Many academics have been quick to spot the potential that 3D technology offers for teaching, learning and research, while institutional managers have turned on to the possibilities it offers for enhanced student engagement and sustainability.

It’s currently a mixed picture, though. It is taking time to develop the equipment and even longer to realise the full potential – that can be frustrating.

A visit to the Bett 2013 show left Jisc programme manager, Rob Englebright with the perception that the buzz surrounding the technology two or three years ago has died down. He said: “The technology is expensive, and a lot of the early content development work for education has focused on primary and secondary schools. So many people who have invested in the kit haven’t always been able to find content that has proven value beyond that initial ‘wow!’.

“The technology is sort of where it needs to be, and things like 3D-ready plasma screens and TVs are getting cheaper as well as better and brighter, but the equipment is being let down by the content.”

Many of the commercial developers Rob spoke to at the show were focusing their development and sales efforts on selling to theme parks and leisure attractions, where the fast ‘wow!’ factor is all that’s needed to get a fast payback on high development costs.

In higher education and further education the priorities are very different. The last couple of years have seen the emergence of some far-sighted projects that are pushing the boundaries of what’s achievable in 3D.

At the University of Bradford, a pilot project called From Cemetery to Clinic focused on using 3D scanning and imaging to create a permanent record of a small collection of fragile skeletons that exhibit leprous changes.

As Dr Andy Wilson, lecturer in Forensic and Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford and project manager explains, the pilot offered a number of valuable lessons. He said: “This was a small project that allowed us to test the water and we quickly found that we’d been over-optimistic. Scanning, photographing and then wrapping the photo around the model proved to be very, very time-consuming.”

Andy and the team at the University of Bradford are now implementing some of these lessons as they embark on the larger Digitised Diseases project with the Royal College of Surgeons, and Museum of London Archaeology, creating a digitised 3D record of type specimens showing pathological conditions that affect the skeleton. He says: “The best way to study bone is to handle it, but diseased bone is often what people want to look at and it is usually particularly fragile. By creating a digital 3D record we can develop a resource that allows wider access to these specimens for study across a range of disciplines from archaeology to medicine, while safeguarding the long-term preservation of the original material from the risks associated with frequent handling.”

The benefits that the project will bring were brought into sharper focus earlier this year, with the announcement that the bones discovered under a car park in Leicester were the remains of Richard III.

There’s a huge public appetite for his remains to be reburied with ceremony as soon as possible, but news crews and academics alike were keen to find out more about the man – the traumatic injuries that he suffered in battle and from which he died, as well as the curvature of the spine (scoliosis) that affected him from childhood.

Before the Leicester team announced its conclusions, it reviewed traumatic injuries to skeletons from comparative material from a mass grave at the site of the Battle of Towton – material that is being curated at the University of Bradford. Soon these, and many other examples will be available for anyone in the world to view and manipulate with ease through ‘Digitised Diseases’. This development may prove to be of even greater value to students, researchers and clinicians working in countries where it is difficult to gain access to human remains, even for study.

At the same time, the GB/3D Fossil Types Online project is a collaboration between The British Geological Survey (BGS) and several major university and museum collections to develop a single database of the type specimens of fossils found and held in the UK, including a selection of 3D models.

Every species and subspecies of organism, whether fossil or living, should have a type or reference specimen to define its characteristic features. Many of the UK fossil species were defined over a century ago, but deterioration and loss in the intervening years have caused major problems.

As Dr Mike Howe of the BGS explains, the GB/3D fossil types web portal will enable academics to locate specimens quickly, and the high resolution images, stereo anaglyphs and 3D digital models will enable researchers to determine whether a particular specimen is likely to assist their investigation. The images and 3D models are also available for the development of Open Educational Resources (OERs) and for the general public to use as they wish.

Mike said: “Many of the BGS specimens were on display in the Geological Museum, South Kensington, London, but with the Survey’s move to Nottinghamshire, access became more costly for many researchers. Delivering stereo images and 3D models over the web has completely reversed this, with instant worldwide access. We are also developing a web API (application programming interface) to make it easy to re-use the material.”

A collaboration between Sheffield Hallam University and Museums Sheffield is demonstrating how 3D scanning and rapid prototyping can transform the way that historical artefacts can be reproduced and studied.

The project is producing 3D models of the museum’s silverware collection, without the need for surface contact with the original, removing the risk of damage to the original, which would have been all too possible with traditional 3D model making methods, such as casting.

The 3D images are exported to the open standard CORRADA format and visualised over the internet using standard web browsers, opening up new opportunities in education and research. As an added benefit, the models can be used as a benchmark against which to measure further deterioration of the originals, and potentially to test restoration and hypothetical reconstruction methods.

For now, digitising a 3D object remains a complex process, calling for a significant investment in time, equipment and skills, so the fact that pragmatic academic institutions are forging ahead with 3D digitisation projects is proof that they see real potential in doing so.