Moment innovative scanner Created by an NYU computer scientist, it allows scientists to digitize previously isolated fossils in remote regions of South America. Claudio Silva’s PaleoScan provides a portable and affordable way to preserve and share collections of ancient impressions that might otherwise be lost or smuggled.
Brazil’s Araripe Basin is rich in ancient fossils, some in unusually pristine condition. After visiting the nearby Placido Cidade Nuvens Paleontology Museum (MPPCN), where many of them are kept, Silva saw “a floor-to-ceiling maze of metal shelves piled high with piles of the most beautiful fossils.” as he had ever seen’ from the Cretaceous period described by Smithsonian Magazine. The problem was that insects, fish, turtles and pterosaurs from the distant past were not digitized. Given the region’s limited funding, staffing and remote location (requiring a flight in a four-seater plane to get there), there wasn’t much hope of fixing it.
Another problem the museum (and others like it) faced was the illegal trade in fossils. The Araripe basin is a prime target for the ruthless exploitation of historical resources by smugglers and wealthier nations. Digitizing fossils can help prevent this practice—both by providing virtual scans that help offset the risk-benefit ratio for smugglers, and by creating a global dataset that paleontologists can use to trace stolen artifacts back to their source.
“Empowering under-resourced museums and institutions to scan their fossils and present virtual versions of those fossils to the rest of the world, I think, would help the scientific community as well as the institutions themselves,” paleontologist Akinobu Watanabe said. The York Institute of Technology reported on this Smithsonian Magazine.
An expert in graphic visualization and geometry processing, Silva saw an opportunity. He left the MPPCN, promising to return in two years to help digitize its collections. Given the enormity of this assignment, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear some snickers or sarcastic jokes from the crew after his flight back to the US.
The solution Silva created is a low-cost, high-performance scanner that he will pack into “big wooden boxes” when he returns to MPPCN in the summer of 2023. collections and the global paleontological community, the device produces high-quality 3D fossil reconstructions through inexpensive and relatively portable scanning.
Adaptable for different fossil sizes, PaleoScan uses a downward-facing camera on an automatic gantry. Its calibration plate enables bulk scanning with simple correction for scale and offset camera placement. The device is cheaper than commercial 3D fossil scanners, more portable than CT (computed tomography) scanners, and easier to operate even for the less technically inclined.
PaleoScan’s camera is mounted on a frame that moves on two axes. As he describes it, it takes “thousands of individual raw photographs of a single fossil under controlled light conditions.” Smithsonian Magazine. At the same time, the person controlling it has to navigate only on the touch screen (in the videos it looks like a modified mobile device).
After scanning, the set of photos is uploaded to the cloud for processing, where software combines them into highly detailed 3D models. The processed data can then be stored in a metadatabase and made available via an API for learning and sharing by paleontologists worldwide. (Think something like GitHub for fossil enthusiasts.)
The researchers say that the obtained reconstructions are confirmed with high accuracy. Museum staff can purchase tutorial videos with step-by-step instructions for operating the scanner.
More than 200 unique fossils have already been digitized at MPPCN, using over a terabyte of high-quality data, and the response from the paleontology community has been receptive and enthusiastic. Researchers unaffiliated with the project were impressed with the scanner and hoped to obtain versions for other remote regions in Mexico and Chile. Some have requested an improved model with more true 3D capabilities than the current two-axis version, ideal for the mostly flat fossils of the Araripe Basin, which Silva says is already in the works.
For more information on PaleoScan’s innovation and future, see the research paper and Smithsonian Magazine in-depth article.
