Virtualization and the democratization of science: 3D technologies revolutionize museum research and access

Accessing data often presents aggregating problems to researchers in nearly every academic, research, and general scientific field of study. These are acute for natural history and archaeological collections, and the lack of access has been a contributing factor in problems of data comparability and an increasing reliance on the conclusions drawn in resulting publications. The creation of virtual repositories housed in a comprehensive, hyper-plastic data-base system, serving as virtual representations of a museum´s collections is critical to the future of modern analysis and the generation of science. Using 3D technologies, emerging image-based database architectures, online measurement and analysis tools, and related methods of virtualization enhance science by bringing collections to any scientist, student, educator, or layperson, anywhere in the world. With strong support from the National Science Foundation and private industry, the Idaho Museum of Natural History´s Idaho Virtualization Laboratory and the Informatics Research Institute are at the forefront of implementing 3D technologies to bring scientific analysis to a global audience. This is not a plan or theoretical discussion - it is a full-fledged global implementation. To date, we have scanned over 10,000 objects in 3D and created a global resource for analysis of natural history collections. This paper will describe our underlying assumptions and methodologies, the rationalization for such an approach, our capture techniques, image processing, and delivery structures, and highlight some of our key successes.