Bringing the story of ‘Miss Djeck’ the elephant to new audiences with Artec Leo

A 3D scan-based model of Miss Djeck the elephant. Image courtesy of Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai.

Asian elephants have endured a long (and often tragic) history of being shipped to Europe as gifts for rulers and elites, who saw them as exotic goods to be traded across the continent.

But few elephants have a story quite like Miss Djeck. According to historical records, she left India for Europe some time around 1806, not as a present, but as a performer. At a time when most zoos were just setting up, she quickly became hugely popular at events like parades in England, France, Germany, and America – and this spell in the limelight lasted over three decades until 1837.

That year, a short-tempered, travel-fatigued Miss Djeck aggressively grabbed a visiting clergyman by the waist during an exhibition in Geneva, Switzerland. This saw her confined to a ditch near Porte de Rive, but she escaped, galloping along the banks of the Rhône river ‘barking’ into the night. Though the eccentric elephant was recaptured, she went on to injure thirteen others and kill three of her minders, so it was ordered that she be put down.

Sadly, after these incredible events, Miss Djeck was killed and her remains separated. However, the elephant’s skin was preserved at the renowned Deyrolle taxidermy cabinet in Paris. It was there that Barthélémy Dumortier, one of the founders of the Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai, was able to acquire and bring back the historic tissue. Since then, it has been displayed by local artisans as a tribute – the first of its kind in their native Belgium.

Now, working with museum staff, Haute Ecole en Hainaut designer Nicolas Vaczi has come up with a way of bringing the story of Miss Djeck, treasure of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles region, to a modern audience. Using Artec Leo, he has turned her body into a stunning 3D model – made up of the museum of Tournai’s original skin mounting and a younger elephant skeleton on display at Ghent University Museum – for visitors to learn from and marvel at.

Ghent University Museum’s skeleton in the Artec Studio software. Image courtesy of Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai.

Digitizing the remains of Miss Djeck

Fortunately for Vaczi, who had chosen to digitize Miss Djeck for his thesis, the skeleton displayed in a private collection at the Ghent University Museum was of comparable size to Miss Djeck. Artec Leo’s built-in display and wireless design also made capturing the elephant bone structure quick and easy, while ensuring complete, highly accurate results.

“It was actually pretty easy to scan because the bones are not very small, and we could pick up all the little skin cracks,” explained Lucas Terrana, collection manager at Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai. “With Artec Leo, we could also divide the project into parts, scanning the trunk, head, legs, and back separately for the highest-quality texture capture.”

These results were made possible with the support of Artec Ambassador 4C Creative CAD CAM Consultants (4C). In fact, it was 4C Owner Edwin Rappard who helped the team overcome initial texture capture issues, and set their project on the right course.

4C Owner Edwin Rappard indicating how best to 3D scan the elephant at the Natural History Museum & Vivarium of Tournai. Photo courtesy of Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai.

Once Vaczi had captured the elephant’s skin and skeleton, he set about creating internal organ models. But with it proving impossible to digitize such tissues, he ended up sketching them instead, achieving incredibly lifelike results using only information gleaned from research.

From mesh to interactive model

Vaczi’s modeling workflow began in the Artec Studio professional 3D data capture and processing software. After 3D scanning, the program’s Autopilot helped accelerate the process of creating a watertight model, while mesh simplification enabled him to delete unnecessary data, drastically reducing an initial poly-count of 11 million to allow for easier file export.

If anything, Terrana says Leo had more power than was needed for the project. “At first, we did use HD Mode (for fine lines and complex geometries), but it actually picked up too much data,” said Terrana. “Elephants have a lot of skin with the same texture, so we didn’t need extra detail on this occasion. We managed to achieve very realistic results anyway!”

Once he had tidied up his 3D model, Vaczi sent it to the ZBrush and Blender, where he was able to use advanced sculpting tools to apply a level of polish and animate his creation. The result?: an impressively engaging touchscreen installation at Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai that continues to bring Miss Djeck’s story (and those of other relocated elephants) to life.

The team’s end model features photo-realistic details. Image courtesy of Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai.

“In this interactive application, you can change the skin of this elephant, see through to its internal organs and tap to reveal more information,” added Terrana. “At the moment, this is a beta project, ​​but we would like to gradually evolve the application in future, adding more details and interactions for the public to engage with.”

Immortalizing rare species in 3D

Since Vaczi finalized his model, it has been uploaded to an application and put on display as part of an exhibit dedicated to the life of Miss Djeck. But the Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai aren’t finished there; they want to create all-new models of extinct species.

“We would love to scan some of the rarest pieces in our collection,” concluded Terrana. “For instance, we have some animals that are extinct in the wild. Maybe we could create a ‘numeric magazine,’ where users can scroll through and discover more about these species.”

The application featured at the Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai (available in English, French & Dutch). Image courtesy of Musée d’Histoire naturelle & Vivarium de Tournai.

To digitize such animals, many of which are extremely small, the museum has also reached out to 4C to get up to speed with Artec Space Spider. Though not quite as flexible as Leo, Space Spider is powered by blue-light technology, making it even more effective at capturing fine details, while lending it 0.05 mm accuracy for true one-to-one digital twins.

That said, Vaczi, Terrana, and museum curator Christophe Remy have already demonstrated how advanced technology can go hand-in-hand with traditional teaching, helping today’s digital natives get to grips with both historic tales and modern ecological challenges.