End-to-end Color 3D Reproduction of Cultural Heritage Artifacts: Roseninsel Replicas

Abstract

Planning exhibitions of cultural artifacts is always challenging. Artifacts can be very sensitive to the environment and therefore their display can be risky. One way to circumvent this is to build replicas of these artifacts. Here, 3D digitization and reproduction, either physical via 3D printing or virtual, using computer graphics, can be the method of choice. For this use case we present a workflow, from photogrammetric acquisition in challenging environments to representation of the acquired 3D models in different ways, such as online visualization and color 3D printed replicas. This work can also be seen as a first step towards establishing a workflow for full color end-to-end reproduction of artifacts. Our workflow was applied on cultural artifacts found around the ''Roseninsel'' (Rose Island), an island in Lake Starnberg (Bavaria), in collaboration with the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection in Munich. We demonstrate the results of the end-to-end reproduction workflow leading to virtual replicas (online 3D visualization, virtual and augmented reality) and physical replicas (3D printed objects). In addition, we discuss potential optimizations and briefly present an improved state-of-the-art 3D digitization system for fully autonomous acquisition of geometry and colors of cultural heritage objects.