Burghley House Digital Restoration Project

Introduction

Burghley House is a Historical Tudor Mansion built during the sixteenth century in Stamford, Lancashire. The house is now open to the public to visit the house and it’s grounds, and they also hold a large collection of fine arts from all over the globe.  Form Lab learned the Curator there has an ivory carving ornament which originally belonged to a pair, but unfortunately, they only had one of the pair of carvings.  Form Lab offered to use our knowledge in scanning 3D objects to take scan data of the existing carving, in the hope of producing a 3D printed pair of replicas which Burghley house would then be able to put on display for the public to see.

Burghley House (Image source)

The Story Of Burghley House

Burghley House holds a collection of a range of historically important pieces of art, one of which was an ivory ornament, which originally belonged to a pair.  It is currently in storage in their collection, and Form Lab approached the curator at Burghley House through a mutual contact to offer to help create accurate 3D printed replicas of the pair of ornaments.  To achieve this, we planned on leveraging our knowledge in reverse engineering & digital capture to capture geometry data from the existing carving to create 3D CAD models.  From these models, we planned to create accurate 3D printed models of the original pair of carvings, which Burghley House would then be able to put on display for the public to see.

Original Ivory Carving

Scanning The Carving

In order to capture the 3D scan data for the carving, we tried multiple scanning methods.  The challenge was in finding a scanning method capable of capturing the minute detail in the carving.  One of these methods was Next Engines Laser Scanners, a 3D object scanner.  The other method we used was a White Light Scanner.  The challenge was finding a 3D scanning method capable of capturing the intricate details required for such a finely detailed object.  As can be seen in the below photos, the carving is both very small & intricately detailed, so finding a scanning method which could capture enough data on all the required surfaces was a challenge.

 Both scanning methods had their benefits for what we were trying to achieve, and while both technologies have their advantages, after testing both methods we came to the conclusion that the white light scanner proved more suitable for our needs in this project.  This was due to the white light scanners ability to capture more detail vs the laser scanner, as the accuracy in this situation proved to be much higher. 

The Results So Far

From the 3D scan data collected, we have started to create a 3D mesh model which we hope to get 3D printed.  Before this stage however, we need to turn our current 3D mesh data into a solid 3D CAD model.  This is proving to be a time consuming process, but once we have completed the model and got some 3D prints manufactured, we’ll be sure to update the project on our website, so stay tuned!

Think you can help?

Do you have any tips or expertise knowledge on turning 3D Scan mesh data into a solid 3D CAD file?  Feel free to get in touch!  We’re always open to working with other designers and engineers with expertise knowledge which differs from our own, and would love to hear from you if working with Form Lab on this project is something which interests you.