preserved, shared, and studied all over the globe. As we continually develop our digital collections, what item would you like to see on Sketchfab next?