VIRTUAL MUSEUM OF IDAHO AND REACHING THE POTENTIAL OF THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

Online natural history collections, or virtual museums, hold great promise to revolutionize how the public can access, discover, and generate new knowledge from our past. For the last 3 years, the Idaho Museum of Natural History has created the Virtual Museum of Idaho website (virtual.imnh.isu.edu) that holds over 65,000 2-D images of plants and 2,500 3-D models of fossils, modern skeletons, archeological artifacts, and caves. Growing weekly, this digital collection represents less than 10% of our physical holdings and is the result of a significant investment in equipment, personnel, and time to reach this level. Futureproofing the investment is paramount: high-fidelity capture, metadata tracking, and secure databasing are integral parts of the workflow.

As an example of workflow and time involved, we recently completed a 3D scanning project of the large Pleistocene mammal, Bison latifrons, funded by owning agency, the US Bureau of Reclamation. We scanned 249 fossil bone elements, including 15 nearly complete crania. Using structured light and arm-supported laser scanners, it took 432 person-hours to capture all surface data. Post-processing, which includes editing and correcting the surface mesh, was completed in 900 person-hours, or roughly twice the time of capture. The resulting 3D models are properly scaled and accurate to a resolution of 0.5 mm or better. The average model production time of 5.3 person-hours is skewed by the 15 large crania. All models are available open access through the VMI site.

Upfront investment in creating 3-D digital collections is high, but as virtual collections grow and are incorporated into the same relational databases that contain specimen information, natural history museums will create digital resources with myriad opportunities to make connections and provide relevant context for future audiences beyond the research community.