Starts 12:00 today, Thursday 22nd August – the Nationwide Treasure Hunt for 3D-printed fossils

Can you find the 3D-printed fossils?

The Nationwide Treasure Hunt for 3D-printed fossils starts today at 12:00 and continues for 3 weeks. The following organisations are participating in the Competition. Before you go along, please check their websites carefully for opening hours and any bank holiday closing. The Geological Survey Sites, for example,  are closed at weekends and bank holidays.

The Geological Walk, British Geological Survey, Environmental Centre Nicker Hill, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG

British Geological Survey Information Office, Natural History Museum Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EQ

National Museum of Wales Amgueddfa Cymru, National Museum Cardiff Cathays Park, Cardiff, CF10 3NP

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Terrace Road, Buxton Derbyshire, SK17 6DA

Dorset County Museum, High West Street, Dorchester Dorset, DT1 1XA

Great North Museum : Hancock, Barras Bridge, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE2 4PT

Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Queen Street, Exeter, Devon, EX4 3RX

Nottingham Natural History Museum, Wollaton Hall Nottingham, NG8 2AE

Warwickshire Museum, Market Hall Warwick, CV34 4SA

Scarborough Museums Trust, Woodend , The Crescent Scarborough, YO11 2PW

York Museums Trust, Yorkshire Museum, Museum Gardens York, YO1 7FR

Dinosaur Isle, Culver Parade, Sandown Isle of Wight, PO36 8QA

Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Bethesda Street, City Centre Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 3DW

Perth Museum, 78 George Street Perth, PH1 5LB

Leeds City Museum,  Millenium Square, Leeds, LS2 8BH

Grosvenor Museum, 27 Grosvenor Street, Chester, CH1 2DD

New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, 53 New Walk Leicester, LE1 7EA

Nationwide Treasure Hunt starts 12:00 noon Thursday 22nd August

To mark the public launch of the GB/3D type fossils online project and the world’s first virtual fossil collection, we are organising a nationwide treasure hunt at 18 museums and geological displays across Britain. The full list of participating organisations will be published tomorrow. The competition starts at 12:00 on Thursday 22^nd August and finishes when the museums close on Thursday 12^th September.

Can you find the 3d printed fossil in the museum display?

The object is simply to find the 3D printed fossil hidden somewhere amongst the museum displays and record its position on the entry form.   

Five winning entry forms will be selected at random at each museum from correctly completed entry forms. Winners will be contacted by email and arrangements made for them to attend a VIP museum tour, or something similar. Each winner aged under 18 may bring a parent or guardian.   

Two national winners will be selected from the individual museum winners and contacted by email. Arrangements will be made for them to attend a VIP collections tour at BGS Keyworth. One overall winner will also receive a tablet computer pre-loaded with a collection of virtual fossils

“FIND THE 3-D PRINTED FOSSIL” - COMPETITION RULES

“FIND THE 3-D PRINTED FOSSIL”   - COMPETITION RULES

1.            Entry to the Competition is conditional upon and confirms acceptance of these Rules.

2.            Entry to the Competition may only be made in accordance with the instructions printed on the entry form and any additional information supplied by staff at the Competition information desk.

3.            Individual entrants may only make one entry per museum and this must be on an official entry form supplied by the museum. Museum staff and their families, and employees of the British Geological Survey and their families may not enter. The completed entry form must be handed to museum staff at the point where it was collected.

4.            The Competition starts at 12:00 noon on Thursday 22nd August 2013 and closes at museum closing time on Thursday 12th September 2013.

5.            The aim of the Competition is to find the 3d printed fossil within the museum displays and to record its location on the entry form.

6.            Five winning entry forms will be selected at random at each museum from correctly completed entry forms. Winners will be contacted by email and arrangements made for them to attend a VIP museum tour, or something similar. Each winner aged under 18 may bring a parent or guardian.

7.            Two national winners will be selected from the individual museum winners and contacted by email. Arrangements will be made for them to attend a VIP collections tour at BGS Keyworth. One overall winner will also receive a tablet computer pre-loaded with a collection of virtual fossils.

8.            Names of winners and results of the Competition will be published on the Project Blog.

9.            Prizes are not transferable and no cash alternative to prizes will be offered.

10.          If a winner is unable to take up a prize for any reason or in the event that a winner cannot be contacted within a reasonable period, the organisers reserve the right to award the prize to an alternative winner, in which case the first winner chosen will not be eligible for any share of the prize whatsoever.

11.          Each winner must co-operate with the organiser’s photographers and staff to publicise the win as the organisers deem appropriate.

