For the first time in history, an art object was digitized in a fully automated process at Frankfurt’s Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung with the globally unique CultLab3D scanning device developed by Fraunhofer IGD. Within a few minutes, Apollo Belvedere (1497/98) by Renaissance Sculptor Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi (ca. 1460–1528), known as Antico, was scanned by the mobile digitization lab in the main hall of the museum’s Medieval Department. Some eighty views from a wide range of angles together generated a 3D model of the more than 500-year-old sculpture, a digital record that can now be used for research, documentation and museum education purposes. This successful fully automated scan of a historical sculpture marks a turning point in the history of 3D digitization – a method hitherto very expensive and above all very time-consuming. The scanning and illumination technology of CultLab3D is revolutionizing the entire process of artefact digitization.
