here we are at the american history museum.i'm standing in front of the gunboat philadelphia. it was built in 1776. it was sunk that same year by the british. there were eight in total that were built and those eight are often thought of aspart of the beginning of america's navy. so we're using variety of 3d scanning tools:some long-range, capturing the boat in its entirety, at sort of medium resolution detail, and other very high resolution tools we're using
to capture some of the smallerbits of interest. the laser arm scanner has some very accurate encoders in each joint and those encoders can tell thecomputer the exact position of this laser beam in real time. so as we're scanning, we can see that bit of datapopping up on screen so we can see exactly what we've captured and what we haven't.
so, for objects that are geometricallycomplex or wherever there's really closequarters, this is the ideal tool. and this data is going to be used tosupport research at the smithsonian and it's also going to be used as a publicaccess tool. the gunboat itself is in very, very closequarters, so even if you're able to come to the smithsonian in person,you can only see a small portion of it. so that's part of the reason we're documentingthis object in 3d. so we'll take that 3d model, put that online, so visitors from the smithsonian
and also from around the world could explore this object in ways theysimply could not even if they were here in the gallery. we're here at cornell university and theirteam is allowing us access to a high-resolution microct scanner. the great thing about this technology isthat we're able to study the interior and exterior geometry of an object in a nondestructive process. so this is an exciting example of coevolution between a coryanthes orchid
and euglossine bees. the male euglossine beefalls into the bucket, at which point its wings become wet,and it won't be able to fly out the same way it came in. it's forced to travel out of a small hole in the back, where pollen is exchanged onto the male euglossine bee. the male euglossine bee now carries the scent of the orchid, which attracts female euglossine bees for reproduction. co once we have the ct data of the orchid,we'll be able to understand more thoroughly how the orchid and euglossine bee interact.
whether it's a rare orchid, a historic gunboat, or an archaeological site, we see a huge potential to discover anddiffuse knowledge through a variety of 3d scanning methods. and what we're really looking forward tois the future of watching this technology develop and apply this technology to the smithsonian at a larger scale.