Tours

Virtual Triceratops Project

Linda Deck, Project Manager & Exhibit Developer, Office of Exhibits

Ralph Chapman, Director, Applied Morphometrics Laboratory, ADP 

National Museum of Natural History

Smithsonian Institution

Husband and wife team Linda Deck and Ralph Chapman walked our team through the Virtual Triceratops project and dinosaur exhibition.  The concept for the Virtual Triceratops exhibit was hatched after a thorough audit of the bones in the collection that unearthed an unacceptable rate of decay. It became apparent that the Triceratops bones could no longer remain on display in a mounted form. Staff from the museum "made lemonade", and used the dismantling of the dinosaur as an opportunity to collect data and preserve the dinosaur in a digital format.  With the use of high-tech imaging equipment, project staff identified approximately 100 points per fragment, and used this data to "draw" the fragments or whole bones. With these data points, the Smithsonian scientists, in collaboration with film special effects designers and computer animators, created a 3-D on-line model and to scale miniature models. We were amazed by the science fiction-like quality of watching lasers slice through a yellow liquid polymer and rise up fully formed through the mist.