Artec 3D, a leading developer and manufacturer of professional-grade scanners has once again joined with 3D printing marketplace Threeding.com, to preserve artifacts at one of the largest Eastern European historical museums, the Historical Museum of Stara Zagora in Bulgaria.
The first phase of the reality-capture project has just reached completion after Threeding spent last month with Artec’s high-resolution Spider and Eva 3D scanners capturing ancient Greek, Roman and Thracian artifacts as well as Ethnography exhibits.
Two more scanning sessions are scheduled for September and October, where Threeding will digitize artifacts from the prehistoric, Middle Ages and the modern history eras. Once complete, the museum will be able to benefit from a new revenue stream and receive royalties from the sales of the 3D models on Threeding’s marketplace, as well as obtain free digital copies of all scanned exhibits to be used for scientific and educational projects.
“The ability to capture these artifacts in digital form and make them available via Threeding.com has given students and educators access to pieces of history previously unknown,” explained Artyom Yukhin, president and CEO of Artec 3D. “Artec’s professional handheld scanners can capture even the most intricate artifacts with extreme precision and detail to create exact replicas, which, through efforts like this one, are becoming available to the masses.”
Artec 3D scanner used to capture ancient artifacts.
Stan Partalev, a co-founder of Threeding, added: “It was a great honor and privilege to work with the Historical Museum of Stara Zagora. The museum is one of the best organized and well established organizations we have ever visited. Working with such an institution is another step forward in our aim to become the leading repository for 3D printable models of historical artifacts.”
This partnership allows Threeding to add to its marketplace of 3D printable models with new unique museum artifacts including sculptures, votive tablets, marble capitals, architecture details and more.
Threeding has already played a key role in the preservation of objects and artifacts from the National Museum of Military History and the Regional Historical Museums of Varna and Pernik. The 3D printing platform now has more than 500 museum objects available for users to purchase and print.