Cultural heritage preservation: mummy scanning

Recently Artec MHT scanner was involved in an unusual project. A centerpiece of an upcoming exhibition, Miss Johanna Julliane Pforte, a mummy, had to be digitized. Miss Pforte, in life, used to be an honorable member of high society of Nedlitz. She died more than 300 years ago and her body was mummified and placed in a tomb at St. Nicolas church in Germany.

How were Artec scanners involved? Before restoration the mummy had to be digitally preserved for the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum, Mannheim. Moreover, after the restoration process itself, experts used the 3D model to preserve the initial position of objects around her.

Scanning took 40 minutes. We had a lot of data after scanning, so the post processing took several hours (on a PC with 64GB RAM and a high-end processor). Most of the time was spent on applying texture.