12.          The organisers reserve the right to change the competition rules or to void the competition at any time and for any appropriate reason. In the event of an error of any nature howsoever caused and whether obvious or otherwise which affects the Competition in any way, the organiser reserves the right to administer the Competition as though the error had not occurred.

13.          No correspondence can be entered into on any matters arising from the Competition. 

14.          Failure to comply with any of these rules may result in the disqualification of the entry. The organisers reserve the right to disqualify any entry at their absolute discretion. The organisers’ decisions are final in all matters concerning the Competition.

The GB/3D Type Fossils Online Project

21^st August 2013

Countdown to the public launch - 39.5 hours!!!

The project is being launched to the public at a press conference in London in just over thirty-nine hours. The new website will be switched on with thousands of fossil entries, including  high quality pictures, stereo-anaglyphs (red - cyan 3D images) and 3D-digital models.

The launch is being marked by the start of a nationwide treasure hunt  to find the 3D printed fossil. The national winner will receive an iPad mini, preloaded with a large collection of virtual fossils. Runners up will win VIP behind the scenes museum tours.

More information about the treasure hunt will be released tomorrow; the competition opens at 12 noon on Thursday and runs for three weeks   ......

Launching the GB3D fossil types VIRTUAL FOSSIL COLLECTION

As the GB3D fossil types online project draws towards the big public lunch, we are making the GB3D Virtual Fossil Collection freely available. It currently stands at 125 specially selected digital fossil models and can be viewed on iPads, iPhones, and most android phones and tablets.

Downloading and viewing is very simple:

1.  Visit your app store and download MeshLab for free. If you are using Android, you should also try 'HD Model Viewer'

2.  Point your web browser to ftp://ftp.bgs.ac.uk/pubload/mhowe/GB3D_Selected%20Fossils/

3.  Select whichever fossil you fancy and download.

4.  Your web browser will probably say "Open in..." or "Open in MeshLab". Select "Meshlab"

5.  Your selected fossil will open in MeshLab and be added to its collection. You can then view, rotate, enlarge, or reduce the image, change the lighting, and various other options.

6.  Repeat (3) - (5) until you have downloaded your collection.

7.  If you hit problems, or if you particularly enjoy the collection, please let me know using the emailing form on my staff web site.

Talk: 3D fossils and digitising collections

As part of the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival, I was invited to give a talk on 3D fossils and digitising collections.



Digitising Collections - images, anaglyphs and 3d digital models

I am particularly interested in promoting access to collections and information through digitisation and web delivery – an area in which the British Geological Survey is a world leader. We have delivered photographs via the web for many years – e.g. the National Building Stone Collection (4300 images) . Use of the JP2 (JPEG 2000) format allows web access to high resolution images, and has been used for several collections including UK continental shelf hydrocarbon well core samples (See for example ). It has also been used for the Historical maps of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and Ireland and Magnetograms . We have recently used it for high resolution fossil images, including stereo anaglyphs in the GB3D fossil types online project , and high resolution images of petrological thin sections (30 µ thick rock slices) – or search the database . The ultimate form of specimen digitisation is the 3d digital model. The GB3D project has captured several thousand such models.

For digitisation to make a difference, it needs a critical mass. The UK hydrocarbon core photographs total 125,000 and the rock thin sections represent 100,000 rocks.

For further details, my Presentation may be downloaded from ftp.bgs.ac.uk/pubload/mhowe/


Launch of the development (beta) version of the website - www.3d-fossils.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

One of the main reasons for attending the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival, as well as having the opportunity of talking to lots of the public about the fossil scanning and photography work that we have been doing, and of course some walks along the beach......

The beach and cliffs to the east of |Lyme Regis

....  was to launch the development (beta) version of the 3d-fossils website. So far there is only a relatively small small number of images, scans and information entries, but we are hoping for suggestions on how to improve the layout and function of the site.



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Please go to www.3d-fossils.ac.uk and try out the site. You can view stereo anaglyphs  (you will need red - cyan glasses), and view and download 3d digital models, which you can store on your computer and view with programs such as MeshLab (which can be downloaded from the web for free).

Lyme Regis went well...

The GB3D fossil team had a most enjoyable time at the Lyme Regis fossil festival in early May, demonstrating laser scanning and 3d-printing fossils to parties of schoolchildren on the Friday, and many hundreds of families over the Saturday and Sunday. My thanks are due to David Bailey and Paul Witney for the following photographs.

The Festival marquee on the beach

The festival marquee on the shingle was packed for most of the opening hours...

A school part enjoying 3d fossils

and another party collecting fossil cards .....

The stand after closing time 

Another view of the stand after closing - the only time you could photograph the displays.