3D-MODEL "OUTBREAK": WALKING WITH A SMARTPHONE OR CAMERA SETS A NEW RISK FOR THE MUSEUMS

You have likely seen a cast of a complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton displayed in a museum. This is possible owing to the molding and casting of the original fossils.This technique was almost exclusively the only way to produce fossil replicas for the research and exhibition qualities. With recent developments in technology, 3D printing and digital models have increasingly become a new method for creating cheap and accurate fossil replicas.

New technologies bring us both big innovations and new problems. Recent innovative 3D techniques have changed Paleontology and museums largely. Photogrammetry-based reconstruction can easily let museum visitors make digital models of museum displays and even share the models on online platforms. If the source photos were taken against museum policy (e.g., no selfie stick), these 3D models are evidence of violative actions at the museum. Still, if model makers follow the museum photo policies to create 3D models of museum displays, museums face a rather distorted situation that the copyright of the models belongs to the model makes even though museums own the specimens. Here, we demonstrate that museum visitors can create good quality 3D models without violating general photo policies in a museum exhibition hall and then propose new policies for 3D models and protocols for sharing and uploading their specimens.

To demonstrate that photogrammetric 3D models could be created under current policies, we photographed a displayed fossil specimens during regular open hours at the National Museum of Nature and Science. Photographs were taken strictly under current policies of the museum. We used iPhone and an SLR camera for creating 3D models.

Without violating any of the museum's photography policies, we obtained photos to generate 3D models of decent quality and a virtual commercial product from its model. If museums prefer to keep some or all rights reserved for publicly created 3D imaging of their specimens, they must add new photo policies regarding user-generated 3D models. If visitors follow the museums' policy regarding photography, they can acquire the photos necessary to create 3D models of exhibition displays and further modify them with retouching and printing. As museum scientists, while we are considering and developing policies for 3D models, user-generated 3D models of displayed objects have already prevailed through the Internet.