If you’re into shipwrecks, Wessex Archaeology in the UK has developed something pretty cool: a way to make a 3-D printing of a wreck site.
Wessex Archaeology‘s Scottish Office helped recreate a pair of British shipwrecks using 3-D printing. One of those was that of the “Drumbeg shipwreck,” a late-17th or early 18th-century Northern European ship resting about 12 meters/39 feet below the surface off the Sutherland coast.
The wreck site has three cannon, two anchors and part of the ship’s hull. Discovered by local scallop divers in March 2013, archaeologists still aren’t quite sure which ship it is. Some surmise it could be the Dutch trading ship Crowned Raven, which sank during the winter of 1690-1691 during a trip from the Baltic Sea to Portugal.
To make the 3-D model, archaeologists used sonar, magnetometer and photogrammetry data.
Wessex Archaeology said in its blog:
“The use of 3D printing adds to the suite of existing 3D techniques such as virtual reality and digital reconstruction that archaeologists are increasingly using to share wreck sites with the public, and for carrying out analysis of the remains.”
For more info, check out the Wessex Archaeology website.
