Capturing Egypt’s Sistine Chapel with the BLK360

作者：Reka Vasszi

尼菲尔塔里皇后（Queen Nefertari）的3000年历史的坟墓被3D激光扫描尖端技术捕获，以产生一位古埃及最受欢迎的统治者“永恒之旅”之一的虚拟现实（VR）体验。在这个开创性的项目中，得益于Leica BLK360and VR technologies, viewers can fully immerse and explore the ancient tomb and the wall paintings.

使用最小的成像激光扫描仪和摄影测量技术，ExperiusVR，一个全方位服务的虚拟和增强现实工作室，以及Curiosity Stream, the award-winning streaming destination, captured Queen Nefertari’s remarkable tomb in the Valley of the Queens. The team of experts generated a detailed 3D point cloud of the chambers to preserve it and make it accessible in VR for future generations.

“The capture of Nefertari’s tomb proves there are no boundaries in the effort to digitally preserve and explore our world’s most stunning cultural artifacts,”said Clint Stinchcomb, president and CEO of CuriosityStream.

Preserving Egypt’s Sistine Chapel digitally

尼菲尔塔里女王是拉美西斯二世最受人喜爱的妻子。尽管如此，在公元前1255年她去世后，她丈夫的永恒爱和尊重仍被视为在皇家钱伯斯（Royal Chambers）的墙壁上绘画作品，被称为埃及的西斯汀教堂（Sistine Chapel）。

自1950年代以来，这座古老的坟墓仅限于游客，因为墙壁绘画容易受到游客呼吸的湿度的影响，这增加了真菌对艺术品的损害。

Nefertari’s tomb has both cultural and scientific significance, as it depicts the architecture of Ramses II era and it is the most detailed representation of ancient Egyptian believes of the journey to the afterlife. It would be a great loss if its beauty and historical richness could not be preserved and presented for the public.

“虚拟之旅将拯救坟墓，”said Zahi Hawass, an archaeologist and former Minister of State for antiquities. As the tomb is restricted to tourists, ExperiusVR and Curiosity Stream had the vision to create an immersive VR experience by capturing every detail of Nefertari’s tomb with the BLK360.

设置了一个有效的工作流，以注册点云Leica Cyclone processing softwareand combining data in Autodesk’sReCap PRO mobile为VR创建3D模型。

该团队使用BLK360进行次要几何形状和scale accuracy。Laser scanning was followed by overlapping thousands of DSLR photographs to the point cloud, creating an identical reconstruction of Nefertari’s tomb navigable in VR.

Staying connected below ground

One of the requirements when Steven Frisbey, technical director at ExperiusVR, was deciding on which 3D laser scanner to choose wasreliable WiFi connection。当钱伯斯建立了两个地下级别时，经验专家面临着失去无线连接的挑战。这reliability of the BLK360不得不克服在地下下方保持联系并在有限时间内捕获数据的挑战的体验团队感到完全惊讶。

“关于BLK360的第一件事是WiFi。给我留下深刻印象的第二件事是扫描的速度和易用性。这是如此之快，以至于我们可以提前一天完成整个场景，从而为我们节省了大量的钱。我一定会在我的下一个项目中使用BLK360，”said Frisbey.

数字遗产 - 旅游和教育的聚会点

Leveraging the technology of Leica Geosystems to embrace and preserve the original spirit of Nefertari’s royal tomb through 3D laser scanning and VR, the ancient site has been digitally reopened to the world. This immersive VR experience brings heritage preservation, tourism and education to a next level. Nefertari’s tomb is one of a growing number of archaeological sites thatare being preserved digitally thanks to laser scanning technology。

“现在，由于这个项目，不管现实生活中的坟墓发生什么，我们将始终拥有一个完全可探索的版本，这对于后代来说是可以欣赏的。这就是使我们对这个项目最自豪的事情，”said Frisbey.