3D digital documentation of dinosaur footprints

A large number of dinosaur footprints have been found in Korea. Some track sites are well known in the world due to their high scientific value. Korean government assigned dinosaur fossils as national monument to protect them. But the sites have been being damaged gradually due to prolonged weathering, development, or tourists. Korean government has tried consistently to conserve them with physical or chemical methods but it has limit to stop the damage perfectly. Projects have been set up to make digital archive of the footprints with a state-of-art 3D scan technology. The first goal of this project is to build highly accurate digital data of dinosaur footprints with 3D laser scanners to document them at current state. The second is to analyze the 3D data. The third is to propose proper working process and methodology for digital documentation of dinosaur footprints. Two projects had been performed successfully for six sites in the last two years by KAIST. Another project has been on-going this year. This paper shows the methodology and results of the previous two projects.