Virtual Archaeology – The NextEngine Desktop Laser Scanner

Recent advances in 3D technology have led to the increasing use of virtual methods of data collection in archaeology, including the use of computed tomography (CT) and portable laser scanners. One popular piece of equipment is the NextEngine Desktop 3D laser scanner (www.nextengine.com), which was released in 2006 and offers the ability to capture highly accurate 3D images of objects at a very competitive price. The release of this scanner has greatly increased accessibility to virtual surface data, for instance through the creation of virtual museums, and has enabled more researchers to conduct 3D geometric morphometric studies (GMM) of archaeological material. The developing field of geometric morphometrics permits researchers to directly quantify and statistically analyse morphological differences between groups of artifacts, allowing more objective appraisal than that afforded by traditional visual assessment. The NextEngine uses structured light scanning, which involves the projection of a pattern of laser stripes onto the desired object. A triangulation technique is used to calculate the distance of every point on the lines to the scanner, generating a 3D model. This method is faster than many others, as the four twin laser arrays allow multiple points to be scanned at once (Brown 2010).