CyArk, a non-profit initiative, proposes to digitally capture 500 key culturally relevant heritage sites across the world. They are building a repository of 3D information to protect the sites against damage from the environment, terrorism, vandals and any other threats.
Their process is to use state-of-the-art laser scanning equipment to capture the physical structure of the sites up to 2-6mm accuracy. That’s impressive for the very large structures being scanned – and it also means there will be mountains of data to be stored. Some of the current projects include:
- Guatemala’s Tikal
- Scotland’s Stirling Castle
- Uganda’s Royal Tombs at Kasubi
- Mission San Luis Rey
- Mexico’s Chichen Itza (seen above)
- Egypt’s Ancient Thebes
So far, the CyArk project list contains 79 works, some of which are still in progress. Each project contains images, videos, plans and some contain 3D models that you can view from your browser – but we have yet to discover a way to download the models so that 3D printing could be attempted. An enquiry received this reply:
Sorry, we don’t have our content available for download.
