Building a 3D virtual museum of native American baskets

In this paper we report our progress in building a system for the acquisition, analysis, and visualization of a collection of Native Californian baskets from the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Our project differs from existing cultural heritage applications in terms of its focus: to build tools and techniques for visualizing and studying a large number of related objects - in this case, baskets. We present our progress in the following system components: (i) laser-scanning of baskets, (ii) construction and processing of 3D models, and (iii) building virtual exhibits. We conclude the paper with our experiences and a summary of challenges we anticipate in building a completely automated system for processing and analyzing a large set of models - such as might be encountered when digitizing a large museum collection. Efficient retrieval and visualization of artifact collections are important to a number of communities, including anthropology researchers, Native American tribes, and the general public.